# The Education Numbers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320 "2013-10-26T17:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/61 "2013-10-29T01:27:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The alternative is for poor students to hold the brightest ones back. We should certainly have some sort of “streaming” system. That is not the ONLY alternative, nor it is the most likely. The brightest students today are not being held back in the vast majority of cases because they are given everything they need to compete. Do you really think spending $5k less on Obama’s kids instead of some single mom’s kids would have a greater affect on them than there less fortunate peers. There is greatly diminishing returns at the very high end where resources are not particularly scarce. Just as giving a multi-millionaire $50k/year is not gonna dramatically change their life in the same way it would someone making $30k/year. Even if the allocation of public education funds is zero sum, the positive societal benefits are not. ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/62 "2013-10-29T01:31:39Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > I see. And how much should people pay? Just for daycare (no schoolin’) people can pay upwards of $200 a week, depending on where they live. So every working family in America has to suddenly pay that. Great. Really. > > Do you have _ **ANY** _ concept how much of a fucked up idea that is in a country where every adult has a voice? If you haven’t been given the background education to understand basic economics, how to balance a check book, or the difference between a lease, a mortgage, or a payment plan, how do you expect to elect people who can do the same? do you think our nation’s people are more educated now than in the day when we had no public education? do you think anyone in our country would even understand something like Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address? They wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/63 "2013-10-29T01:33:41Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > even under our current system, people can get educated for free. Any person with access to youtube has more education than he can possibly ever have time for. This is just false. The vast majority of the stuff online will give you specific knowledge, but it will not give you a true education. Kinda like how WebMD can help you diagnose a particular medical problem, but it’s can’t make you a doctor. > [@cornopean](#): > > Any person with a kindle can have tons of great books. Libraries have existed for a long time. Why have they not solved the problem if access is the only thing that matters? ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/64 "2013-10-29T01:33:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > And yet they are mostly (67%) Satisfied or Very Satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving. > > Why the disparity? Almost certainly a media influence: they know from personal experience that the schools are doing well, but suspect from alarmist and misleading media reports that education in general sucks in our country. Why did president Clinton send Chelsea to a very expensive, private school? What was wrong with the public school in their district? [Chelsea Clinton - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Clinton) ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/65 "2013-10-29T01:37:31Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > This is just false. The vast majority of the stuff online will give you specific knowledge, but it will not give you a true education. Kinda like how WebMD can help you diagnose a particular medical problem, but it’s can’t make you a doctor. granted. but still, homeschoolers educate their kids at a very low cost. we scoff at the $10k per year that is spent on the typical public school kid. Anyone can find the material you need if you care. Take as an example these books by Hirsch. [Amazon.com: E. D. Hirsch: books, biography, latest update](http://www.amazon.com/E.D.-Hirsch-Jr./e/B000APILDS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1) > [@](#): > > Libraries have existed for a long time. Why have they not solved the problem if access is the only thing that matters? well libraries aren’t as accessible as a Kindle. but…the fact remains, that some people don’t want to be educated. I don’t know that anything can be done for such people. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/66 "2013-10-29T01:44:04Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > do you think our nation’s people are more educated now than in the day when we had no public education? do you think anyone in our country would even understand something like Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address? They wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Of course people are more educated now than before there was no public education. Are you even seriously trying to content that people (in general) are not? Some of the things mostly known by the greatest thinkers in the world in the 17th and 18th centuries are now taught routinely in high schools. There is really no way people in the 1800s are more educated than people now. If for no other reason that because public education is largely compulsory, you are required by law to essentially be more educated that you might have otherwise been. