
Letter from an “Anti-School Teacher” - jseliger
https://www.econlib.org/letter-from-an-anti-school-teacher/
======
logicx24
Game theory is a useful framework for this problem in the sense that almost
any double-sided market can be trivially formulated into a game-theoretic
framework. But viewing college admissions as a Nash equilibrium doesn't
meaningfully clarify the problem.

That said, I generally agree with the article. America's elite private
universities have almost always been about signalling over substance, an
orientation that can be traced back to their origins as bastions of elite
privilege. Our recent attempts at reform, via affirmative action and more
recently, the SAT adversity score, have been nothing more than attempts to
spread the benefits of signalling to new, heretofore underrepresented, groups.

The real solution, of course, is to tear this reputation market down. We need
to work to remove the signalling benefits of so-called "elite" institutions,
and in doing so, remove their stranglehold on access to a number of
prestigious jobs and career paths.

How do we do this? I'm not sure, exactly. The radical solution is to
nationalize all universities, redistribute their endowments more equitably,
and enforce a singular admissions and educational process on all of them. This
enforced uniformity would destroy "elite" signalling.

There are incremental steps to this, though. Implement new rules to force
colleges to expand their enrollment to maintain non-profit status (and thus
retain untaxed earnings from their endowments). Pour more money in flagship
public universities to create strong alternatives to private education (i.e.
make a UC Berkeley for every state). And so on. Reduce the distinctiveness of
the elite privates, and their value as signalling institutions decreases.

~~~
0815test
"Tearing the reputation market down" is not generally a good solution, people
want to acquire reputation for sensible reasons and tearing one market down
just leads to it being replaced by other, generally suboptimal markets. What
you actually want to do is (1) stop _subsidizing_ reputational games heavily,
so that agents who engage in them don't get to externalize their cost to third
parties, and (2) try to _outcompete_ the standard reputation game by signaling
the same desirable qualities more cheaply.

The latter is sometimes difficult to do in the case of education, because
conformity is itself something that people might want to signal, and it's hard
to outcompete prevailing standards _while_ conforming to them. But providing
alternatives is still valuable, because sooner or later you'll get a positive
unraveling cascade where people realize that the advantages of conforming to
the existing standard don't justify the cost, and it's better to switch to a
cheaper alternative. (It's something that's mostly unpredictable however,
since it works on the principle of a popularity contest where the prediction
itself is what people are constantly optimizing for!)

~~~
logicx24
What would (1) look like in the context of education? What exactly do you mean
by externalities?

Otherwise yes, I agree that the ideal solution would be to provide compelling
alternatives at lower cost. The issue is, we've seen this fail already in
education. MOOCs attempted to democratize elite education, but instead
increased the entrenchment of those institutions. In software, bootcamps and
the like have also failed to dislodge the prominence of signalling. Indeed, if
there's anything the past decade has shown, it's the increased availability of
information, and the increased democratization of resources, have only
increased the value of signalling. The market itself has become so skewed, so
incredibly inelastic (to cost in general), that competition is becoming nearly
impossible.

~~~
tracker1
There is no one solution... I think that we need to start accepting that, and
acknowledge that there are overlaps in terms of ability and the course one
takes to learn and inject themselves into a profession.

Like bootcamps... from my experience the best of the bootcamp grads will
outperform and do better than the vast majority of developers from traditional
computer science backgrounds for most work. The bottom of the bootcamps are
worse than those from traditional education. Self-taught tend to be towards
the top as well. The rest is a deck of cards and some roles lend themselves to
those traditionally trained, or the few that go very far above and beyond what
they have been required to do in terms of learning.

This also overlaps with regards to natural aptitude as well. There are people
that do not, and likely will never get it. There are those with personality
issues that will take years to understand how to interact with others (if
ever). It's a mixed bag.

The "pre-interview homework" doesn't really help much. Depending on that
process, as an interviewee it comes so early that you aren't even sure that
you're interested enough in the company and have enough other places to talk
to. It will depend.

That said, it isn't that hard to compete. Show competence, drive and a desire
to learn. If you are Junior level, work to level up, make something, throw it
up on github and interact with a broader community. Read up on the things you
want to learn and use them. Write about what you are learning, and get
feedback.

If you're mid level, get to know your design patterns better. Don't assume you
should apply them everywhere, but be aware of them.

If you're senior level, branch out and learn new things. Yeah, you've used C#
and SQL Server the past decade, have you done .Net Core? Have you looked at
other modern languages lately? Challenge yourself.

Competing means dedicating time and effort, and it doesn't take too much. It
does take more at the beginning of your career. I have been at this for almost
25 years now. I spend 2 hours a day on average looking at technical articles
and commenting. I spent my recent vacation reading about Rust, usually do road
trips. I am passionate about my own career, and still enjoy learning above
anything.

Above all else, be honest about what you know, and what you don't.

------
padobson
Anybody up for a grand bargin? I'll trade you Medicare-for-All in exchange for
a complete privatization (w/ vouchers) of education.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Privatization would make these sorts of problems worse, as schools compete
more vigorously to sell signalling value to parents.

The fix is to monopolize signalling value through legal fiat - make it illegal
to ask job applicants or allow applicants to disclose the school they
attended, and replace it with an examination and/or interview based
certification monopoly.

