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India's Schooling Experiment Tests Rich and Poor
theodp writes "Passed in 2009, India's Right to Education Act mandates that private schools set aside 25% of admissions for low-income, underprivileged and disabled students. Many of the world's top private schools offer scholarships to smart poor kids, but India's plan is more sweeping in that the rules prohibit admission-testing of students. 'Over the years schooling offered by these two systems [public and private] has become increasingly disparate and unequal,' explained Anshu Vaish of the Dept. of Human Resource Development. But the most notable results of the experiment thus far, reports the WSJ, are frustration and disappointment as separations that define Indian society are upended, leading even some supporters to conclude that the chasm between the top and bottom of Indian society is too great to overcome. Hey, at least we don't have these kinds of problems in the US, right? BTW, about 30% of this year's Intel Science Talent Search 2011 Finalists hailed from private schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,750 at Ursuline Academy (the alma mater of Melinda Gates) to $37,020 at Groton School (the alma mater of FDR). Some 10% of all elementary and secondary school students were in private schools in 2009-2010, according to the US Dept. of Education."
What it comes down to is that the govt sees that pvt schools are doing a better job than the govt schools.
Instead of making the govt schools better, make the pvt schools share the load.
This is an excellent illustration at a much larger scale of exactly the education problems we face in the U.S., where we spend more on prisoners than students.
Speaking for myself, I have... let's call it an "above average" character in terms of education and intellect, and yet public schools couldn't be bothered with me. Had it not been for the fact that my parents had worked hard enough to be able to afford very expensive private schooling, I would never have graduated from High School.
The answer is NOT for those who can afford such things to be taxed into giving up those funds to educate everyone else's children. The "answer" is not even something I can feasibly address with any sanity or brevity in a forum like this one (ok, I can in three words: "One room schoolhouse"), but it should be rather clearer now what a failure our current model is, where students are graduating from High School less educated than their parents - on average - for the first time in our nations history over the last several years, and that we need to completely re-address our schools, teaching methods, and sociocultural emphasis (or lack thereof) on education.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
This is an excellent illustration at a much larger scale of exactly the education problems we face in the U.S., where we spend more on prisoners than students.
Of course we spend more on prisoners than students. Prisoners live in prisons 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Students are in school for 7 hours a day, for only 8 months out of the year.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Enjoy the 28 Most Expensive Private High Schools In America
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-private-schools-2011-4
The US just has to ensure testing is fully funded in every state and that its best and brightest get scholarships to the top endowment funded U.S. universities.
Testing 100% of every states students vs educating the bottom ~90% every year? Best to put limited state tax funding into the top few %.
The real question is how to keep the bottom 90% distracted every year?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
By the time I was finishing high school the situation was so bad that in my State 70% of the seats were reserved for these castes. The remaining 30% was considered to be "open competition", which means any disadvantaged student who scores high will not be counted towards the quota. The closing score for engineering/medical admission for my caste was some 98.5%, that is anyone scoring less would not get admission. The closing score for the ST category was some 45% and SC was 55% and BC was around 75%. The central government did not have the BC category so for IITs 80% of the seats were in play. Some 1350 seats for the entire population of India. If you have been wondering why the IIT alumni of that age (45 to 55 presently) are so strong in academics and engineering, it is because they were the students score above mean+3 sigma.
Over the years a creamy layer has developed and the people who benefited by the reservation policy in 1950s, their children and their great grand children enjoy all the benefits. The benefits do not reach the really stuggling, poor deserving people of these castes. Among the so-called forward castes so many poor rural people have much higher disadvantages. The situation is so bad there, even the corrupt Indian politicians and the corrupt journalists pandering to the semi-literate allegedly suppressed communities are coming out periodically with such band aids to sooth the raging public anger. The really poor disadvantaged people of all castes are pissed off. Only the creamy layer of people belonging to the SC/ST/BC castes likes the present situation.
One good that has happened over the last two decades is the mushrooming growth of private colleges that finally gave all people to get an engineering degree if they wanted it. Now the private colleges are outshining State funded colleges. Now the creamy layer has its eyes on the private colleges. They want in, into that sector too. So this is their way of forcing the private colleges also to impose a reservation system.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In the "old days" (the 1960s and 1970s, so not really that long ago...) they would just bump such "gifted" students up a grade so they could learn more advanced material, and be with students who were slightly more mature. It's a fast, easy and cheap solution to the problem.
It's pretty sad if American educators today can't figure that out for themselves, or aren't even bright enough to ask the previous generation of educators how they dealt with such students. It's a pretty basic concept.
in Asia it's all about the test and mass cheating goes on there. The us needs to drop the teach the test idea and go back to the old days. College is odd that some of the high cost schools are carp and all about makeing money and other are better price wise but range from poor to good.