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/67 "2013-10-29T01:51:16Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > even under our current system, people can get educated for free. Any person with access to youtube has more education than he can possibly ever have time for. Any person with a kindle can have tons of great books. throw in a cheap mp3 player and iTunes and you have even more. Why do we think that without a public school, poor kids would go uneducated? the only person that goes uneducated is the person that chooses to go uneducated. and no public school is going to help the person who just doesn’t want to learn. That’s assuming that the family can even afford a computer and has internet access. Ever watch Youtube on dial up? Have your ever seen the absolute shit that passes for knowledge on Youtube? Every fucking moron can put up a video. A first grader is going to understand how to find what he needs to know? Who’s supposed to guide kids and make sure everyone gets an equal education? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/68 "2013-10-29T01:59:39Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > Why did president Clinton send Chelsea to a very expensive, private school? What was wrong with the public school in their district? [Chelsea Clinton - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Clinton) Probably for a variety of reasons. Not only because the DC schools at that time were pretty bad, but also because sending a notable student to a public school is is a logistical nightmare. > [@cornopean](#): > > granted. but still, homeschoolers educate their kids at a very low cost. No they don’t. You are not counting the opportunity costs of having to keep a parent home to instruct or supervise the child. Most people who could do a halfway decent job homeschooling there kid are giving up far more money working than what that student would cost the state. It might even out if you have a number of kids, but I would argue the quality and consistency of educational outcomes for homeschooled kids would as well. > [@cornopean](#): > > Anyone can find the material you need if you care. Take as an example these books by Hirsch. [Amazon.com: E. D. Hirsch: books, biography, latest update](http://www.amazon.com/E.D.-Hirsch-Jr./e/B000APILDS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1) Do you really think that book, or a collection of books, is a adequate substitute for a trained and educated teacher in a school environment? If so, given that books have existed for a long time, why hasn’t any successful nation shut down their schools and given their kids a library card? > [@cornopean](#): > > well libraries aren’t as accessible as a Kindle. but…the fact remains, that some people don’t want to be educated. I don’t know that anything can be done for such people. Most kids do not want to be educated. Or at least, they don’t want to be pushed past a certain point. That’s why school is compulsory. If you left it up to kids, very few would go consistently. Yes, some people can probably not be helped given the resources we have to address the issue, but those people are few and far between. And I would argue that libraries are far more accessible than a kindle given they are free, more utile, and generally pretty close to most of the people who would get the most use out of them. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/69 "2013-10-29T02:05:33Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > Why did president Clinton send Chelsea to a very expensive, private school? What was wrong with the public school in their district? [Chelsea Clinton - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Clinton) I’m a teacher, damn good I think and according to every measure. I once had a kid, wealthy parents, that was struggling in school. His mom asked me during a conference if she should consider sending him to a nearby private school, and I circumlocutedly told her that she should consider it. She did, and I saw her recently and asked how he was doing. “Great!” she said, and I was genuinely glad to hear it. But I had to ask. “How big is his class?” She grinned sheepishly. “There are two other kids in his class.” Wanna know why you’d send a kid to private school? That’s why. Also, your Youtube proposal? Best laugh of the night. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/70 "2013-10-29T02:24:41Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Umm, it is not simply a matter of “healthy” or “unhealthy.” Doctors don’t spend a decade in training to simply check off one or the other. > > Given the extreme complexity of modern medicine, I should think education were comparatively black-and-white. Poor test scores are poor test scores, no matter how far you try and apologize for them. My point is that health care is something that most people use relatively rarely, and their satisfaction is largely based on having access. The US has great healthcare, and the majority of people who are really grumpy are people who cannot access it. Education is something people consume on a daily basis for decades on end, and everyone has access and takes part in it. So people are going to be critical in a different way. It’s like saying 43% of people approve of Congress, and 67% of people approve of pizza, therefor we should run congress more like a pizza parlor. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/71 "2013-10-29T02:52:46Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > It’s like saying 43% of people approve of Congress, and 67% of people approve of pizza, therefor we should run congress more like a pizza parlor. It could only be an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/72 "2013-10-29T03:02:40Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > Check out this chart: > [A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words | International Liberty](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words/) > > Isn’t it clear that spending more money is not going to fix education? or perhaps better, isn’t it clear that spending more money has not fixed education? Could you explain what you mean by “fixed education”? The [US actually does pretty well relative to Western Europe and Asia](http://super-economy.