
How the Startup Mentality Failed Kids in San Francisco - rising-sky
https://www.wired.com/story/willie-brown-middle-school-startup-mentality-failed
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nwah1
Prop 13, mentioned in the article, correlates with the sharp turn of
California's public schools from the among the best to among the worst.

I'm sure there's numerous factors that contribute, but this is core. And
repealing this bad law would have numerous other positive effects on crucial
issues like affordable housing and sprawl, because it would cut down on idle
land speculation which drives up real estate prices in prime locations.

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allthenews
>San Francisco has been trying, and mostly failing, for half a century to give
African American and Latino students an education comparable to that provided
to white and Asian students in the city.

At what point will it become appropriate to admit that there is a cultural
problem among certain low income minorities that leads to poor outcomes in
education?

Regardless of whether it is fair, is it really reasonable to force middle
class minorities and whites to be exposed to drugs and violence in middle
school, in a clearly failed attempt to bring up worst performers?

These policies are a net loss to society. Instead of boosting performance of
the lower tail, we are only hampering the middle and, especially, upper
reaches of achievement. Some problems can't be solved by money, or even
celebrity apparently, according to this article.

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natecavanaugh
The only reasonable part of that question was in specifying low income, which
seems the main influencer on students across the spectrum. I'm not saying
those cultures don't have unique negatives (even though we Americans pretend
as if there's no such thing as diversity of weaknesses), but keeping "us" from
"them", whether that's racial or economic terms, seems truly unamerican in
terms of ideals and what we try to sell to the world.

It's not as if the poor white are blowing away their contemporaries with over
achievement. It's a pretty consistent pattern, and one we can have some
influence on both through the state and personally.

Also, maybe instead of looking at other cultures and only pinpointing any
negatives we see, we can look at our own. What does it say about us culturally
that we are totally fine with exploiting the poor by preying on their weaker
position, but the second someone mentions preventing it, half of our country
throws a fit?

I'm not stating that it always needs a governmental solution, but your
response indicates a general disdain for the poor, especially those who have
very little control (the kids) over their previous experiences, and don't
always get the opportunity to learn how to make better choices in the future.

I think as a society we function better when we address poverty as a "we"
problem, not just a "you" problem.

Edit: Spelling. Thanks Gboard :P

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allthenews
>I'm not stating that it always needs a governmental solution, but your
response indicates a federal disdain for the poor, especially those who have
very little control (the kids) over their previous experiences, and don't
always get the opportunity to learn how to make better choices in the future.

My point has nothing to do with disdain. I am alluding to a greater good. Is
society better off from the averaging effect that comes from mixing high and
low performers? The fact that performance is segregated racially is incidental
to my point. Does a rising tide lift all boats?

Can we remain competitive as a nation if we improve our low performers at the
expense of our best and brightest?

And this issue is correlated to more than just income. This isn't a dog
whistle, this a fact, and it has been an unchanging fact for decades. African
America children are fatherless, live in broken homes, are not taught to value
education, and simply throwing them into a nice school amounts to nothing more
than a failed policy which drags down our best without improving our worst.

~~~
natecavanaugh
Alot of what you said I can agree with, but I don't agree it's endemic to
either African American or Hispanic cultures, even if there are specific
weaknesses culturally that we can identify (such as broken homes). But
isolating the African American experience from issues such as poverty is going
to be really tough, both because of our cultural history and the sample size
to contrast it with is relatively tiny. Everyone still debates what the full
causes are (whether that's poverty, institutional bias, or some combination),
but I do think for many cultures there is something uniquely broken and I'm
not against discussing the question. But it would be highly presumptuous of me
to assume that I do have the answers, or that I'm some kind of White Savior
who can rescue "those people" (I'm not implying that's anywhere near what
you're saying, but just an admission of both seeing the issues, and not
knowing the right way to solve them. But all cultures have a long list of
social ills).

To answer your questions though,

> Is society better off from the averaging effect that comes from mixing high
> and low performers? The fact that performance is segregated racially is
> incidental to my point. Does a rising tide lift all boats?

Yes, a rising tide lifts all boats and sometimes drowns someone as well, but I
think on the whole, even if the spoils are disproportionally distributed, our
general societal success has raised quality of life for most people.

But your questions are fair, so I'll try to address the point. An example I
think about is with the Department of Education specifically. I think we all
agree that it's generally a good thing that we enforce kids school attendance,
even if we hear upsetting statistics about a high illiteracy rate among high
school graduates. But what I do know is that even with that illiteracy level,
on the average, more kids have a higher level of general literacy than many if
not most of their historical counterparts that were kept home to tend the
farm, and could get by without needing to read or write with any fluency.
Literacy seems like something that has degenerated in our society, but
literacy was often a privilege of the wealthy, and I think it's averaged
itself out better than if we were to replace it with nothing.

> Can we remain competitive as a nation if we improve our low performers at
> the expense of our best and brightest?

Honestly, can we be competitive without trying to help as many people as
possible contribute to that success? What would competitive as a nation even
be considered if it were only limited to a small percentage? Also, you're
assuming that the cost to the "best and brightest" is one they can't shoulder.
By definition, they're more capable of addressing the issues than those who
are merely caught in the cycle of perpetuating them.

Where I do agree with you is that education or a nicer school aren't panaceas
to solving deep issues, but they do play a role (if they didn't, we wouldn't
be having the discussion... if it's so important that the best and brightest
need "good" schools, then I think we can agree that it would benefit not just
them). I also don't think this is something that just throwing money at is
going to solve (it's actually played out where its the opposite now).

But IMO what you're describing is an amputation of sorts. And while we can
believe that amputation is the proper remedy for certain cases, I don't think
that should be the one we assume is the right one or one we have as the go-to,
especially when there are many cases where things have been improved without
that need.

I don't have a pet agenda to preach as the one right way to fix the issues
that plague schools, but for good and bad, I believe we've generally been
harmed when we isolate improperly, and generally benefited by being more
inclusive, even if some of those kids choose to throw it away. Alot of this
will probably come down to how we feel comfortable with generalizing a lot of
people and in reality the solution will probably be really sticky and take a
ton of laborious and inadequately praised work. But I say better that than
replacing one flawed system with an even worse one, which I think is what you
described (racially or economically segregating kids from access to an
accepted level of education).

I disagree with the general premise, which is that the issues stem from
inherent problems with certain minorites as well as that solving the issue
somehow is addressed by segregation of those groups. If I misread your point
though, I'd be happy to learn where I'm missing it.

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allthenews
I'd just like to be clear, I'm not advocating for segregation, I just think
that the current quota based forced desegregation isn't quite working. Perhaps
that is because, as you allude to, there are other fronts to work on.

But I believe the rest of our disagreements stem from your optimism to my
pessimism.

I appreciate your thoughtful response regarding this taboo subject.

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rayiner
> This gutted California’s education funding so severely that the state’s
> public schools, which had been ranked best in the nation in the 1950s, fell
> to among the worst in a few decades. (They now hover around 35th.)

Stopped reading here. This statistic is useless without adjusting for change
in demographics (the time period coincided with a massive increase in
percentage of students from ESL backgrounds).

~~~
madeofpalk
...because the new demographics are significantly generically stupider?

~~~
tptacek
You can put a math prodigy in a room with me and I will have a harder time
teaching them (anything) if their Spanish is good and their English is weak,
because my English is good and my Spanish nonexistent. "Stupid" has nothing to
do with it.