Different children have different educational abilities. Will admitting 25% of random poor children in an elite private school make the education worse? Definitely, yes. Will it make public schools better? I doubt it. The US already had something similar to this, albeit on a smaller scale - forced busing. It left everyone pissed off and had to be stopped.
I believe that you are looking for this video.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
India is poor for a reason - it's Government. The State is profoundly corrupt and protectionist.
I agree with that, although, many of their problems also has to do with the structure of their society and having over a billion people.
The thing is, when you have an under-class that's perpetually impoverished, there is no way for them to get out of poverty on their own: they're trapped. Giving them the opportunity to better themselves via education not only provides them with more opportunity but it also benefits the society as a whole - including the owner ship classes. For example, here in the States, the owner class is constantly bemoaning how they can't get enough educated workers. The owner class isn't willing to provide their own training nor are they willing to pay for it via higher taxes and as society, we're losing out big time. Couple in the fact that labor is so much cheaper elsewhere, we're seeing a decline in our standard of living and as a result our society is declining.
If India wants to better they're society and eventually solve their problems, they must provide more opportunities for education and for economic advancement. The education will also help to solve the issues that you mentioned.
Speaking as an ex-Libertarian, the "I worked for it and it's all mine" attitude is short sited and doesn't work - society collapses when wealth becomes too concentrated - which we'll see.
I urge everyone to read to the end which relates impoverished Vipil's successes, showing why good education for everyone is a great boon for society.
Though I like the outcomes of India's law, I think it is impinging on the freedom of the schools too much. Consider the borderline families, where the effective 25% price premium means the difference between sending their children to a good school or not. We barely afford to send our own kids to private school, and an extra charge of that size might well kick us out.
The real solution is to make the public schools so good that almost no one feels tempted to go private. Both India and America have problems getting there, but I think it's possible.
In the meantime, I'll spend the money to make sure my kids learn about evolution, partake in music, gym and recess, avoid bullies and silly zero-tolerance policies, and meet friends who think books are cool. And I'm giving up vacations, cars, and retirement savings to do that, so please don't confiscate my money specifically to improve general education. Good education is important enough that everyone should benefit and everyone should pay.
If I take my money, which belongs to me, and I open *my* school, it's *my* business - and no one elses.
No one else has *any* right to come along and order me around - let alone ordering me who my students will be.
First of all, running an education establishment like a business will inevitably lead to intellectual bankruptcy - education is a public service.
As such, it is A-OK for public service to lose money as long as it provides acceptable service - which is education, which in turn is there to provide progress and higher standard of living and happiness for both citizens AND their society in general.
That is why it is A-OK for the education sector to be subsidized by the government. Which leads us to the next point - certification.
All that shiny education your hypothetical school would provide is useless if it is not certified i.e. if the diplomas you give out are not accepted by your students' future employers AND by the government(s) that issues work and other permits to those businesses.
After all, your school may only consist of your website and your kitchen table where you print your diplomas.
Or, you may be teaching crazy shit like dianetics and whatnot.
I for one would like to know that some government body has checked your school and made sure it is not an organ harvesting operation.
Or simply that you provide an adequate education along with that piece of paper that claims that I've actually "studied shit" while at your school.
So, there ARE rules which you MUST obey if you want your school to be allowed to exist.
To quote the eminent philosopher Keanu Reeves: "You need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish.".
Ergo, fuckin' A you're gonna be told what you can and what you can't do when opening a school.
There's this thing, it's called Freedom. It means no one can force you to do things, or deceive into doing them - unless they're acting in self-defence, and this isn't self-defence.
Actually... generally speaking, self-defense has nothing to do with that which you call Freedom and is generally defined as negative liberty, as opposed to positive kind.
And then there is "the real freedom", but I'm guessing from you nickname that you already know about that.
Why would anyone have to act in self-defense against you if you are only practicing your liberties, which are just like his/her liberties - unless you are not entitled to those liberties in the first place (due to previous actions on your part) or you are misusing them.
In which case, you should not have the right to those liberties.
But that's usually left for the courts to decide.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There are a lot of factors that influence kids as far as success in school is concerned. In an affluent family the child may not have much in the way of chores or work assigned to them. In a poor family a child may be up at 4 am throwing newspapers to help feed the family. The diet and medical care available to the poorer folk may also hold their children back. The ability to hire tutors or send kids to educational camps in the summer can have a huge effect. Even the emotional security of knowing that plenty of money is at hand to keep a home secure and running well can boost a child's abilities. In the US the trend is to bully the teachers and point a finger at them. This law in India seems to be an attempt to bully private schools and point a finger at them. The hard fact is that if the US closed down all private schools and forced the super rich to place their kids in the exact situations with the poor kids that the public school system would improve by leaps and bounds. No rich man could bear to see the conditions and dangers in many public schools let lose upon their child.
