[bdcravens]

The commenter suggested the old school was filled with bad kids and bad parents, and by definition, this would include the commenter and their kids. Unless they are suggesting they weren't the bad ones, and were somehow unfairly placed with the riff raff. If that's the case, some analysis of why that is seems in order.

[nervousvarun]

From the commenter: "The good school has smarter kids with better parents. The bad school had dull kids with bad parents. The kids at the new school do their homework, read, play outside. The kids at the old school skipped homework, played call of duty, and could hardly read."

That appears to be their observation of the two schools they had direct experience with. What else are you asking they provide here in terms of analysis? Maybe average student test scores? Likely available as it appears they are talking about public schools here. If the new school has significantly better scores would that satisfy your analysis requirement? If the test scores within their household subsequently follow this trend would that be sufficient analysis? In general active/concerned parents are going to try to get their kids the best education available right?

Also can you elaborate on where you got the "unfairly placed" part? All that was actually said was they moved from one school district to another. People buy homes for school districts all the time...there's a section dedicated to school rankings on Zillow for a reason.

[bdcravens]

Yes, and performance is often correlated with property tax revenue. Low funds means less resources which influences the outcomes and behaviors of those kids. Put differently, "Anyways, the people make the place -- and that includes kids." is less true than the available resources make the place.

A reasonable analysis would be less of the anecdotal "evidence" about laziness, and more of the demographics of that particular district.

By "unfairly placed", it addresses what you quoted: "The bad school had dull kids with bad parents." Was the commenter one of those bad parents, since they were by definition in that category? Or are they suggesting they were one of the good parents that was in the wrong place? Or did they become good parents once they found a better school?

[staticman2]

Of all the comments here in this 900 comment discussion, you thought that innocuous one had to be picked apart?

[bdcravens]

"Anyways, the people make the place -- and that includes kids."

Yes, a post that attacks kids is one that seems ripe to be critical about. (To say nothing about the implicit logic that their kids must also have been part of the problem, which goes against the general premise of the comment)

[staticman2]

Still wondering how you decided that particular message deserved this uncharitable response.

I assume you only read a few messages here, stopped and decided to attack that one.

Surely there were other messages here less deserving of charity?

[bdcravens]

Unfortunately I didn't have time to load them all into a spreadsheet, perform sentiment analysis, and pick a few based on a proprietary scoring algorithm. Like most people, I scroll HN when I have some free time, and respond to a few comments here and there that catch my eye. It seems to me that you're seeing a deeper meaning to what you see as an "attack".

If you would like to point out a few comments that are hurling blame at children, I'm more than happy to offer my opinion on those as well.

[staticman2]

If that comment was so bad I don't get why your initual complaint shifted from GP having "a subtext you're not saying out loud."

But this became when the discussion continued "hurling blame on children." Which is presented as text not subtext?

And something about implicit logic?

You sure put a lot of work into deciding why that of all comments deserved ire.

[lurking_swe]

kids with a poor home life often act out in class, or have other behavioral issues. It’s not their fault, and it’s not “fair”, but it IS a valid characterization.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that kids with a great home life _probably_ have parents or grandparents that advocate for them and really try to get them placed into a good school district.

One could argue that getting your child into a good school district is an indirect way of surrounding them with like-minded kids and parental influence.

[bdcravens]

True, but look to the generalization presented in the original comment, where an overall trend was suggested. What makes one district filled with "good" parents and kids, whereas another was "bad"? To say nothing of the implication that the commenter was one of the good ones in the land of the bad.

My premise is that there's underlying causes unmentioned, but implied (like socioeconomic status). You can separate groups from membership, and to oversimplify, if you move something from one side of an equation to the other, with different results, what you moved was truly the constant, and what was left behind was the variable.

[lurking_swe]

I can see that - and i agree.

specifically, I think the original comment was in poor taste, and there are other factors outside of good home life like you said.