Education, all levels

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/06/13/teacher-why-i-dont-want-to-assign-shakespeare-anymore-even-though-hes-in-the-common-core/

you can’t be a top-tier jeopardy champion if you’ve never read shakespeare

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only because the white patriarchy insists on writing Shakespeare clues

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Also, not true, you just need to memorize the names of all the plays, the major characters, and the bare skeleton of the plots.

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I took an entire class on Shakespeare in HS taught by a wonderful teacher with the bonus that she was English.

It’s good to make sure the knuckleheads know their place.

how does the catholic church get away with teaching that? and public school doesn’t?

Havent caught up yet. I was very guilty of not posting links. So trying to make up for it.

This is a great opener of the issues. An example there is countries where only 4% of the lowest economic groups go to university in some countries with public university. If they pay more than 4% of the tax (thats an if, as the article doesnt say that) then they would be subsidizing rich kids to go to uni.

This article (its a pdf. Sorry for the messy link)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp503.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwizsc2p2eztAhWUzjgGHclYBkkQFjALegQIHxAB&usg=AOvVaw3iRpSmgqenxfgXeuOHkWEC&cshid=1609022111184

Also makes the case well for why a progressive government in the UK moved away from free university and introduced fees. It increased overall university funding, increased support for the less wealthy and reduced inequality of outcomes.

Essentially. Means testing increases the resources you can spend on increasing access for the poor.

To restate my position. Im in favour of massive government involvement and subsidies for university education.

Grunching again.

If posters are thinking that university might not be +EV for the individual because of the cost, id be interested if they still think it could be +EV for society to pay the full cost

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Just using this as a jump off point.

Without higher contributions from the wealthy, you end up needing to ration free education and/or reduce investment per student.

One way of doing that is entrance exams. On the face of it, this seems meritocratic, however all it does is ensure that wealthy kids with tutors, private school, space to study, books at home, educated parents, etc, get the lions share of the public subsidy, with a few ultra smart/hardworking poor kids sprinkled in to pretend its fair.

Another thing about means testing that I think people overlook is that it’s humiliating. This is not about education, but it’s the same sentiment.

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As someone who went through means tested higher education. I can assure you that literally no one cares, amd everyone wants the reduced fees if they can have it.

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It’s more applicable to other things like welfare or reduced fee lunches and such but just generally something about means-testing.

With higher education it’s kind of like so ubiquitous to need help that it is not embarrassing. But that’s also why it’s not a big deal if a few people who don’t need it get it.

Another thing is that even if someone’s parents have enough money, maybe they’re not willing to give their kids that much money for college. And just because your parents have a lot of money doesn’t mean they’re going to give you money to help pay off your college debt. And sometimes parents have enough income but they also have debt they’re paying and FAFSA doesn’t even ask about that.

The UK has government administered loans for everybody.

The fees are means tested on your parents. Re-payments are also based on income. If you never earn more than the threshhold (about 150% of average income) then you never pay it back.

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Economic diversity and student outcomes at American Public University System - The New York Times.

The median family income of a public university student in the US is $44.9k. The median family income in the US is $68.7k.

Even at Private Colleges, Low-Income Students Tend to Go to the Poorest Schools.

Median family income for private schools goes from $70k at not selective schools to $177k at the most selective schools.

Average income at the most selective private schools is $720k. The difference there between mean and median tells you what you need to know about whether or not super rich kids are going to public schools.

So your solution involves maintaining the current top teir private schools as is, with all the inequality that entails?

Who is maintaining top tier private schools? They are. Are you suggesting the state dismantles them?

Fuck yes.

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As much as I dislike Harvard, if you think the state should have that much power, just take people’s money instead. Also, the state shouldn’t have that much power.

Okay. Im being a little provocative.

But

  1. Spend a lot more money on public universities. (With means testing so you have more to spend)

  2. Remove tax breaks for rich universities.

  3. Enforced proportion of government supported places at all universities.

To start with and see what happens. But engineering out the gross inequality of the current system has to be a explicit objective.

Anyway. Like i said. Im very happy to concede the American system is a little different. But id like to think we should be more ambitious.

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