Speaking as an ex-Libertarian, the "I worked for it and it's all mine" attitude is short sited and doesn't work - society collapses when wealth becomes too concentrated - which we'll see.
That statement paints all libertarians with a broad and negative brush. Of course that attitude doesn't work, but most of the libertarians I have encountered (in real life, not on television) have a sense of morality and are willing, even compelled to share the fruits of their labor with those who need them.
How many charities are founded by rich people? By their very nature, almost all of them. And because charities are designed usually with a single specific goal in mind, and because they are often set up with a benefactor's own money to fulfill his charitable wishes, they are much more efficient than a government institution. In addition, they are taking nobody's money by force. If taxes were lower because they weren't going to support social programs that are already too heavy to fund (not to mention an extremely bloated defense budget and adventurism abroad), everyone with an income would have more money to work with. I would hope everyone who thinks these social programs are necessary to donate a shitload to charities out of a concern for the needy, and those of us who freely give now to those in need would have increased means to do so.
I believe that the main reason many wealthy people are assholes in this country right now is because they often got that way through government corruption, usually manifesting as regulatory capture--having their friends in government write regulations that give their business advantages instead of regulations that benefit the public (see Meredith Baker's jump from the FCC to Comcast after helping to get the NBC merger approved for a recent example of how to make a friend). Regulatory capture is one of the main reasons I started looking into libertarianism, and I am convinced it plays the largest part in enabling corporations to become megacorps. If someone is willing to exploit the weaknesses of a political system for personal gain, it doesn't strike me as odd that he would continue to seek personal gain at everyone else's expense.
Of course there are also trust fund kids and just disagreeable people in general, but in my experience most people who started out poor or middle-class and got rich through honest means is more than willing to use their wealth to help others.
/shudder
You put in awful lot of faith in the free market working in education. Can you point to a single situation where it has worked? Looking at any list of the world's top economies or eduction systems shows a list filled with countries with a strong government investment in education.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point for building a positive vision of the future for all children in all our communities. Like straightforward ideas such as Medicare-for-all, this is an easy solution to state, likely with broad popular support, but it may be a hard thing to get done politically for all sorts of reasons. It might take an enormous struggle to make such a change, and most homeschoolers rightfully may say they are better off focusing on teaching their own and ignoring the school system as much as possible, and letting schooled families make their own choices. Still,homeschoolers might find it interesting to think about this idea and how the straightforward nature of it calls into question many assumptions related to how compulsory public schooling is justified. Also, ultimately, the more people who homeschool, the easier it becomes, because there are more families close by with which to meet during the daytime (especially in rural areas). And sometime just knowing an alternative is possible can give one extra hope. Who would have predicted ten years back that NYS would have a governor who was legally blind and whose parents had been forced to change school districts just to get him the education he needed? So, there is always "the optimism of uncertainty", as historian Howard Zinn says. We don't know for sure what is possible and what is not. "
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators
See also:
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/
http://basicincome.iovialis.org/e00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income_Guarantee
"A basic income guarantee (or basic income) is a proposed system[1] of social security, that regularly provides each citizen with a sum of money. In contrast to income redistribution between nations themselves, the phrase basic income defines payments to individuals rather than households[2], groups, or nations, in order to provide for individual basic human needs. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it. The U.S. Basic Income Network[3] emphasizes this absence of means testing in its precise definition, "The Basic Income Guarantee is an unconditional, government-insured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs.""
What good is education as far as economic advancement when the robots and AIs and voluntary social networks are going to do most of the jobs inthe future?
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
USA before 1965. That was not difficult, was it?
You can't handle the truth.
The only way to make sure school is good for all is to make everyone go to public school.
I know you are to elite for that.
Now you know why I am right.
Your example is a system that struggled, then failed, then struggled again, then only when we went to war and the Government was the customer to the booming industries in the US and factories were full of relatively cheap labor (women mostly) did it start to thrive again? The US economy has been falling apart not because there's regulation, but because of the nature of the regulation. We do a lot of catering to big business owners, while throwing the rest of the people under the bus. However with no regulation, the big business owners will simply drive the bus over everyone else themselves...
But seriously, there are lots of poor people in India. Consider this: the HDI of India as a whole is less than that of West Bank by about 0.1. The general consensus is that Public schools are terrible in India; probably because of corrupt mid-level bureaucrats.
http://apps.societyforscience.org/sts/70sts/finalists.asp
Indian and Chinese names dominate this list. Discuss.
"How many charities are founded by rich people? By their very nature, almost all of them."
Nonsense. There are millions of charities in the world. The number set up by some rich guy with an endowment is miniscule compared to all the grass roots efforts.
There is similar happening in Scotland, albeit via a different approach - essentially private schools can have their charitable status revoked if they do not pass the "public benefit" test. This is applicable to all charities, though generally interpreted in private schools in relation to the level of fees charged and the proportions of bursaries granted: if high fees mean poor people are effectively excluded from the school, their "public benefit" is not so very "public".