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html). > [@](#): > > What I have learned recently and want to share with you is that once we correct (even crudely) for demography in the 2009 PISA scores, American students outperform Western Europe by significant margins and tie with Asian students… > > The mean score of Americans with European ancestry is 524, compared to 506 in Europe, when first and second generation immigrants are excluded. So much for the bigoted notions that Americans are dumb and Europeans are smart. This is also opposed to everything I have been taught about the American public school system. > > For Asian-American students (remember this includes Vietnam, Thailand and other less developed countries outside Northeast Asia), the mean PISA score is 534, same as 533 for the average of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Here we have two biases going in opposite directions: Asians in the U.S are selected. On the other hand we are comparing the richest and best scoring Asian countries with all Americans with origin in South and East Asia. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/73 "2013-10-29T12:33:23Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > do you think our nation’s people are more educated now than in the day when we had no public education? do you think anyone in our country would even understand something like Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address? They wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about. :eek: This post left me gobsmacked. Look, our impressions of “how life was” at various points in the past are based on what we’ve learned of history. The problem is that until relatively recently, the [Great Man Theory](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) was _the_ primary lens through which history was viewed. Of course it is important to study the “Great Men” (like the Founding Fathers, Presidents, war generals, and so on for the US) and to understand their actions and impact on the world around them. The problem is that this doesn’t give information of what life was like for everyone _else_, so our impressions of “how things were” are based on a few people but applied to everyone. It’s about as accurate as if someone in the 24th century based their view of “everyday American life in 2013” on the lives of Silicon Valley tech moguls, movie stars and Fortune 500 CEOs. Public schools have existed in the US since 1635 (Boston Latin School), but it was [another 217 years](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States) before Massachusetts became the first state to pass laws requiring compulsory education. And it wasn’t until 1918 that every state required the completion of _elementary school_. In the late 19th century, [roughly half of all 5- to 19-year-olds enrolled in school.](https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp) Just half. Even if you look at illiteracy rates, you need to know that how we define literacy has changed over the years. From the above link: > [@](#): > > Today, illiteracy is a different issue than in earlier years. The more recent focus on illiteracy has centered on functional literacy, which addresses the issue of whether a person’s educational level is sufficient to function in a modern society. The earlier surveys of illiteracy examined a very fundamental level of reading and writing. Functional illiteracy is a more rigorous standard to be held to. Those people you had in mind quite possibly may have been able to read, but the main purpose was [so they could read the Bible](http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/anthologies/school/SummaryAltick.htm). That’s not exactly a rigorous educational standard and is a standard that means that most of Jefferson’s contemporaries would not have “understood” his inaugural address, either. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/74 "2013-10-29T13:52:40Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > That is not the ONLY alternative, nor it is the most likely. The brightest students today are not being held back in the vast majority of cases because they are given everything they need to compete. Do you really think spending $5k less on Obama’s kids instead of some single mom’s kids would have a greater affect on them than there less fortunate peers. There is greatly diminishing returns at the very high end where resources are not particularly scarce. Just as giving a multi-millionaire $50k/year is not gonna dramatically change their life in the same way it would someone making $30k/year. Even if the allocation of public education funds is zero sum, the positive societal benefits are not. I am not talking about spending more on the smart kids. I am talking about separating high- from low-achieving students so the classes progress at an appropriate pace, rather than at the pace required for the slowest to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/75 "2013-10-29T18:54:27Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > In the late 19th century, [roughly half of all 5- to 19-year-olds enrolled in school.](https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp) Just half. Even if you look at illiteracy rates, you need to know that how we define literacy has changed over the years. From the above link: I strongly recommend that folks who criticize public schools look at this link. It only shows literacy results from 1870 to 1979, but when you make an apples-to-apples comparison of illiteracy rates, they went from 20% of the population in 1870 to 0.6% in 1979. I’m unable to find any estimates for actual illiteracy now (as contrasted with functional illiteracy) that are more precise than 1% of the US population over the age of 15 being illiterate. This is huge. Keep in mind that in 1979, they didn’t even have Youtube to be learning from. