Public Education: Vital for modern society or a scam?

[Jon Miller]

Maybe it doesn't happen anymore. I have never been part of the urban poor (or been close to those I probably 'knew' (at church)).

JM

[Kidlicious]

Nah in the urban areas, it's not usually a kid not going to school to support his family... it's a kid not going to school because he wants to sell drugs and rob people. I talked about the psychological issues in the other thread.

When I was teaching at-risk students I noticed that a lot of kids are just clueless and they don't believe what you tell them. I distinctly remember trying to explain to one student why math is important. He told me he didn't need it because he was going to start his own business. It didn't help when I explained that you need to know math to run a business.

[Kuciwalker]

But there is a distinct differences between people who complete and don't complete highschool

Not exogenous!

and for groups that have only a few years of education and those that have 12+.

Not exogenous!

Goddamnit JM you are a better scientist than this.

[Kuciwalker]

JM, I bet helium atoms are on average much more energetic than hydrogen atoms (say, per unit mass). What does that tell you?

[Hauldren Collider]

When I was teaching at-risk students I noticed that a lot of kids are just clueless and they don't believe what you tell them. I distinctly remember trying to explain to one student why math is important. He told me he didn't need it because he was going to start his own business. It didn't help when I explained that you need to know math to run a business.

That's kind of standard behavior. The kid has learned to be cynical about what adults tell him but hasn't reached the level of maturity to realize that most things that are taken for granted are actually valid.

[KrazyHorse]

JM, I bet helium atoms are on average much more energetic than hydrogen atoms (say, per unit mass). What does that tell you?

That you don't know thermodynamics?

[Kuciwalker]

[KrazyHorse]

KH, do you have an readily available data (links or other sources) on the diminishing returns to educational spending above a certain level? I'm merely asking out of curiosity and laziness in looking it up myself.

Hanushek: http://epa.sagepub.com/content/19/2/141.abstract

remains the seminal analysis of intra-US data. Further evidence can be found in international comparisons (e.g. that class size has no apparent effect on student achievement across first world countries)

Furthermore, timeseries data demonstrates that even after controlling for wage inflation the US spends far more now per student than it did several decades ago, and also has far smaller class sizes, yet has shown stagnant test results

[KrazyHorse]

My final piece of evidence is that Kuci comes from an enormously privileged background, yet doesn't understand the equipartition theorem, while I come from much more modest means and understand it perfectly.