[seanmcdirmid]

> I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing.

I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of course. But...personal optimization != societal optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society, things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income inequality).

> Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation to their children?

Again, those kids left behind...they are going to be expensive in terms of prisons, homeless services, lost productivity, etc...You can see this happening already, it is just going to be much worse when our kids are adults. And really, this is the only time we (or society) will have much influence on these kids. It is much easier to set a kid straight than try to fix an adult.

[logicchains]

>I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of course. But...personal optimization != societal optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society, things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income inequality).

Good intentions but empirically it doesn't work; forcing troublesome kids to be in school with the kids who genuinely want to learn drags down the score of the kids who want to learn and doesn't improve outcomes for the troublesome kids. Countries with school choice like Sweden have much better educational outcomes than the US.

[ethanbond]

I suspect there are at least a few major confounding variables when comparing Swedish to US schools. You know, like... almost everything about how the society works?

[inglor_cz]

"Again, those kids left behind..."

It seems that you suppose that keeping those kids in "normal" school is better for them than moving them to some schools tailored to their needs.

There is nothing obvious about that. Removing the worst disruptors from standard classes may be a win-win. People are diverse and cannot be all served by a one-size-fits-all school type.

[xormapmap]

> It is much easier to set a kid straight than try to fix an adult

Is this true? Adults have free will & personal responsibility, kids are sort of at the whim of their parents and have no real legal rights when it comes to escaping a bad situation

[seanmcdirmid]

Adults have a life time to be set in their ways. Kids, at least before they are teenagers, are extremely impressionable. While we can't fix crappy home lives, we can give them a chance at school.

[greenhexagon]

Framing the situation as kids being "left behind" feels disingenuous if not outright inflammatory.

Many European systems have been thriving for decades with different school options for different students, based on interest, aptitude, etc. We'd be far better off as a society if we had one classroom for the 8th graders who read at a 1st grade level and one classroom for the 8th graders ready for Infinite Jest. The curriculum and instruction could then be tailored to the needs of each group. Instead, we lump them all together and end up with an outcome where the majority of the students are underperforming their potential.

[shiroiuma]

So basically the solution is to identify problematic kids very early, then take them away from their parents and put them in institutions to be raised by the state.

Because what you're expecting is for schools to take the place of parenting. If you're going to do that, you might as well just cut the parents and families out of the equation altogether.