Do we need more money in K-12 schools? DeBoer says no.

[BradStevens]

Elite Education Journalism: Still Ideology at Its Purest

you don't get to write about education in fancy places unless you tow the line

freddiedeboer.substack.com

This is all bound up in conventional wisdom that was developed decades ago and is now well out of date. For example, that we’ve somehow “defunded” K-12 education. Just flatly wrong, and yet I hear it all the time.





On the scale of a decade and expressed in dollars, or on the scale of three-quarters of a century and expressed as a percentage of GDP, we’ve spent more and more and more on education. No miracles in academic performance. You want funds earmarked for poor kids specifically? Here you go, here’s Title I spending:



But the money gets concentrated in the wealthiest schools, right? No, it does not. The opposite is true. Poorer and Blacker schools get more public funding than richer and whiter, for the obvious reason that we’ve been throwing money at the achievement gap for ages. This is a consistent finding and can’t be ignored. For the micro, let’s take a look at some schools in Brooklyn, a borough in the highest-spending state and the site of a great deal of racial and economic diversity.

 

[UncleMark]

Who cares what the Alabama football coach thinks?

 

[BadWakeboarder]

Elite Education Journalism: Still Ideology at Its Purest

you don't get to write about education in fancy places unless you tow the line

freddiedeboer.substack.com

This is all bound up in conventional wisdom that was developed decades ago and is now well out of date. For example, that we’ve somehow “defunded” K-12 education. Just flatly wrong, and yet I hear it all the time.



On the scale of a decade and expressed in dollars, or on the scale of three-quarters of a century and expressed as a percentage of GDP, we’ve spent more and more and more on education. No miracles in academic performance. You want funds earmarked for poor kids specifically? Here you go, here’s Title I spending:


But the money gets concentrated in the wealthiest schools, right? No, it does not. The opposite is true. Poorer and Blacker schools get more public funding than richer and whiter, for the obvious reason that we’ve been throwing money at the achievement gap for ages. This is a consistent finding and can’t be ignored. For the micro, let’s take a look at some schools in Brooklyn, a borough in the highest-spending state and the site of a great deal of racial and economic diversity.

Only the most foolish of the fools believes that spending and money is what drives underperformance and poor outcomes in poor, urban communities.

 

[UncleMark]

Elite Education Journalism: Still Ideology at Its Purest

you don't get to write about education in fancy places unless you tow the line

freddiedeboer.substack.com

This is all bound up in conventional wisdom that was developed decades ago and is now well out of date. For example, that we’ve somehow “defunded” K-12 education. Just flatly wrong, and yet I hear it all the time.





On the scale of a decade and expressed in dollars, or on the scale of three-quarters of a century and expressed as a percentage of GDP, we’ve spent more and more and more on education. No miracles in academic performance. You want funds earmarked for poor kids specifically? Here you go, here’s Title I spending:



But the money gets concentrated in the wealthiest schools, right? No, it does not. The opposite is true. Poorer and Blacker schools get more public funding than richer and whiter, for the obvious reason that we’ve been throwing money at the achievement gap for ages. This is a consistent finding and can’t be ignored. For the micro, let’s take a look at some schools in Brooklyn, a borough in the highest-spending state and the site of a great deal of racial and economic diversity.

Tow the line? And this guy wants to talk about education?

 

[BradStevens]

Toe the line? And this guy wants to talk about education?

No, he wants to write about it.

 

[BradStevens]

Tow the line? And this guy wants to talk about education?

I thought you’d like his last paragraph:

What would I do if I was king? Gather population-level data using stratified samples, so that we never have kids or teachers laboring under tons of testing. Stop trying to move students around dramatically in the performance spectrum because we have no reason to believe we can achieve such a thing. Reorient schooling towards making childhood safe, nurturing, and stimulating for all, giving everyone a chance to learn what they like and what they’re good at so they know what to pursue professionally. Of course, some will fail in their professions regardless, which is why the real goal is to build a humane and just society. If you really care about kids who struggle at school, you’ll stop trying to shove their square pegs into round holes and instead invest in a robust public sector that will protect them from poverty and need, no matter how they perform in school. You can read all about it.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Only the most foolish of the fools believes that spending and money is what drives underperformance and poor outcomes in poor, urban communities.

