[crayz]

Why is this seemingly not true in other western countries where they have cheaper, better-functioning public institutions? I think there's truth in what you're saying, but the idea that government itself is the sole problem is far too simple an answer

[karzeem]

On education in particular, school choice is common in much of western Europe, and that seems to go some way towards mitigating the effects of government involvement.

[eftpotrm]

School choice is far from an unmitigated blessing - it has a very strong tendency to produce 'sink schools' with very poor outcomes, simply because the parents who care congregate around the schools they think are best. Note think - we know how much the statistics are manipulated, classes are taught to the test to significantly undermine league tables - so you end up with state sponsored failure, waste and the dooming of those children who got stuck in the sink schools because there weren't places elsewhere. If you introduce favouring of more local pupils then property prices rise around the more favoured schools, if you introduce selection by ballot people complain it's 'unfair'.

Honestly, I don't think there is a 'perfect system'. But school choice is somewhat illusory when there are limited and largely fixed numbers of places and it honestly has real, significant problems.

(As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. I forget which country but there was an interesting example given during our election campaign last year of a country with very high outcomes and yet relatively modest teaching salaries, which was alleged to be significantly due to teaching being accorded very high status and very difficult admission criteria. The upshot of this was competent, respected teachers with pride in their jobs and better outcomes all round.)

[anamax]

> As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions.

As an "insider", the thing that really shocks me about outsiders' comments is their assumption that they know enough to comment intelligently about what's going on in the US.

Actually, it doesn't shock me at all because it's SOP.

We get that you watch US media, but don't confuse that with information.

Helpful tip - don't expect warm water at LA's beaches, let alone SF's. Yes, we know that bay watch suggests otherwise, but ....

[Muzza]

How exceedingly condescending. You honestly believe that no foreigner knows more than what's on the news?

[anamax]

> How exceedingly condescending.

Yes, I was rude, but correct. Since you didn't complain about the foreigner who was just as condescending yet wrong, I've got an unknown.

Do you only complain about condescending when it's from a foreigner or when it's by someone who is correct?

> You honestly believe that no foreigner knows more than what's on the news?

I'm sure that there are some foreigners who knows things about the US that aren't in the mass media.

That's why I wait until after a foreigner demonstrates that she isn't in that group before I do my rant.

[Muzza]

> Since you didn't complain about the foreigner who was just as condescending yet wrong, I've got an unknown.

There is absolutely no condescension in eftpotrm's post. He (she) only talks about the impression he's gotten. He doesn't mention how he came about this impression. You assume it comes solely from the media; I on the other hand know that it's perfectly possible to form an impression about America by conversing with Americans, visiting America, etc.

> Do you only complain about condescending when it's from a foreigner or when it's by someone who is correct?

I dunno, mu? "Foreign" and "correct" are not mutually exclusive. (My best guess is that you're trying to expose me as an evil hypocrite, but I seriously don't understand the question.)

> I'm sure that there are some foreigners who knows things about the US that aren't in the mass media.

"Some" foreigners? Good gracious. Foreigners who've participated in discussions with Americans on the internet know things about America which aren't in the mass media. The same goes for foreigners who've visited America. Etc etc. It's an awful lot of foreigners, not just some.

> That's why I wait until after a foreigner demonstrates that she isn't in that group before I do my rant.

But how did you decide that eftpotrm belonged to the group of foreigners who only get their impressions of America from the media? Because eftpotrm certainly didn't WRITE that. You just assumed it and went on a condescending rant.

[anamax]

> But school choice is somewhat illusory when there are limited and largely fixed numbers of places and it honestly has real, significant problems.

Since we can't have an infinite number of schools, any scheme will have a limited number of schools.

However, I think that you mean something different, that there can't be "enough" school choices. Since a school can be a room with a few people in it, and we have lots of rooms, it's unclear why school choice is necessarily limited in any relevant way.

[eftpotrm]

Education tends to be funded per head, but with strong network effects - a larger school can have a wider range of facilities because they can defray the cost per student over a larger base to cover the lower-interest offerings.

Also, a school running heavily under capacity is _very_ expensive and likely to spiral down, rather quickly, for simple financial reasons.

We're seeing an introduction of a new 'free schools' policy in the UK at present. I'm not in the least saying every last school should have tight government control, but the side-effect of this policy as currently implemented is the impoverishment of existing facilities, to the detriment of their pupils.

Infinite choice is clearly not possible. Neither is the capacity for all students to get their first choice, for physical infrastructure reasons if nothing else. Hence total choice isn't deliverable, and any degree of choice is almost guaranteed to leave some schools over-occupied and needing quick (expensive) hiring and building to cover the gap, while others have too many facilities and resources for their per-head income and now have a financial black hole which, combined with the social stigma of not being the 'preferred school', tends to drag them further down.

Note I'm talking here from the perspective of how school choice works in England, as that's what I know. I'm not entirely anti the princple at all, but as I hope I've shown it does have some significant undesirable side-effects that can both increase cost and at best drive up the gap between best and worst by pushing at both ends of the spectrum - it doesn't just improve the top.