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/76 "2013-10-30T02:05:46Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > Check out this chart: > [A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words | International Liberty](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words/) > > Isn’t it clear that spending more money is not going to fix education? or perhaps better, isn’t it clear that spending more money has not fixed education? Where do you think the extra money has been going? Teachers certainly aren’t making that much more on an inflation adjusted basis. There was a time when the special needs kids all got home schooled and the problem kids all got expelled and stayed expelled. Maybe we’re being too soft and we should just tell the parents with autistic kids that its not our problem and that you have to move if your kid gets expelled. > [@DrCube](#): > > If you want to increase educational success, reduce poverty. This would also have the effect of reducing crime, disease, depression, obesity, malnutrition, drug use, gang violence, discrimination, teenage pregnancy and… poverty. Win-win, really. Immigrants are traditionally poor. If you exclude hispanic immigrants, immigrants do better than average. > [@](#): > > Has anybody tried, instead of inflating dead-weight administrators salaries, paying students to go to school, or their parents to take them? Yes, DC gave bounties for attendance and not getting into trouble and classroom performance improved measurably. NYC tried the same thing except they rewarded grades and there was no marked improvement. Turns out that rewarding attendance and good behaviour yields the best results. [http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-08-22/news/36894752\_1\_school-students-middle-schools-rhee](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-08-22/news/36894752_1_school-students-middle-schools-rhee) [http://www.kulturekritic.com/2012/07/news/easy-money-d-c-pays-students-5-25hr-for-attending-summer-school/](http://www.kulturekritic.com/2012/07/news/easy-money-d-c-pays-students-5-25hr-for-attending-summer-school/) This along with charter schools looked like it was going to turn the DC school system around then the same folks who elected Marion Barry AFTER he was caught on tape smoking crack decided they didn’t want those sort of reorms to their school system and voted the mayor out of office. > [@cornopean](#): > > My position is that there should be as complete a separation between school and state as we have between church and state. People should buy education just like we buy everything else. Wow!!! The market is pretty good at allocating good and services but education and health care are generally not best distributed based on ability to pay. > [@even\_sven](#): > > There are plenty of countries that have no, or extremely limited, public education. > > These countries don’t tend to be economic powerhouses. Education is strongly tied to improved health, as well as improved economic output. Anything that limits access to education is going to have a strong negative impact on a nation. I’m not sure this is more important than ideological purity to some people. > [@Stringbean](#): > > Yes, I mean healthcare. > > Polls taken during the ACA debate showed 70+% of Americans were satisfied with their healthcare. > > Do you suppose equivalent polls about our education system would yield similar results? I don’t think you would get 70% of Americans decide they would want to get rid of the public school system either. They want to improve the public school system not get rid of it. The same will be true of Obamacare. People will complain about it because they want to improve it not get rid of it. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/77 "2013-10-30T02:48:30Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > do you think our nation’s people are more educated now than in the day when we had no public education? do you think anyone in our country would even understand something like Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address? They wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Our nations children ARE more educated. Even the (terrible) education we can get from media and cartoons puts us heads and shoulders above what schooling was like pre-1950. After all of the vets came back from WW2 and start popping children was when putting children in school really took off. Before then, education was primarily a large city affair. But a lot of our service men came back with a healthy respect for information, which turned into a healthy respect for education. That put more students than ever into school seats. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I am not talking about spending more on the smart kids. I am talking about separating high- from low-achieving students so the classes progress at an appropriate pace, rather than at the pace required for the slowest to keep up. A lot of schools do that to some extent. In a classroom of multiple skill tiers, they’ll break out the tiers and let each level work on their own on the same assignment. They’ll also break up those tiers during certain projects to allow the slower kids to work with the better performers. (Apparently, schoolastic aptitude is transmitted via osmosis.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320.md?page=3)