~~~
bunderbunder
And, indeed, what studies are available seem to confirm this. Not just for
private schools - charter schools also tend to underperform the public
schools.

Granted, kids who go to them _do_ tend to get better test scores, go to better
universities, have more successful careers, etc. But that's because the whole
education industry is a massive exercise in selection bias. The most careful
studies I've seen, though, seem to indicate that, all other factors being
equal, a typical kid is going to learn more in public school than in private
or charter school.

This rather mirrors my own experience. I did 2 years of public high school,
and 2 years of college prep. I can say that it's absolutely true that my
classmates were generally smarter and more studious in the prep school. But
the prep school was also _easy_. It really didn't particularly matter how much
effort I put into my homework. As long as I didn't blatantly blow it off, my
teachers would dutifully send my parents a report card full of the As and Bs
they were paying for.

By contrast, it was the public schools where I had the teachers who'd keep
ratcheting up their expectations until they could sense that I was actually
working to try and get good grades on my papers.

~~~
hakfoo
In terms of actual student performance (as opposed to grades), I'd expect
parents to be a major factor. They're going to build support networks--
running the fundraisers, supporting extracurriculars, keeping an eye on
student performance and scandals.

When we provide "options" \-- charters, private schooling, even public
magnets-- the parents who are motivated and concerned enough to build those
networks tend to pounce on them. The "default" public school loses its
champions and ends up producing worse outcomes for everyone whose parents
aren't tuned in.

------
tptacek
This letter is making some pretty superficial observations that I don't think
hold up.

The background you need for the letter is the debate between "human capital"
(H.C.) and "signaling" in education; H.C. is a longhand for "intrinsically
valuable", and signaling is a shorthand for "indirectly valuable by improving
the student's reputation".

First, the author (correctly, I think? I suck at math but this sounds correct)
believes that AP Stat would be better for H.C. than AP Calc, which is mostly
about signaling. School districts have to decide which courses to carry, and
the author presumes they carry AP Calc to minmax for prestige college
admissions.

Second, the author observes that schools have varying levels of rigor; a
better, rigorous school might give a C where a weaker, more generous school
would give a B. The weaker school produces graduates with higher GPAs, again
minmaxing for college admissions over H.C.

Problems with both observations:

1\. It's not clear that AP Stat disadvantages students versus AP Calc. The
author didn't make the argument that AP classes _in general_ optimize for
signaling --- that argument seems harder to defend. So why don't high schools
sub out Calc for Stat? "Because colleges would have a problem with that"
doesn't seem like the answer. So what are we left with? "There are better high
school math curricula than the ones we have now?" Lots of people already agree
with that.

2\. Selective colleges already account for the differing rigor of different
high schools. A 3.4 at one school is not necessarily as valuable as the 3.4 of
every other school.

~~~
educomments
_> 1\. It's not clear that AP Stat disadvantages students versus AP Calc._

This is what stuck out to me.

Isn't AP Calculus the obvious choice if you have to choose between AP Stats
and AP Calculus?

1\. Calculus is really, really useful. Maybe AP Stats is also useful, but
singling out Calculus as an example of useless signalling sets off really loud
alarm bells.

2\. If you want a STEM/Engineering degree, at least one Calculus course is
required. More importantly, often a long sequence of 2-4 courses (Calculus I,
II, III and ODEs) are required. Because of that long list of _sequentially
dependent required courses_ , getting one or two calculus courses out of the
way in high school is enormously useful (like, "graduate a semester earlier
for each course" useful). AP Stats is not at the head of this sort of long
sequential course dependency.

3\. The AP Stats course has a major disadvantage: lots of colleges/majors that
require a stats course _don 't_ accept AP Stats as credit because they require
a calculus-based statistics course.

~~~
asark
> 1\. Calculus is really, really useful. Maybe AP Stats is also useful, but
> singling out Calculus as an example of useless signalling sets off really
> loud alarm bells.

34 years old. Been writing software since I was 14. Used to know some calculus
and sometimes poke at picking it back up because I feel like I "ought to".
Have usually been the one to tackle tough or odd problems where I've worked.

Haven't once managed to find a reason to use calculus for anything whatsoever.
Not a damn thing to differentiate, not a damn thing to integrate. I think the
need for it is in a very, very narrow slice of all jobs, even in "STEM".

Statistics is 100% for sure more useful to me, in everyday life and at work.
And I've not even worked on anything especially stats-ish, it just happens to
come up a lot. That's the thing I really ought to work to get better at.