The problem is addressing those other issues doesn't seem possible. I don't know how to make parents give a damn and care about their child's education. I am convinced that is the root of the problem.

Indianapolis has the 10 Point Coalition trying to reduce youth violence. I hear news stories of them urging parents not to let their children run amock in downtown Indy after dark. The same parents allowing that type of act aren't likely to be encouraging education in any way.

Even with more pay, I suspect teachers aren't quitting high-performing schools and moving to the poorer schools. And that even assumes those teachers are better than others, my suspicion is they are not they just happen to have better-prepared students. I don't know how to get really good teachers to want to go to these schools. I'm not even sure they can turn around kids from a questionable home life.

 

[BradStevens]

The problem is addressing those other issues doesn't seem possible. I don't know how to make parents give a damn and care about their child's education. I am convinced that is the root of the problem.

Indianapolis has the 10 Point Coalition trying to reduce youth violence. I hear news stories of them urging parents not to let their children run amock in downtown Indy after dark. The same parents allowing that type of act aren't likely to be encouraging education in any way.

Even with more pay, I suspect teachers aren't quitting high-performing schools and moving to the poorer schools. And that even assumes those teachers are better than others, my suspicion is they are not they just happen to have better-prepared students. I don't know how to get really good teachers to want to go to these schools. I'm not even sure they can turn around kids from a questionable home life.

DeBoer's point, then, I think would be to stop wasting money, time, effort, and political capital on an unachievable outcome and intead focus on making a "humane" society that gives those people honorable lives outside of poverty.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

DeBoer's point, then, I think would be to stop wasting money, time, effort, and political capital on an unachievable outcome and intead focus on making a "humane" society that gives those people honorable lives outside of poverty.

Good luck getting UBI passed. Because what you just typed spells UBI.

Honestly, writing laws to take children easier sounds like an answer but. We know large orphanages don't work. So unless we had more people willing to adopt, I don't see how that works.

 

[BradStevens]

Good look getting UBI passed. Because what you just typed spells UBI.

Honestly, writing laws to take children easier sounds like an answer but. We know large orphanages don't work. So unless we had more people willing to adopt, I don't see how that works.

These are big problems with no easy fix. I admit that. But I think they're still worth examining. Maybe by examining them and thinking about them, we change some hearts and minds? Or provide a deeper understanding of what is going on in the world and what needs to be focused on rather than the political crap of the day.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

These are big problems with no easy fix. I admit that. But I think they're still worth examining. Maybe by examining them and thinking about them, we change some hearts and minds? Or provide a deeper understanding of what is going on in the world and what needs to be focused on rather than the political crap of the day.

I agree, any political conversation that does not contain one of two names is well worth having. Anyone mentioning either will need to face the largest kangaroo court fine in history.

The other option is to tie parent's financial fortunes to education somehow. For example, if school Y raises its overall test scores from 30th percentile to 75th percentile, families will receive $2000. Tie it to the entire school so there is peer pressure on everyone. Basically UBI for achievement.

 

[BradStevens]

I agree, any political conversation that does not contain one of two names is well worth having. Anyone mentioning either will need to face the largest kangaroo court fine in history.

The other option is to tie parent's financial fortunes to education somehow. For example, if school Y raises its overall test scores from 30th percentile to 75th percentile, families will receive $2000. Tie it to the entire school so there is peer pressure on everyone. Basically UBI for achievement.

DeBoer's point is that isn't possible. Or, it is possible, but you'd just be rearranging the deck chairs and creating incentives for some schools to poach talent.

People's abilities of all types, including IQ, generally are distributed on a bell curve (I'm not arguing the book titled that). And yes, IQ plays into standardized test scores of all types, which is what we use to judge educational outcomes.

 

[mcmurtry66]

I agree, any political conversation that does not contain one of two names is well worth having. Anyone mentioning either will need to face the largest kangaroo court fine in history.

The other option is to tie parent's financial fortunes to education somehow. For example, if school Y raises its overall test scores from 30th percentile to 75th percentile, families will receive $2000. Tie it to the entire school so there is peer pressure on everyone. Basically UBI for achievement.