There was quite a push specifically on private schools a few years ago, this is a good, albeit old, article, but the government and charity regulator seem to be backing off quite a bit now, perhaps partly due to change in government and party because the schools have elevated their bursaries in response (some of which is due to receiving more donations for this very reason). Someone who gives politicians a lot of benefit over any doubt might wink and mutter "well played" at this point, but I think that's giving out a lot more credit than due.
In practice what charitable status means is relief from rates, a significant local tax based on property values (private schools here tend to have a lot of prized property). It does also mean relief from corporation tax, that donations qualify for a tax deduction and a few other things, but any decent accountant should be able to engineer a way around those, albeit perhaps with a few ongoing headaches. What I'm saying is compliance certainly is advantageous, but is not mandatory, neither in the legal nor practical sense.
I think this is a much more reasonable approach, though while our poverty gap is pretty bad it's nothing on India's, and we don't have their caste problems either. There's also far less relevance of race here than there seems to be from my media-led impression of the US (we do have it, but it's relatively endemic to certain cities), so tackling racial inequality often comes under the more general banner of anti-poverty.
For what it's worth I audited a private school and, while 1 school does not make for a statistically representative sample, I was a little stunned at how close their bursary system was to what I'd consider an ideal model. They offered everything from long-term loans at base interest rate to fully paying their fees, uniforms, sports equipment, school trips, anything needed for after-school activities and school meals. All of this is done in a manner that avoids the "poor kid with his free meals voucher" embarrassments. Few in the school itself would even know who had bursaries. The pupil acceptance committee certainly didn't.
Bursary award consideration was non-competitive, entirely based on the student (especially any reasons why state school would be unsuited) and the ability of the parents to pay. There was no special extra-hard test to sit or any such thing. Other than the standard entry exam for all students who did not have family at the school, academic, sporting, creative or other ability only mattered if there was some special fund set up due to restriction set by a donor (they could be rather eccentric). Race and so on was completely ignored, with the only exception being that *after* issuing the awards they did do a few numbers with their fingers-crossed.
This Act in India is an attempt to dumb down education and these articles of the Act have not been mentioned. In addition to the 25% admission for "low income, underprivileged and disadvantaged students" -- something that is going to be purely vote-bank politics based (and open to abuse and corruption). The major contentious points, however, are:
1. Age-based placement. So consider the scenario, 25% of kids find themselves in an English medium educational institution (majority of these private schools are that). No matter what, the rest of the 75% in the class are going to suffer with the 25% not really gaining anything.
2. No more failing: everyone is automatically promoted to the next grade. Will this by itself remove the pressure to "learn for a test?"
This Act is a dumbing down of education pure and simple.
Every action has a reaction. If the Supreme Court of India does not invalidate the Act itself or most of these provisions, the private schools can easily transform themselves -- with the majority of educational activity transferred to "tuition classes."
You put in awful lot of faith in the free market working in education. Can you point to a single situation where it has worked? Looking at any list of the world's top economies or eduction systems shows a list filled with countries with a strong government investment in education.
USA before 1965. That was not difficult, was it?
To understand how the US got where it is today you need to understand one important detail: up to around 1950 the US was a strongly immigration driven economy - unlike any of the other major economies.
If you look at key "US inventions" before 1965 resulting in a Nobel prize then virtually all of them were invented by people who were born and taught elsewhere (mostly in Europe) and then emigrated to the US . If you look at the list of Nobel laureates there's barely anyone born and educated in the US in that time frame - only immigrants.
If you were right then that list would be full of US-born Nobel prize holders ... but it isn't.
So, without realizing it, you actually support the grandparent's point: countries with historically strong public education lead in innovation. And yes, countries can also brain-drain capable people from other countries and can thus bridge their lack of good public education - but I'm sure that's not the point you wanted to make?
Well, since you are a government shill, I am not really surprised to see you in yet another thread of mine, but you are wrong here just as well.
I am not talking about Nobel prize winners or anything of the sort. I am clearly talking about public schools, which are overpriced in USA today, which is on the brink of economic disaster of unimaginable magnitude, all due to its government driven economic policies that destroy the free market competition.
1979 was when they introduced the DOE, but 1965 was when the passed the SS act as well as Medicare, and that was an implicit way to collect more general taxes for the government programs, whatever they are, (not for the benefit of SS or Medicare funds, which never existed and are ponzi schemes.)
US students did not have to go into tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and they were getting an actual education, which was quite worth while, and this has nothing to do with any immigrants, who incidentally came to the USA not because of any government programs, but DESPITE those very programs.
Immigrants came to the USA for the FREEDOMS FROM the government, not looking for government handouts, so while in your warped twisted mind of a shill, you assign the success of USA to the government, the reality is that all the government is killing USA by killing its economy, and people are leaving the country today for the same reason so many came into USA in the first place - there is no economic freedom in USA anymore.
