[rayiner]

> Because it’s not a real choice. As household income decreases, the odds the child goes to the nearest school (regardless of how good it is) increases.

The “odds” don’t tell you whether or not it’s a “real choice.” Families that value education will take advantage of those opportunities. Families that don’t value education will get what they get.

Lots of families don’t value education and there’s nothing you can do for them. My wife is from Oregon, which has terrible test scores. And as far as I can tell, people there simply don’t care about school. Everyone’s dad is a logger or fisherman or something like that, and putting effort into academics isn’t valued.[1] In that environment, the best thing you can do is have charter schools for the minority of families that care. The alternative is to have shitty public schools that don’t serve anyone well.

[1] My wife did so well on the LSAT she got a scholarship to a top 10 law school. But people back home aren’t impressed. That doesn’t matter to her, because she is extremely internally motivated, but most people just go with their social flow: they won’t work hard for achievements people around them don’t value.

[borski]

Surely it’s possible that a family might value education but not have the literal time, if they are working non stop, to take the kids to a further school? Or to take care of them afterward?

You’re avoiding the point by saying “anyone who cares can,” and avoiding the economics entirely.

Economics can force choices against your own best interests. If you have an hour between shifts and the school is 45 minutes away, you may have no choice.

This is separate from groups of people who don’t value education. This is about where others make that choice for them.

[rayiner]

Most people aren’t “working non stop.” Out of non-disabled SNAP recipients with children, only 10% work full time, and only 33% work more than 20 hours a week: https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-f... (table a.26)

[borski]

Most of the people I know who work two or more jobs also do not get SNAP. Sometimes, it’s pride, and sometimes, it’s logistics.

My sister is on SNAP; it took hours, literally, for me to sign her up, and I’m quite “technically savvy” lol

And every year the renewal takes at least two hours in NYC.

[jnovek]

There is so much context here that you’re missing — have you ever been poor before?

[rayiner]

Everyone in my wife’s family grew up poor and many still are. My wife lived in a converted barn for part of her childhood.

Regardless, the data is the data! Only 10% of parents on SNAP work full time.

[jnovek]

You, personally, haven’t been poor, though, so you you don’t know what it’s like to have to balance all the things a poor person does as an adult. Your confidence that you can speak on this topic because your wife was poor as a child comes from a perspective of massive privilege.

If you had been poor as an adult, you’d know that it’s very difficult to stay on SNAP if you have any income. It incentivizes not working if you want to feed your family.

You mention people who aren’t on disability — well, it’s very hard to get on disability. Go find a social worker and ask. They’ll tell you stories about people living on the streets with diagnosed schizophrenia having to stand in front of a judge for an appeal because SSDI was rejected twice.

What percentage of people who are on SNAP actually disabled and unable to work, I wonder? It’s far high than the number of people who actually receive SSDI.

This is why I ask if you’ve been poor — the devil is in the details on these programs and you are confidently misinterpreting those details.

[borski]

Data without context is not useful.

  Data (alone) = Noise
  Data + Context = Information
  Experimentation + Error = Experience
  Information + Experience = Knowledge
  Knowledge + Humility = Wisdom

[rayiner]

What do you call the injection of ideological excuses into data?

[jjulius]

What wildly inaccurate generalizations about an entire state.

Try being less closed-minded.