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193 points bilsbie | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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jmathai ◴[] No.46000348[source]
I do think Covid forced people to ask questions they hadn’t before.

We have sent our kids to private, poor quality and top rated schools.

We saw a stark difference between the poor quality and higher cost options. No surprise.

But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or better.

That’s just education. The social situation in schools is ludicrous. Phones, social media, etc. what a terrible environment we adults have created for kids to learn both educationally and socially.

Home schooling has answers for ALL of that.

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rich_sasha ◴[] No.46001520[source]
I suppose there are few talented, hard working people who want to teach, and they command a premium. Education is expensive and underfunded.

As a parent/carer you probably are much more motivated than an underpaid teacher who wanted to do something else anyway, and you don't have to motivate yourself with money.

By extension, IME, motivated and talented teachers in any school (good or bad) can do wonders. There just aren't that many. And as you say, school environment tends to be a race to the bottom - if Johnny can watch Tiktok during maths, I'll do the same.

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rahimnathwani ◴[] No.46007623[source]

  Education is expensive and underfunded.
Expensive yes. Underfunded depends on where you are.

San Francisco's school district has an annual operating budget that equates to $28k per student.

I've heard people in San Francisco say that schools here are underfunded. When I ask them how much we spend per student per year, their guess is usually less than half of the actual amount.

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mmcclure ◴[] No.46008959[source]
Are you saying that's a lot or a little? Tuition for most (non-religious) competitive private schools in San Francisco is easily twice that amount.
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1. zaphar ◴[] No.46009429[source]
Nearly every time we try to fix this problem with money it fails. The problem is not money. All else being equal there is little to no correlation between spend and outcome. Money get's touted by schools and politicatians as a way of pretending to care but not actually do any of the work to improve outcomes.

What does tend to correlate with money and also correlates with outcomes is parental involvement. Solving that problem requires societal and economic change in a district though not giving the school more money.