The fact that USA has no economic freedom due to all of the business regulations, has ridiculously high taxes, ridiculous barriers to entry, which are impossible to overcome to become a competitor to government sponsored monopolies, that and printing and borrowing and more printing of money - inflationary fiscal policy, which leads to the increases in prices for all commodities and eventually products around the world, (until the world stops using USD completely and stops buying US bonds), that policy leads to destruction of US market, destruction of US school system as well, as it is no longer necessary.
Who needs schools in USA? Why bother? US worker is the last worker in the world in terms of attractiveness to a potential employer.
Here are some numbers, which show how impossible it is to have capital savings in fiat currencies (in this case USD) given the government destruction of it
sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%
Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%
Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%
Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%
Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%
Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%
Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%
Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%
Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton,
You can't handle the truth.
Your example is a system that struggled, then failed, then struggled again, then only when we went to war and the Government was the customer to the booming industries in the US and factories were full of relatively cheap labor (women mostly) did it start to thrive again?
- this sentence by (probably) a US 'educated' AC, is the example of the magnitude of sheer ignorance on the role that the government of US played in creation of the Great Depression via money printing in late twenties, to pump up the valuation of UK pound, which then lead to an asset bubble, resulting in the market collapse, which then prompted the US government to do all sorts of spending, bail outs and stimulus, that I have outlined here in some detail
The Great Depression ended only once the WWII ended, and all the government 'stimulus' (money to build and drop bombs) ended, and allowed the USA to restructure its productive capacity towards products and services required by the world. Of-course at the time US had a monopoly on production, so it thrived, but that kind of monopoly couldn't last forever, so as other countries rebuilt their manufacturing base, USA lost its monopoly on labor prices, but the government got used to very high levels of spending, so it couldn't stop and eventually defaulted by getting off the gold standard and printing unbacked fiat.
The US economy has been falling apart not because there's regulation, but because of the nature of the regulation.
- it is falling apart because there is government in business and economy in the first place. ALL government regulations end up distorting the markets and lead to unintended consequences, all of which are bad for the economy, because they rely on forces other than willingness of market participants.
We do a lot of catering to big business owners, while throwing the rest of the people under the bus.
- this is just not true. The business owners are a minority, and politicians learned to be populous by catering to the majority - employees, thus the business owners got screwed plenty. Some of them got out of business, some learned to cope by moving business out of the country, some bought politicians to maintain and even to increase their business, especially because so much competition was destroyed by the government in the first place, so a number of businesses became monopolies only due to government in the first place, and now it bails them out, stimulates them, buys them out, prints cash and hands it over, etc.etc.
You can't handle the truth.
throwing money at the problem fails to help. On average it costs more to attend public school than private school, it's just that most people don't see the cost, most of which is administrative. And you can't legislate success, since each person comes from a different background with many different skill sets. Having known people who went to Ursuline and Cistercian Academies, I assure you they are no brighter than most, just better prepared and that has a lot to do with their home life.
Read Freakonomics for a study on the importance of student desire.
The Chicago school system was ordered to integrate so they set up a lottery system for kids at disadvantaged schools to maybe win a ticket to a 'good' school. Subsequent 'analyses' showed the students who won the lottery did better than the losers but Levitt realized you had 3 populations, not two.
There were the people who didn't enter the lottery
people who entered and lost and
people who entered and won
All the other studies lumped the folks who didn't enter along with the lottery losers. Levitt's study discovered there was no significant different between the losers and winners of the lottery. The only significant difference was between those who entered the lottery (those who wanted an education) and those who didn't care (or their parents didn't care) and didn't enter the lottery.
Slashdot disappoints the hell out of me.
You'd think - you'd hope - this would be a liberal forum. Would have a care and an interest in freedom.
But every time I talk about *freedom* - about NOT forcing other people to do things - I get modded flamebait or troll.
Whenever someone posits forcing others to do things you LIKE, you're all for it. Shit yeah, tax the hell of people for research-this or free-eduction-that or travel-to-mars-by-2020 the other.
Whenever someone describes people being forced to do things you don't like, you're up in arms!
The idea that people *shouldn't be forcing others* is alien to Slashdot - this forum is no different to any other; neo-conservative, red-neck religious, left-wing liberal - you all have the things you like and the things you don't like, you all completely disagree on what those things are, but you DO all believe in forcing others to do what you want.
From my POV, it's all one and the same.
This post too will, if it's read - the thread is old now - will be modded flamebait. Slashdot - like all those other forums - does not comprehend existential criticism. Anything which invalidates Slashdot is flamebait/troll. It's a way of not thinking.
5 kids = $100k per year.
I wonder how long it would take for the population of New York State to double.
There are so many obvious unintended consequences to this scheme.