[anamax]

> a larger school can have a wider range of facilities because they can defray the cost per student over a larger base to cover the lower-interest offerings.

Yes, a given smaller school can't have as many different things as a large school, but that doesn't imply that the range of things at a set of small schools is necessarily smaller than the range at a large school.

When 10 kids at a school with 400 kids want something, it may not happen. When 10 kids at a school with 100 want something, it's more likely.

That's the advantage of choice - those 10 kids can "gang up" on a small school if they get to choose where to go.

> significant undesirable side-effects that ... at best drive up the gap between best and worst by pushing at both ends of the spectrum - it doesn't just improve the top.

Just improving the top would increase the gap, which you seem to think is bad.

I'm not convinced that choice hurts the bottom. I think that it exposes the real bottom, the folks who drag down the average. When they're split out, they're more obvious.

The big advantage of separating them is that then they don't drag down other folks.

There are lots of poor parents who do all that they can to keep their kids away from trouble. Why are we forcing them to send their kids to school with trouble?

[eftpotrm]

Your example of 10/400 v 10/100 implies early specialisation if that's to be a realistic scenario, which I confess I'm not a great fan of. If you'd found me at 11, or even 14, I was near enough top of the chart on everything bar sports. Plenty of others were in a similar position to me, or would have been equally flat at a different level. Early specialisation forces pupils to close off options before they may realistically be ready to.

I have no problem with the gap per se - I went to a state funded selective school and I'm perfectly happy that that sort of school has a place in the system. I believe I've illustrated though how school choice as implemented in Britain necessarily impoverishes the schools perceived as poorer - through the inefficiencies and excess capacity it requires to operate while giving anything like true choice, school choice gives less popular schools higher per-pupil expenses for worse opportunities and outcomes. Someone's kids have to go there, they're paying the same taxes as everyone else to fund them, but they're getting a rotten deal.

Like I said in my first contribution - I don't think there is a perfect solution and school choice may well be the least worst option. It is not a panacea though, and we should be honest in appraising its failings.

[stretchwithme]

I guess you'd have to cite some examples of what you're talking about. Europe seems to be quite a mess right now, heading in to the austerity phase where quality gets gutted.

I do think winner-take-all elections magnify the ability of corporations in the US. Unions are more powerful in Europe and strike paralyze France routinely, which doesn't happen in the US very often.

The problem is the government giveaway itself. I don't see proof that most of the same dynamics aren't happening elsewhere; they're just manifesting differently.

Human nature and the desire to get something for nothing are the same everywhere you go, as is getting fed up with all the distortions created.

[angus77]

Exactly. Canada spends, on average, over $3000 less per student and yet consistently scores significantly higher on the UN's Education Index than the US. No need to look to Europe or the East to find out what can be done better.

[yummyfajitas]

The gap becomes insignificant (524 vs 530 on PISA) once you correct for demographics.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...

[angus77]

The "insignificant" gap gets more significant when you remember that the US spends on average more than $3000 more per student per year. It says that the US could cut costs by a third without hurting education in the least. Just where is that $3000+ going?

[tsotha]

Because Canada doesn't share a border with Mexico. The southern US border states absorb almost a million Central and South American peasants every year - people who don't speak English and may not have more than a few years of elementary school.

[angus77]

Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world. Ever been to Toronto? Almost half of the population there is foreign born. Look up Demographics of Toronto on Wikipedia for some stats.

[tsotha]

How many of them are there illegally, with a sixth-grade education, no skills, and no ability to speak English (or French)? It's not immigration, per se, that's the problem. The problem is the type of people we're getting.

[angus77]

So is there a big gap in the scores of Northerners and those in Southern border states? If there isn't, then it's not the illegal immigrants that are the problem. And how do they get into school if they don't have citizenship or visas? You don't just walk into a class and start learning---you've got to fill out all the paperwork first. It's gotten to be a royal pain in the ass to cross the Canadian border into the US since 9/11---how is it so easy for millions of Mexicans?

And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?

[tsotha]

>So is there a big gap in the scores of Northerners and those in Southern border states?

There is. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped the crucial determinant of the quality of American schools is proximity to the Canadian border. Things have gotten worse since his day.

>And how do they get into school if they don't have citizenship or visas?

That's the way it works in the US. Get your kids over the border and they can go to school. They don't need papers or English.

>It's gotten to be a royal pain in the ass to cross the Canadian border into the US since 9/11---how is it so easy for millions of Mexicans?

Things are a lot easier if you cross illegally. It's a long border, and there are various interests in the US who benefit from the influx of cheap labor. So the border isn't well policed and people who are caught crossing are simply released in Mexico. Then they hop back over the border again the next night.

>And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?

Eh? Testing won't solve anything, and I didn't mean to imply it would. I was just trying to say the situation in Canada isn't directly comparable. US schools will never score as well as those of other first world countries no matter how much money we spend.

[stretchwithme]

I think "seemingly" is the key word here.