[programminggeek]

We have a collective based system, not an individual based one. So everybody goes to the same schools with the same curriculum with the same baseline opportunities.

It's not optimized for individual success at all. So the people who win are those who take individualized action above and beyond the norm.

If you do what everybody else does, you get what everybody else gets.

[ianleeclark]

> So everybody goes to the same schools with the same curriculum with the same baseline opportunities.

I went to a Jesuit high school, and, due to this, had far better advantages and outcomes than anyone else in the same socioeconomic background as myself. I didn't get here on any merit of my own and didn't really pay attention prior to high-school, I just became a step-son to someone willing to spend the money.

Even if you want to talk about public schools, you can't say that everyone is on the same footing due to a host of reasons: poorer neighborhoods tend to have higher rates of lead in their paint which negatively affects people in various ways; better teachers will self-select for "safer" or "better" areas; or children might go to school and be unable to pay for lunch, thus harming their education. The notion of same baselines opportunities is unfounded. Similar curriculums, as well, aren't true: AP classes, dual-enrollment in local colleges, &c. are all enhancements to the baseline curriculum.

> It's not optimized for individual success at all.

You presuppose that a school system should optimize for individual success, but I'm not convinced that optimizing for a more cohesive, civically-minded, and educated population wouldn't produce better outcomes. This hyper-focus on individuals seems to be tearing society at the seams--by not imagining ourselves as a part of a community, only as individual agents, our conception of nation and society crumbles. Your idea of education seems that it would only exacerbate the collapse of community.

[Dumblydorr]

Except that schools are drastically different depending on your neighborhood, so poor kids have far less exposure to knowledge and mentoring that would allow them to succeed individually.

I taught science across the Chicago school system. One of my worst schools literally had 3 kids exceeding standards...only 3 out of 500. It's simply not on the children's shoulders alone, they need force multipliers like good teachers, computers, home stability, even food and sleep and safety from gang violence are not assured.

So, individual action is multiplied by opportunity and mentoring.

[Waterluvian]

I'm convinced that the single most important issue is a stable home where the parents have the time and energy to engage in their kids education.

But any time I try to unpack this issue it becomes a seemingly impossible systemic problem. How can you possibly have time for your kids if your marriage isn't stable or you're working multiple jobs?

This leaves me equally convinced that we need to raise children as communities, tribes, villages, and not as individual families. But I have no idea how to make that happen.