India is a slave country. Decent and honest people are held hostage by the corrupt and the powerful. Bruteforce rules.
When British ruled us, it was easy to blame the outsiders. Now our own have replaced the British and are crushing us. There is no hope for the future. In case Pakistan implodes, we will be in a whole world of hurt. If China attacks, there is no chance we can fight back. Many people would not even fight when foreign forces come in to take us over. We just dont care.
In the US most middle class private schools' main purpose is to give their kids a hefty dose of Jesus in their lessons. While kids in private schools learn more it's because of parental involvement and despite the broken lesson plans.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
There very idea of schools is flawed. The concept goes back to pharaoh, in the book of Genesis, having a fear of the decrepit and broken down members of society choking off and destroying the strong and those who would take the extra effort to properly take care of themselves. Joseph, being a very intelligent fellow in need of an opportunity, counseld pharaoh to the advantages of a system of controlling the food supply in the interest of picking and choosing those good and bad elements of society.
Since then it has been nothing short of a disaster. Those who pick and choose the good and bad elements of society tend to pick and choose those who will do what they say. The strong and those who take the extra effort to properly take care of themselves usually have little regard for some fat ignorant fool handing out tokens and there arises a natural conflict of personalities. The fat ignorant fool remains in control of the tokens and the strong and those who take extra effort to properly take care of themselves become the embodiment of pharaoh's original nightmare.
Good job, idiots.
Schools arise from that system of wanting to pick and choose the good and bad elements of society. Since the time of Joseph the Israelites have been asked to leave a number of places over the course of the millenia as have the Christians. Why? Because they operate on this idiotic system of tokens which allows some fat ignorant fool to exercise authority over the strong and those who take extra effort to properly take care of themselves: the exact opposite of the purported purpose behind the regimenting of the land in the book of Genesis.
Sadly, humans are of such weak character that the entire world, some four or five thousand years later, functions on that system. People earn the right to never need to fast as was common on a land when the food was right where God placed it. They always have food in their gut, the food is always soaked with water, the water soaks the tissues of their intestines, and their blood is too thin. Sixty or seventy years of that and the cream separates from the milk, artheriosclerosis, death.
But God wouldn't want you to be hungry? God doesn't want you to develop artherosclerosis, either. That's why he made things the way he did. Your little token system just bungles everything.
Osteoporosis is a similar example. Osteoblasts know to begin forming new bone structure according to rigidity. If there is no vibration then the bone is solid and needs no work. If there is vibration then the bone needs work. Humans, because they submit to the token system to "get something", never really need to walk much because they have automobiles. The bones never rattle, the osteoblasts look for movement and migrate to the surface of the bone. When the muscle does fire it shears the osteoblast and arthritis results. The osteoclasts continue to eat the bone and brittle bones result.
But people go to school to earn the right to do this.
Idiots.
The doctors of the world are not half as good as I am. Why? They are doing it for the money. If they get it wrong sometimes they have the money to compensate. I do it because it must be done right. I have no money.
The teachers of the world are not half as good as I am. Why? They are doing it for the money. If they get it a little wrong there is no real problem; they have money to compensate. I am required to get it right each and every time or else there are real consequences.
All of you with money... you're training yourselves to be statistically weak. That's why you break down over the course of sixty or eighty years.
School.... pfffffft!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The bottom line is that birds of a feather flock together - that old line about "opposites attract" is nonsense.
The problem is that dumber, lazier people tend to go in for conspiracy theories that claim all their problems are due to the rich, privileged elite, and little else is responsible for their lower quality of life.
I'd say that you can't argue with a paranoid, and that freedom of association/dissociation must prevail. If the smart people separate out to form their own society and the dumb people form theirs, then each will have to live in the bed they make.
Affirmative Action is the bribe given to BC/SC/ST communities when India adopted the Constitution.
On 4th August 1932 Round Table Conference, British gave Autonomy/Homeland to Muslims/Christians/Anglo-Indians/Sikhs/SC/ST communities in India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award
Gandhi betrayed BC/SC/ST/Minority communities to favor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_caste in India.
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility != http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
I believe Autonomy/Homeland is the solution.
Former USSR republics are prospering rapidly than India
http://doingbusiness/ . org/rankings
Georgia - 12,
Estonia - 17,
Lithuania - 23
Latvia - 24,
Kyrgyzstan - 44,
Armenia - 48,
Azerbaijan - 54,
Kazakhstan - 59,
Belarus - 68,
Moldova - 90,
Russia - 123,
.
INDIA - 134
CARS PER 1000 PEOPLE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
Moldova - 49,
Azerbaijan - 51,
Belarus - 87,
Ukraine - 140,
Kazakhstan - 170,
Russia - 213,
Latvia - 372,
Estonia - 410,
Lithuania - 453
.