~~~
lotu
While people often don't have to do the explicit differentiation and
integration taught it calculs that doesn't mean you aren't using knowledge
learned in a calculus class.

I often think about rates flows and how they relate to each other. For example
to do monitoring we count the total number of messages received in each task
at a given time, then use the diffrence to get a rate. That is basically
differentiation and understanding calculus makes it easier.

The other thing you acquire from doing Calculus is problem solving experience,
figuring out how to apply various approaches to a problem to get to a desired
solution. In this way calculus strengthens your brain similar to how a sports
player might do weight lifting even if their sport doesn't involve lifting
heavy objects.

~~~
JamesBarney
I think lots of people understand rates without doing calculus. For instance
distance vs velocity vs acceleration is a pretty simple and intuitive idea to
understand.

There is an enormous amount of evidence that weight lifting transfers to
sports. But I don't think there is much if any evidence that calculus
transfers to general problem solving.

------
drngdds
I don't disagree, but this is a simple point and all the math language doesn't
really add anything to it.

------
alasdair_
One solution to the problem of schools ranking kids with a B average versus a
C average is simply to not let individuals set the grades at all. Have a
national set of standard exams (as is done in the UK and many other
countries).

This doesn’t solve the issue completely - schools turn into “SAT prep centers”
to an extent - but it definitely helps compare students and teaching across
multiple schools.

~~~
tlear
Or even better have colleges administer their own exams. Oral ones are best ;)
this is how it worked in USSR. Nobody cared what marks you had in high school
as village school and good city schools were completely different.

You came to exam and had 3 hours and 5 problems(example of physics entrance
exam to KGU) you then went and presented your solution if you had any to
examiners. They could grill you to explain your solution

------
btilly
The most obvious example of this game theoretic problem in teaching is the
phenomena of "teaching to the test". Focusing on preparing students to
generate the right signal, rather than laying the foundation for long-term
comprehension of the material.

------
NoNameHaveI
From the article: "Schools of standard C produce graduates who are more ready
for college. Schools of standard B produce graduates who appear more college
ready." I just left a job teaching community college in Iowa, who is now
boasting the nation's highest high school graduation rate. Having taught
community college in a different state, I can honestly say that many, if not
most, community college students I saw were just not ready for college.
Doesn't matter what the graduation rate, or even GPA was. They were just not
ready for the responsibility. Far too many could not even be bothered to read
directions.

------
gnicholas
Doesn't this overlook the fact that there are standardized tests, which allow
colleges to ascertain the relative grade inflation at various high schools?
Also, they are repeat players, which further mitigates the information
asymmetry.

~~~
tracker1
Then they add offsets based on race and income disparity.

------
romwell
The title is misleading (it was meant to be intriguing, but doesn't convey the
summary of the article well).

The letter, in fact, is a well-balanced rebuke to Caplan's treatise "The Case
Against Education".

The tl;dr of the treatise is that schools manufacture signaling instead of
value, with the implication that they inherently _cannot_ produce value.

This rebuke is that the schools produce signaling because they are incentives
are aligned this way. Producing signal vs. value becomes a prisoner's dilemma,
where it's rational to focus on manufacturing signal.

Ergo, the schools and educators are not to blame. Hate the game, don't hate
the player.

I agree with the rebuke.

~~~
ikeboy
This is a rebuke only to the extent that "the emperor enjoys the breeze" is a
rebuke to someone pointing out that the emperor is naked.

~~~
romwell
Not quite.

It's like someone someone is pointing out that the emperor is naked, and the
rebuke is "Have you considered that we are all at a beach, and invited the
Emperor to go skinny dipping with us".

Merely pointing out that the emperor is naked, without sufficient
consideration for context, implies that _there is something terribly wrong
with the emperor_. You'd think that the guy just walks around naked!

Now with context, you understand that if you _expect_ the Emperor to be
clothed, then _perhaps_ you shouldn't have spent the whole week convincing him
to go skinny-dipping with you, and then act surprised when you are both at a
beach. The fault, _if any_ , is with what you asked of the Emperor.

So here we are with education. We tell our kids to do well in school so that
they could go to a good college and get a good job (a chain that revolves
around signaling!), measure the education by signaling it provides (acceptance
rates, employment rates out of college), and then _insert surprised Pikachu_
write books about how education is a waste because it's about signaling!

~~~
ikeboy
I think many if not most people involved in academia would strongly disagree
that it teaches you nothing. Caplan's thesis was certainly not widely accepted
prior to publication.