You’d get the academic version of the portal

 

[mcmurtry66]

Good luck getting UBI passed. Because what you just typed spells UBI.

Honestly, writing laws to take children easier sounds like an answer but. We know large orphanages don't work. So unless we had more people willing to adopt, I don't see how that works.

I think UBI is sort of it. all of us with kids know what makes for a good school. It’s not a mystery. Good leadership, good teachers, good curriculum, parent involvement, commubity involvement, support services. High poverty areas struggle to get good leaders and good teachers bc who wants to work in a dangerous shitty area. They’d rather teach, lead in a nice community with nice houses with property taxes to fund school initiatives where parents hold strawberry festivals for the school.

Parental involvement? Dad is Mia and mom is working three jobs. She ain’t got time for bake sales and school meetings. Community involvement? The community is trying to survive.

So it’s always money. Not money directly spent on the school but money that provides the luxury to support a school and a student and a community

 

[IUCrazy2]

I thought you’d like his last paragraph:

What would I do if I was king? Gather population-level data using stratified samples, so that we never have kids or teachers laboring under tons of testing. Stop trying to move students around dramatically in the performance spectrum because we have no reason to believe we can achieve such a thing. Reorient schooling towards making childhood safe, nurturing, and stimulating for all, giving everyone a chance to learn what they like and what they’re good at so they know what to pursue professionally. Of course, some will fail in their professions regardless, which is why the real goal is to build a humane and just society. If you really care about kids who struggle at school, you’ll stop trying to shove their square pegs into round holes and instead invest in a robust public sector that will protect them from poverty and need, no matter how they perform in school. You can read all about it.

That sounds like a bad feedback loop to me. Frankly, I believe that the reasons for the breakdown are mostly a function of American society and culture being broken. That impacts poor communities most harshly and therefore you see the worst outcomes there. I don't think expanding the social safety net while letting people just "learn what they want" is the answer. The complaint would be that we have already given people the latitude to make stupid decisions and those stupid decisions end up becoming generational anchors as the bad behavior is passed from one to the next.

If we are going to throw money at people, we should be doing it to people who make good decisions. Married individuals should get tax breaks. "You can't live on X salary....." Well you got a much better chance with an economic partner. Expand child tax credits. Make childcare more affordable. Public education existed to build productive members of society. I know we talk about the value of it for an individual, and that is true, but from a public policy standpoint, the point of paying all that money to educate kids for "free" is so that they are ingrained in the culture and, probably more importantly, they are equipped to enter the workforce and be productive.

I guess I think you have to instill in people that it matters. I don't see how providing so large a net that able bodied and minded individuals can just coast through life (on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder) is good policy. You get what you incentivize. Start making life a little easier for the people doing what they are supposed to do. Then it becomes something that others will strive for to obtain those same benefits.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

DeBoer's point is that isn't possible. Or, it is possible, but you'd just be rearranging the deck chairs and creating incentives for some schools to poach talent.

People's abilities of all types, including IQ, generally are distributed on a bell curve (I'm not arguing the book titled that). And yes, IQ plays into standardized test scores of all types, which is what we use to judge educational outcomes.

The thing is, IQ isn't a great predictor of much of anything. Yes, we need a system that allows people to play to their strengths. I don't know that everyone needs to have enlightened conversations on 19th-century whaling. So paths that are far more vocational should be available. But even if whaling isn't important, being able to read/write/converse is. We don't all need calculus, but good general math skills are important. And in many vocational trades, things like calculating area becomes even more important.

I am not a fan of standardized tests, but if we have them we need people to meet them. I haven't seen one in a while but I doubt they ask for a treatise on the value of whaling in the 1800s. The tests I recall were far more toward basic skills we think people should have. For whatever minor role IQ plays, I'm not sure how far down one would have to be to not possibly make it.

IQ reminds me of athletic ability. There is a base one needs. No one is getting to play MLB running 6 seconds to first. But Billy Beane proved that being the most athletic didn't guarantee success.

 

[mcmurtry66]

The thing is, IQ isn't a great predictor of much of anything. Yes, we need a system that allows people to play to their strengths. I don't know that everyone needs to have enlightened conversations on 19th-century whaling. So paths that are far more vocational should be available. But even if whaling isn't important, being able to read/write/converse is. We don't all need calculus, but good general math skills are important. And in many vocational trades, things like calculating area becomes even more important.

I am not a fan of standardized tests, but if we have them we need people to meet them. I haven't seen one in a while but I doubt they ask for a treatise on the value of whaling in the 1800s. The tests I recall were far more toward basic skills we think people should have. For whatever minor role IQ plays, I'm not sure how far down one would have to be to not possibly make it.

IQ reminds me of athletic ability. There is a base one needs. No one is getting to play MLB running 6 seconds to first. But Billy Beane proved that being the most athletic didn't guarantee success.

Boy that last paragraph. I was arguably the most technical player in the country at one point. But born slower than molasses did me in. You can’t buy speed. Gut punch. Not to get even farther off track but standardized tests are a pickle. On hand they claim to disadvantage minorities etc but on the other they are really the only equitable objective way to prevent pure favoritism. I hope we never get rid of them as they are the only apples to apples thing we have. My way back ex grew up in the city and her brother went to mit for his Ph.d. In nuclear physics. Actually did a post doc at iu. Those tests were how he elevated his standing. Straight As at his schools would not have been enough

 

[BradStevens]

That sounds like a bad feedback loop to me. Frankly, I believe that the reasons for the breakdown are mostly a function of American society and culture being broken. That impacts poor communities most harshly and therefore you see the worst outcomes there. I don't think expanding the social safety net while letting people just "learn what they want" is the answer. The complaint would be that we have already given people the latitude to make stupid decisions and those stupid decisions end up becoming generational anchors as the bad behavior is passed from one to the next.

If we are going to throw money at people, we should be doing it to people who make good decisions. Married individuals should get tax breaks. "You can't live on X salary....." Well you got a much better chance with an economic partner. Expand child tax credits. Make childcare more affordable. Public education existed to build productive members of society. I know we talk about the value of it for an individual, and that is true, but from a public policy standpoint, the point of paying all that money to educate kids for "free" is so that they are ingrained in the culture and, probably more importantly, they are equipped to enter the workforce and be productive.

I guess I think you have to instill in people that it matters. I don't see how providing so large a net that able bodied and minded individuals can just coast through life (on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder) is good policy. You get what you incentivize. Start making life a little easier for the people doing what they are supposed to do. Then it becomes something that others will strive for to obtain those same benefits.

I'm all for using incentives, too. In fact, I think we have to.

But a crucial factor here, I think, is this: people don't decide or choose to be low IQ. They can't control it as much as we think they can, and we as a society can't change it as much as we think we can. And I know people are going to push back with anecdotes, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that, on average, low IQ people make worse decisions than high or average IQ people. And I think our policy and choices about how to improve lives overall needs to take that fact of nature into account.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

. I don't know how to make parents give a damn and care about their child's education. I am convinced that is the root of the problem.

It’s a doom loop. The crappy parents are a product of a crappy education system. You can’t change the finished product. Best we can do is build better product. The solution is a generation away if we start now.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Elite Education Journalism: Still Ideology at Its Purest

you don't get to write about education in fancy places unless you tow the line

freddiedeboer.substack.com

This is all bound up in conventional wisdom that was developed decades ago and is now well out of date. For example, that we’ve somehow “defunded” K-12 education. Just flatly wrong, and yet I hear it all the time.



On the scale of a decade and expressed in dollars, or on the scale of three-quarters of a century and expressed as a percentage of GDP, we’ve spent more and more and more on education. No miracles in academic performance. You want funds earmarked for poor kids specifically? Here you go, here’s Title I spending:


But the money gets concentrated in the wealthiest schools, right? No, it does not. The opposite is true. Poorer and Blacker schools get more public funding than richer and whiter, for the obvious reason that we’ve been throwing money at the achievement gap for ages. This is a consistent finding and can’t be ignored. For the micro, let’s take a look at some schools in Brooklyn, a borough in the highest-spending state and the site of a great deal of racial and economic diversity.

Mississippi figured it out. Here is what the governor who spearheaded the improvement said about it.

Mississippi Celebrates Major Educational Victory | RealClearEducation

Its rare to see a comeback story as strong as that of Mississippi students. According to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, Mississippi fourth-graders, when adjusted for...

www.realcleareducation.com

Of course there are skeptics in Big Education establishment, but even it notes the progress.

Was there a “Mississippi miracle” behind its soaring reading scores?

Third grade retention and other early literacy efforts have been credited for dramatically improving Mississippi’s fourth grade reading scores. They appear to be part of the explanation — but not all of it. That holds a cautionary tale for other states.

www.chalkbeat.org

 

[mcmurtry66]

I'm all for using incentives, too. In fact, I think we have to.

But a crucial factor here, I think, is this: people don't decide or choose to be low IQ. They can't control it as much as we think they can, and we as a society can't change it as much as we think we can. And I know people are going to push back with anecdotes, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that, on average, low IQ people make worse decisions than high or average IQ people. And I think our policy and choices about how to improve lives overall needs to take that fact of nature into account.

 

[BradStevens]

Mississippi figured it out. Here is what the governor who spearheaded the improvement said about it.

Mississippi Celebrates Major Educational Victory | RealClearEducation

Its rare to see a comeback story as strong as that of Mississippi students. According to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, Mississippi fourth-graders, when adjusted for...

www.realcleareducation.com

Of course there are skeptics in Big Education establishment, but even it notes the progress.

Was there a “Mississippi miracle” behind its soaring reading scores?

Third grade retention and other early literacy efforts have been credited for dramatically improving Mississippi’s fourth grade reading scores. They appear to be part of the explanation — but not all of it. That holds a cautionary tale for other states.

www.chalkbeat.org

No one has "figured it out."

 

[BadWakeboarder]

The problem is addressing those other issues doesn't seem possible. I don't know how to make parents give a damn and care about their child's education. I am convinced that is the root of the problem.

Indianapolis has the 10 Point Coalition trying to reduce youth violence. I hear news stories of them urging parents not to let their children run amock in downtown Indy after dark. The same parents allowing that type of act aren't likely to be encouraging education in any way.

Even with more pay, I suspect teachers aren't quitting high-performing schools and moving to the poorer schools. And that even assumes those teachers are better than others, my suspicion is they are not they just happen to have better-prepared students. I don't know how to get really good teachers to want to go to these schools. I'm not even sure they can turn around kids from a questionable home life.

Why is it your or my job/responsibility to make those parents give a damn?

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Why is it your or my job/responsibility to make those parents give a damn?

Because it is far cheaper to do that than lock the kids in prison for 50 years.

 

[BadWakeboarder]

Because it is far cheaper to do that than lock the kids in prison for 50 years.

Cheaper? Who is paying? You’ve shown that spending doesn’t yield positive outcomes. What can I do?

 

[BradStevens]

Cheaper? Who is paying? You’ve shown that spending doesn’t yield positive outcomes. What can I do?

You personally? Parent you kids well? Help out with others you know? Call CPS when a kid is being abused? I don't know. I don't think that's the question.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Cheaper? Who is paying? You’ve shown that spending doesn’t yield positive outcomes. What can I do?

Brad's link suggests what we ARE doing is not working. You seem to be inferring that means NOTHING will work. I am suggesting we look for plan B, plan C, plan D. Plan A, spending more per pupil directly on schools hasn't yielded results. That doesn't mean that similar money spent differently cannot achieve success.

 

[BadWakeboarder]

Brad's link suggests what we ARE doing is not working. You seem to be inferring that means NOTHING will work. I am suggesting we look for plan B, plan C, plan D. Plan A, spending more per pupil directly on schools hasn't yielded results. That doesn't mean that similar money spent differently cannot achieve success.

I agree. But every other liberal on here and other discussion platforms is convinced it’s a money thing. It’s 100% not a money thing and everyone who has been subsidizing this charade should get a full refund.

 

[BradStevens]

I agree. But every other liberal on here and other discussion platforms is convinced it’s a money thing. It’s 100% not a money thing and everyone who has been subsidizing this charade should get a full refund.

Well that’s not happening.