INDIA - 12
GLOBAL PEACE INDEX
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/info-center/global-peace-index-2011/
Lithuania - 42,
Estonia - 46,
Latvia - 54,
Moldova - 66,
Kazakhstan - 95,
Ukraine - 97,
Belarus - 105,
Uzbekistan - 110,
Armenia - 113,
Turkmenistan - 117,
Azerbaijan - 119,
.
INDIA - 128
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
What kind of school taught you that it's correct to ram so much shit into one sentence?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
India is developing since you can exploit their people via caste system.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/03touch.htm
China is developing since you can exploit their people by abusing human rights.
http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-apple-workers-forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm
Americans are suffering since US regime is letting Chindia exploit their people via outsourcing.
I believe US visa system/outsourcing should be linked to caste system in India and human rights in China.
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
Your Indian Govt/Ministers/MLAs/MPs doesn't want you to prosper.
They fear you might vote as per your conscience.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/836-million-indians-live-on-less-than-rs-20-a-day/47645-7.html
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
Well, the American Civil war broke out due to slavery in the south (and the price advantage therof) depressed wages in the north. This is the same situation we have with outsourcing. Although it's harder to imagine a war over human rights/labour law/minimal wages on the international level, it certainly can happen, but tension builds up much slower in a bigger economic system.
Here is some anecdotal experience. My son goes to this school mentioned in the article. And it is a good school, with some seriously good teachers, from my personal experience. This school and many other schools have been taking in "economically weaker sections" or EWS kids from some time now, but not more than some 5 to 10%. Also, different schools had different models for inclusion. The Delhi Public School, I believe holds special evening classes for these kids, whereas other schools like to integrate them into the main class.
The specific experiment described in this article actually took effect in this school year and has raised the proportion of these kids in the class to 25%. Of course, I am not privy to whatever internal issues the teachers/kids have been having, but its early days still. The no-testing admission has been the law in Delhi for some time now, but now has become law across the nation (I hear that private school admission in Bombay is even more difficult than Delhi). Most of the schools are incensed at having their own policies superseded arbitrarily by the law; hence the resistance. However, I am fairly certain that they will adjust to this and do a good job, once the initial issues are ironed out.
From my own personal experience there are two issues to deal with. First is the rich poor divide. Compared to many of the parents in this school, I am decidedly on the poorer side; these are the parents who own farm-houses in Delhi (about USD 10 million apiece) and send their 5 year olds to the south of France for summer vacation. My family got to go to the hills near Shimla, overnight journey by train. The first time I took my son to one of his friend's birthdays my jaw fell open. As a middle class parent with a middle class upbringing, I am having the same conversation about rich-poor divides with my son when I plan his next birthday party. I simply cannot afford to match his friends birthdays and, even if I could, have no intention of doing it. In my opinion, this is an important purpose of school; my child needs to learn the importance of money but not to make the mistake of conflating it with self-worth; he needs to learn to get along with all people, both richer and poorer than him.
In short, by having EWS students in the school, they are not creating a new problem; however, of course the EWS parents and children feel it more keenly and probably need counseling on how to deal with it.
The second issue is the eagerness for an education and the ability to follow that through. IMHO this is the most serious problem: most of the other kids in school have parents who are genuinely motivated that their children get an education and have the ability to help their children, either directly or by hiring tutors. This is the place where the EWS parents suffer the most and they need the most help. In many cases, they simply need reassurance; it is often the case where the kid is lagging behind a little in something or the other, but within the overall is well within the group limits; given time he or she will catch up. However, the parent panics when they hear about it from the teacher and start that "all work no play" nonsense alluded to in the article. Which actually increases the pressure on the child and makes things worse. I think this is where we parents can actually help, by forming support groups and reaching out to the EWS parents. However, this is the kind of thing which can't be legislated and takes time. The schools can probably also reach out to the parents (the Shri Ram school has a parent teacher association, but I am not aware if they are directly dealing with the issue) for help. Once again, all of this will take time.
You read it, you understood it, I am not a book writer, so what's your problem? Or should I write it in my mother tongue instead to make it easier for you to comprehend?
You can't handle the truth.
Government funded education well before 1965. Hell it funded it way before 1865.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
1979-80 was when they created the 'department of education', so that was clearly a huge loss for education quality and affordability, but 1965 was when they passed SS act and Medicare as well, so they started collecting even more taxes for government spending and growing, that's why I hold that year as an important one in terms of affordable education and other services (health care, insurance) becoming the thing of the past.
People used to be able to pay for their education and health care before government stepped in with the bread and circuses votes and passed more taxes and punished the workers more, but of-course the ultimate destruction started in 1913, when they introduced the Fed with the printing press, who got the ability to monetize government debt and they started collecting income taxes and created the IRS. Both of those things are responsible for very quick growth of government, and now in USA, government work force consists of about 10% of the population (including contractors and the military).
