> Which in practice ends up being as effective as chopping off legs of tall kids to make sure everyone is the same height.
This might have been the case twenty years ago. Now it's more like chopping off the legs of the tall kids to get back at them for being taller originally.
I hesitate to jump into politics (again) here on HN but I would say this.
I don't disagree with you, exactly. There is a problem with polarized political agendas.
If the right had some sense of being OK with money being invested in the future, instead of in the currently wealthy, and if the left wants to spread opportunity more equally to every student, those could be overlapping goals. Equal opportunity is very different from equitable outcomes. And prioritizing private schools is different from actually shrinking the government size and budget. (The right, I would argue, just prioritizes different spending, not less spending!)
It's really not a "both side" issue. Only one party wants to get rid of the department of education. Only one party wants to ban books from public schools on ideological grounds. Only one party wants to privatize the entire school system. Only one party considers teaching slavery to be anti-american indoctrination.
It really is. They just undermine the education differently.
> Only one party wants to ban books from public schools on ideological grounds. Only one party wants to privatize the entire school system. Only one party considers teaching slavery to be anti-american indoctrination.
My frank opinion: all those book bans don't mean anything for math or science education. The US science education was doing just fine during the racist 50-s and 60-s, after all.
All the book bans (or conversely, the "woke nonsense" like the mandated "ethnic studies") are just noise in the overall curriculum, they affect less than 1% of the academic time.
> Only one party considers teaching slavery to be anti-american indoctrination.
And only one party cancels the gifted programs because they are "racist", or makes it hard to take advanced classes because of "equity".
Those book bans don't indeed do anything for science, but it is very telling of the general stance of the republican party on education. Most of them don't even believe in climate change, how are we supposed to trust them with anything scientific?
Look, I believe this culture war nonsense pushed by the Republicans is just another talking point for them. They really only care about destroying what remains of public education.
Teachers are severly underpaid, their job is treated with scorn, and as a result the competent people that would have become teachers simply don't. This, to me, is the real cause of it all. Not because some black students received grants, not because the "woke mind virus" has infected the system, not because "trans ideology" is being pushed onto children, or whatever other fear-mongering bullsh*t right wingers spew online.
Republicans have been pushing for austerity and privatization of the school system since basically forever. Today's students pay the price.
I believe, that the general stance of the Republican Party is that they want religion in education. But at the same time, they are not against the science/math education per se. They just don't want to pay for it.
> Republicans have been pushing for austerity and privatization of the school system since basically forever. Today's students pay the price.
The US school systems are mostly locally-funded. And the education outcomes are going down even in affluent Democratic states, with plenty of school funding. I live in such a location.
I don't know what you want exactly. Trump's future administration isn't exactly subtle on their wish to axe the Department of Education and cut funding of public schools [1]. Reducing government spending and taxes is what they do, that's the one thing this party has been consistently campaigning on since the 50s. I don't feel like going through every bill they passed or proposed since Reagan's, but you can find them online quite easily.
As for the job of teacher, it used to be respected but now a large part of the population genuinely believes they are trying to indoctrinate children into marxism.
Regarding teacher salary, I'm pretty sure you can find studies online that link the unattractiveness of the job to the poor salary and societal perception. Why would a math major become a teacher when he can have a starting salary in tech that is higher than what he could ever hope of making after 30+ years of teaching? I certainly didn't.
As for the other culture war nonsense they've also been campaigning on, I don't even want to entertain it. No, children don't go through gender affirming care at school without their parents consent, and come home with their genitalia cut off.
