Comment "Government Schools" Can't Be Reformed (Score 1) 446
The fundamental problem with bad teachers isn't the administrators, the unions, or a lack of money.
The real problem is that the vast majority of people on the West wouldn't dream of letting politicians get away with setting up state-run newspapers with compulsory subscription laws, but have no problem handing their own kids over to centrally-controlled schools that have the same perverse incentive structure behind them that state-run newspapers do. A podcast that I listen to called School Sucks lays it all out: influence over young minds through a state-run school system is an absolute pre-requisite for a large and powerful government bureaucracy.
That's the incentive reformers will be forever beating their heads against. Government schools have not evolved over the last 150 years to encourage good teaching methods and reward good teachers - they've evolved to encourage dependency on government services.
As long as you - as a parent - are handing your kids over to them, there's no force on earth that's going to reform those schools. You need to look elsewhere for learning opportunities that will help your kids thrive in the 21st century, because they're not going to get them there. Exciting technologies are evolving that promise to help kids and adults alike learn cutting-edge job skills and life skills, (and I happen to be working on one) but they're not going to be developed by the establishment.
The real problem is that the vast majority of people on the West wouldn't dream of letting politicians get away with setting up state-run newspapers with compulsory subscription laws, but have no problem handing their own kids over to centrally-controlled schools that have the same perverse incentive structure behind them that state-run newspapers do. A podcast that I listen to called School Sucks lays it all out: influence over young minds through a state-run school system is an absolute pre-requisite for a large and powerful government bureaucracy.
That's the incentive reformers will be forever beating their heads against. Government schools have not evolved over the last 150 years to encourage good teaching methods and reward good teachers - they've evolved to encourage dependency on government services.
As long as you - as a parent - are handing your kids over to them, there's no force on earth that's going to reform those schools. You need to look elsewhere for learning opportunities that will help your kids thrive in the 21st century, because they're not going to get them there. Exciting technologies are evolving that promise to help kids and adults alike learn cutting-edge job skills and life skills, (and I happen to be working on one) but they're not going to be developed by the establishment.