Government spending is destroying everything - from education to healthcare, to insurance to peace on this planet, to currencies themselves.
You can't handle the truth.
Perhaps my question was unclear. When and where was there a successful free market only education system? All of the dates you point to are after the creation of a government funded education system. It may have been at the state and local level, but it was government. I wasn't asking about federalism or central banking's impact on education, just for a situation where a strictly free market system has provided superior outcomes to what a government system has been able to create.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
Well, we are in the story about a successful private schooling system in India being raided by the government, so that's one. But USA used to have private schooling system - private schools, which provided competitive education at affordable rates before federal government brought in all sorts of money, which created artificial demand and pushed prices up and quality down, simply because there is no reason to bother with quality - anybody can get a loan, and there is no reason to bother with competitive affordable pricing, again - anybody can get a loan. In the climate, where anybody can get a loan, there is no incentive to compete either on quality or on price, and the education is inflated, so more and more is needed to stand out of the pack, all this, while kids are getting insane loans from government to go to schools they shouldn't even go to, because they don't know neither what they are doing there, nor what they are getting themselves into with these loans.
As to public schools ran by localities - there is competition between localities, so if you want to attend a public school, you move to one, that offers this, and if you do not want to, you move somewhere, where you get good private education.
You can't handle the truth.
That would be a great idea--if most of these families wouldn't immediately run out and blow the money on crack, gold jewelry, flashy cars, etc. almost immediately, And they would.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Home schooling is not a replacement for public education, and a basic income social program is not a replacement for directed government spending. I can't even begin to list the overwhelming problems that would rapidly develop in such a system: inequality of access to education, loss of standardization heading into higher education, expansion of free ridership, inflation of basic costs...
"I wonder how long it would take for the population of New York State to double."
And the problem with that is?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Schooling is not education; you prefer this? http://thewaronkids.com/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Perhaps some would. Let's say you are right. Remember, most of these people are the product of schooling. What does that say about raising those now adults during their formative years during the 1980s in day-prisons confined in chairs doing paperwork most of their youth and then fed mainstream TV promoting consumerism the rest of the time? It might take a while for the culture to heal...
Also, why should everyone suffer because a few will mess up? There are already plenty of laws about "negect" and kids. Obviously, if parents don't provide at all for their kids, the community is probably going to step in eventually in some way. And if every family had a lot of money and free time, relatives and neighbors would be able informally to help out the kids whose parents were really messed up. Besides, if parents don't care about their kids, school or not, that kid is going to end up messed up. How many such kids already flunk out of school because they can't do their homework or have to go home to take care of an alcoholic parent? Lots. See:
http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
Many times, addictive behavior comes from stress, and money stress in families with kids is a big issue in our society (about 20% of US kids are raised in poverty), and so this approach might alleviate some of that stress. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
Nothing is perfect. But overall, which is more fitting with democracy, family values, individual rights, and a free market?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Look, I went to public school and I am well aware of its shortcomings, so don't condescend to me. But your purported solution would be worse than the status quo, and that's an accomplishment.
"I am well aware of its shortcomings,"
Which include drugging children, suspension of civil rights, terrorizing kids, fostering a climate of bullying, breaking the bonds between children and their families, damaging the teachers in other ways, destroying intrinsic motivation, boring people, keeping people from reaching their full potential by wasting years of their lives, and so on...
Do you have alternative proposals?
Anyway, after you have mulled the idea over for a while, you may get past a knee-jerk reaction. It's hard to admit how much big institutional systems have harmed us, even when we have "succeeded" in the world they have shaped.
From New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto: ... ...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Solve this problem and school will heal itself: children know that schooling is not fair, not honest, not driven by integrity. They know they are devalued in classes and grades, that the institution is indifferent to them as individuals. The rhetoric of caring contradicts what school procedure and content say, that many children have no tolerable future and most have a sharply proscribed one. The problem is structural. School has been built to serve a society of associations: corporations, institutions, and agencies. Kids know this instinctively. How should they feel about it? How should we?
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
A huge price had to be paid for business and government efficiency, a price we still pay in the quality of our existence. Part of what kids gave up was the prospect of being able to read very well, a historic part of the American genius. Instead, school had to train them for their role in the new overarching social system. But spare yourself the agony of thinking of this as a conspiracy. It was and is a fully rational transaction, the very epitome of rationalization engendered by a group of honorable men, all honorable me -- but with decisive help from ordinary citizens, from almost all of us as we gradually lost touch with the fact that being followers instead of leaders, becoming consumers in place of producers, rendered us incompletely human. It was a naturally occurring conspiracy, one which required no criminal genius. The real conspirators were ourselves. When we sold our liberty for the promise of automatic security, we became like children in a conspiracy against growing up, sad children who conspire against their own children, consigning them over and over to the denaturing vats of compulsory state factory schooling."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You like this http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq