Comments on: Being Stupid Is Expensive

By: educrat

educrat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:34:47 +0000

I don’t understand how “school choice” makes things better for anyone still suffering in a bad school system, especially those poor children who are low literacy and have a host of other issues that predate the poor school district and crummy teachers.
The idea that there is real, true choice for these kids (and that giving this choice always has a positive outcome) implies a few things that may not be true for these students.
For example, let’s suppose that we let those students who are victims of failing schools have vouchers (a much touted mechanism) for the actual private school in which my child is enrolled right now:
First, could the parent pay the rest of the tuition and fees and such that is not covered by the voucher? I doubt that most poor parents could consistently do this for the entire duration of the program (1st thru 8th grade for most), and the poor are the ones targeted with these voucher programs.
Then, if the expense could be shouldered for the duration of the school experience, could the student in the underperforming school even test into the private school at all? Having the money for private school is just the first step. Also, private schools mitigate much of the public schools’ problems by simply NOT TAKING underperforming children or children with learning disabilities, handicaps, etc. No Downs or autistic children attend my child’s private school. No one ever disrupts the class. There are NO behavioral problems, and all of the kids look the same: thin, healthy, white, and orthodontically corrected. No one even has crooked teeth. No one has cavities. These kids are chosen for their homogeneity. Thus, private schools self-select their success by admitting students based on character, affluence, and minimum competencies (entrance exams and interviews).
Then, if the money was there, and the child COULD gain entry, could the parent of one of these poor students in the failing schools be present as required for all of the private school mandates, such as homework help for the child every night and additional extracurricular enrichment (implicitly required of all private school students), plus attendance at all school functions, in addition to 100% timely drop-off and pick up of the child, a and healthy home environment that fosters excellence, with zero unhealthy situations such as abuse, drugs, or non-academically oriented lifestyles?
People presume that sticking a poor disadvantaged child in a private school changes things. It won’t without the other elements in place, and these elements must be rigorously and exhaustively applied daily. As a parent of one of these children, I know this. My child does not only do well because of where we send her to school, she does well because I care, her father cares, and we both had PhDs. We value education and have the wealth and habits to help her succeed and we will do everything and make every sacrifice for her in this regard. So, I really get tired of the argument that school choice solves it all. If you really want to make a dent, add parent choice (you choose your parents!), parental occupation and education choice (only choose MD, PhD parents with the money and background to help you with every subject up thru differential equations), home location choice (don’t live in the hood), and genetic ability choice (don’t have a learning disability). Clearly, these are not real choices any more than school choice is a real solution to the problem. There must be a better way, and I am interested in hearing better answers to address this.

By: Charles Nickalopoulos

Charles Nickalopoulos — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:34:44 +0000

Florida public schools have nothing on the schools in South Carolina.
A lot of the teachers down here just passed illiterate children on out, so we have high-school graduates that can hardly read and write.

By: EXCLUSIVE: DUMB PEOPLE FOUND IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO S.C. STATEHOUSE « SCHotline

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:20:42 +0000

[...] by the FITSNews story; ‘I see dumb peopleâ€™; I bought this awesome Nikon camera yesterday. The camera takes about twenty-gazillion frames per [...]

By: Rob W.

Rob W. — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:35:29 +0000

Although the report makes some good points, there’s some funny number-crunching in there. In addition to just plain sneaky statistics (see the title on figure 1 page 9, in which they happen to leave out 170,000 college graduates who also have advanced degrees), the report seems to have this reasoning:

1. People who drop out of school have a much higher unemployment rate (13%) than people who graduate (just) high school (8%).
2. If everyone graduates, these people will go from being 13% unemployed to 8% unemployed.
3. Therefore, if everyone graduates, the unemployment rate will plummet.

This leaves out an unmentioned assumption:
2.5 There are a large number of jobs waiting to be filled that aren’t utilizing the current pool of high school grads.

There’s obviously a problem with this one, since an unemployment rate of 8% means that there’s quite a variety of unemployed high school grads. Producing more of them won’t help high school grads get a job- that’s supply and demand. The jobs simply aren’t there, and similar arguments can be made about the lost wages (2.8 billion) and lost tax revenue (277 million)

I agree that having a higher graduation rate might attract businesses to South Carolina, which could produce some of these jobs, but the paper specifically leaves this out of it’s calculation (top of page 15).

The other question to ask is if dropping out of school is the cause of these social ills or just a symptom of some other problem. I think the answer is both; that we can’t say that dropouts commit more crime just because they drop out, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that it’s a factor. Once more, we can’t say that eliminating dropping out will drastically reduce any of these social ills (as the report claims).

The graduation rate is an important indicator for the state, and we all need to find a way to improve both that and our education system as a whole. Even if I find some numbers questionable, I agree with the authors that this is a large problem with serious social implications.

The point of the report was to tell us that school choice is necessary for South Carolina because it boosted graduation rates in certain areas. Although I have not read the article they cite, the authors do point this out about their source:

“Assessing the impact of competition from private schools on nearby public school graduation rates requires sophisticated statistical methods. Few studies have employed methods rigorous enough to sufficiently control for confounding influences and thus estimate the true relationship.”

Judging from the first part of the article, I’m not sure I trust the “sophisticated statistical methods” that “few studies have employed”. Any mathematicians out there want to help us out with that one?

By: Reefer

Reefer — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:38:33 +0000

Maybe i’m being cold-hearted, but since when does their failure obligate us to put them on the gravy train? Can’t we, as a society, tell them this? Maybe tell their f***-up parents the same thing while we’re at it?

By: schotline

schotline — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:33:26 +0000

Yeah but REX is going to fix all that by hiring a bunch of folks to into the schools and give out hugs…

By: Don Johnson

Don Johnson — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:42:14 +0000

$100 million says the education establishment uses that first stat:

“Each dropout costs SC an additional $3,193 each year â€“ SC spends more on dropouts in their lifetimes after they leave school than while they were in school”

as an excuse for more funding. “We need to spend that money now, rather than later.”

I can’t wait for Bill Robinson’s “report” tomorrow.