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  #51  
Old 10-07-2007, 11:58 AM
RedRover RedRover is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

Boro-


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Getting that C- consistently really took a toll on him, he couldn’t understand what was going on. He really knows his stuff and always scored well on tests

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I realize this isn't your site, but wtf? Shouldn't this kid be able to figure out why he's getting a C-? The teacher is obviously handing back his notebook with a F on it or whatever and the kid has to know that the notebook is worth so much of his grade.
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  #52  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:30 PM
luckyme luckyme is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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Boro-

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Getting that C- consistently really took a toll on him, he couldn’t understand what was going on. He really knows his stuff and always scored well on tests

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I realize this isn't your site, but wtf? Shouldn't this kid be able to figure out why he's getting a C-? The teacher is obviously handing back his notebook with a F on it or whatever and the kid has to know that the notebook is worth so much of his grade.

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As an honor student that missed a lot of classes, I may have shown up if they docked enough marks, perhaps even sober. ( I didn't have that decision, whewww).
Since the kid was learning science apparently, why didn't the dad show him the secret of good marks. He's going to end up with a kid that knows science but keeps terrible notebooks, he had that to start with. There's got to be more to the story.

luckyme
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  #53  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:44 PM
ALawPoker ALawPoker is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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Uh... His point is that any sub shops that DO survive must have some advantage over the free ones. Not that the free ones make the for-pay sub shops better magically somehow.

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My point is that the market as a whole would be stronger if the free government shop was not there. The sub shops that DO survive (if there are any) do so DESPITE the enormous artificial competitive barrier, and would be better still if the artificial free sub shop did not exist.

If you agree that magic should not enter the equation, why exactly will private sub shops perform better now? They just weren't trying before?

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Jam's point, though, is that the best private schools should already exist and getting rid of the public school system will just create a bunch of mediocre private schools.

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And Jam's "point" is as poorly thought out as your defense of it. The best private schools "should" already exist in maybe the figments of your own confusion. But in reality, the best private schools do not already exist, because they face so many artificial barriers. Fair competition is the solution, not the problem.


I foresaw people maybe quibbling with the merits of my sub/school analogy, but not actually taking the stance that the private sub market will be improved when you introduce an artificial barrier. Wow.
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  #54  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:48 PM
Rduke55 Rduke55 is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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In any case a system that allows people willing and able to arrange notepads to do better then people understand the subject far better is aweful for science education and a disaster because it fills the world with people who value presentation over content.

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But as Andy has said, this is also the case in some private schools. This is an individual teacher and student here.
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  #55  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:55 PM
Nielsio Nielsio is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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I've sent my kids to both public and private schools and the private schools are much more sticklers for organization and base their grades much less on knowledge of the subject than on other issues.

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I'd say the "private" school market is a sliver of what it would be if the government were entirely out of the way. The obvious explanation for what you observe is that the private schools are generally tied towards religious groups today.

In a truly free market with less barriers to entry, other people would be able to provide the service.

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But surely according to the theory of comparative advantage, if someone is providing free education then the surviving schools that charge should be much better than the average in a free market?

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So you think that restricting and outlawing competition makes for better competition?

You think that black market drug trade makes for a (much) better product than said product in a free market system?

You believe that theft, extortion and others forms of violence can create something good?
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  #56  
Old 10-07-2007, 01:03 PM
Rduke55 Rduke55 is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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Maybe because Phil made it pretty clear he was more interested in petty trolling than actual debate?

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In this thread?

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I really don't understand why he gets all bent out of shape even if this WAS meant to be an AC thread (which, I don't think it necessarily was, especially when you consider that Boro is a man of science and could easily have been motivated by only that). Is being an ACist not allowed? Since the state in some way will affect basically everything we could talk about, I guess Phil would rather Boro just not start threads, since they *could* all be construed as an "AC thread in disguise" whenever someone asked him a question that begged that answer.

If in one of Phil's threads someone asked him a question that he answered with something to the effect of "public school is good," would Boro or any free market fans bash him for making the thread? "ZOMG this is a state thread in disguise!!1!!!1!" No way. And it's not because we're necessarily any more polite than Phil. It's just that when you're confident in your message you don't really feel the need to resort to nonsense to attack other messengers.

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My problem is that I'm seeing more of threads that go something like what we see here.

OP: -Link- "Blah blah blah"

Responder: What about -link- "Blah blah blah?"

OP: Stop trolling me.

Responder: I'm not trolling you. I'll say again what about this point?

OP: You're a troll.

etc. etc. etc.

And nothing gets discussed - which is the point of this forum.

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If you had to deal with this guy doing this to all of your threads, you'd probably ignore him too, even if he found a nut every once in a while. I don't get why you, especially as a moderator, would defend Phil here.

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Phil and I have had some battles before. I briefly considered ignoring him but got past it, quit with the insults, and started debating his points and I think it worked itself out.

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You accuse Boro of "reverse-trolling".... shouldn't you be more worried about the person doing the "-trolling"?

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Again, I didn't see much in the way of trolling here by Phil. It seems like Borodog has been doing this lately: makes a declaration, people try to debate with him, he responds with the "Market is better than anything.", "You haven't read what I've read", or "you're a troll" instead of discussing the issue at hand.

There is a ton of stuff on public vs. private schooling. Instead of talking about the studies, flaws, etc. we get nothing done.

I asked whether or not these problems could be fixable because he did just give an anecdote about one individual teacher and student. He gave a stock answer, Phil brought up a study disagreeing with Borodog's point and then the T-word started getting tossed out.

Borodog also said that I "really didn't want to hear the answer" which seems kind of odd. Maybe I'm a troll too I guess.

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If you want to layout what exactly you'd like an answer to though, I'm sure someone will address it.

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I don't necessarily care about an answer, I just want to see some actual discussion.

Also, straight AC threads go in politics. Debating public vs. private education stays here.
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  #57  
Old 10-07-2007, 01:27 PM
Phil153 Phil153 is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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If you had to deal with this guy doing this to all of your threads, you'd probably ignore him too, even if he found a nut every once in a while.

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I just have to point out that this is untrue. Look at his last 100 posts and several OPs (or any time before that) and see how many times I've responded to him...none apart from this thread. I respond to maybe 1 in 10 of his OPs (mostly when he posts thinly disguised AC rants in SMP that are contradicted by evidence) and virtually none of his posts. There is no pattern of trolling at all like you suggest.

As for the person who said the article is light on data - it references this report, which is one of the most comprehensive reports ever done on public vs private schooling:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard...es/2006461.asp

Some highlights:

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In the first set of analyses, all private schools were compared to all public schools. The average private school mean reading score was 14.7 points higher than the average public school mean reading score, corresponding to an effect size of .41 (the ratio of the absolute value of the estimated difference to the standard deviation of the NAEP fourth-grade reading score distribution). After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was near zero and not significant.

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14.7 points difference on a 500 point scale...and this includes the subset of the wealthy, who do better in in school

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In the first set of analyses, all private schools were again compared to all public schools. The average private school mean mathematics score was 7.8 points higher than the average public school mean mathematics score, corresponding to an effect size of .29. After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was -4.5 and significantly different from zero. (Note that a negative difference implies that the average school mean was higher for public schools.)

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7.8 points on a 300 to 500 point scale (depends on the grade - not sure of the details).

This is including the fact that the elite private schools attract the best teachers available, and many are academically selective - which means they're already skewed toward picking up the most capable students already. Even if there was no effect from private school education, private schools should significantly outperform public schools...yet they don't.

Why are private schools failing as badly as public schools? Surely competition from the significant middle-upper class in the US is sufficient to provide market driven improvements in school quality and outcomes? BTW, private schools make up roughly 10% of the nation's schools. In other countries, this volume of kids would provide half or more the nation's education needs. Are you saying that this is insufficient to work? That the wealthy and those who care about their kids enough to pay for private school, are unable to choose the best one in their area and petition for improvements? It's a bizarre position that you guys have on this point.

One other point - the US trails significantly behind the Western world in terms of student proficiency - near the bottom, in fact. Yet they have one of the most decentralized educational systems in the Western world, and similar private school percentages to other countries who outperform them. So why are they failing?

RDuke asks above: Do you think this is fixable? Well, clearly it is, as other public school systems outperform both the public and private schooling system of the US.

So, you can keep posting "statist clown" pictures if you want, and blindly asserting your AC mantras, but the silence of you guys regarding the actual evidence is deafening....
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  #58  
Old 10-07-2007, 01:30 PM
Metric Metric is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Science

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"there are a huge number of people . . . unable to recognize that it is the structure of the system itself that is ultimately destructive to genuine understanding and creativity."

Include me among those people. Please, then, explain why. I'm not being snide here, I truly want to hear the argument. The article cited by Borodog was about a particular teacher who is a stickler for organization. I've known many teachers--both my own and those who taught my kids, and noth in public and private schools--who were the same way and were wonderful teachers.

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The idea that the federal government should be standardizing curriculum (ID or no ID, sex ed or no sex ed, etc. etc. etc.) is a symptom of the problem, not the solution. Nationwide standardization by definition means that you're going to have to play to the lowest common denominator -- students who are just barely aware of the existence of certain ideas in science by the time of their graduation.

My pre-college years in the school system can best be described as "a colossal waste of time." I remember getting excited in the 2nd grade (after looking ahead in the science book) that we were finally going to learn about atoms, and then being utterly dismayed at discovering over the next nine years that nobody in my school had the slightest clue (beyond the utterly trivial) what scientists actually thought about atoms, or why. It was highschool chemistry before I learned the words "quantum mechanics," and a whole new set of questions could be dismissed with a wave of the hand in favor of emphasis on memorizing the names and correct spelling of the elements (which naturally bored me to death and earned my parents the standard "if only your son would apply himself" speech, as well as recommendations against my requests to take advanced math classes).

This kind of thing is bound to happen when the same people who are worried about "falling graduation rates" in their district and the future of their funding are managing a one-size-fits-all science curriculum.

There is no way in hell that I'm going to let any children of mine be victimized in this way.
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  #59  
Old 10-07-2007, 01:53 PM
Rduke55 Rduke55 is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

Hopefully the thread is getting back on track.

What I was starting to get at with the "fix" question (I wasn't being a socratic ass or anything - I just wasn't sure of what I was trying to say) was that I think the problem is that with educating a crapload of students it's difficult to measure the quality of the education. Many people talk about the No Child Left Behind Act as the main villain here and I think that idea definitely has merit but the problem goes past that.

In this case public schools need to meet some benchmark for continued funding. Meeting that benchmark results in a kind of "training for the test" education that is certainly not optimal. But I think that this is also inherent to any large educational system, for public it's competing for tax dollars, for private it's competing for students.

How do we assess the quality of education? The fixable solutions I'm wondering about is whether or not there are problems with the tests themselves (can the tests be fixed) or with the idea of testing itself - should we use some other metric to grade education? If so, what should it be?
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  #60  
Old 10-07-2007, 01:57 PM
Rduke55 Rduke55 is offline
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Default Re: Science Education in America: Why I\'m Homeschooling My Kid in Scie

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My pre-college years in the school system can best be described as "a colossal waste of time." I remember getting excited in the 2nd grade (after looking ahead in the science book) that we were finally going to learn about atoms, and then being utterly dismayed at discovering over the next nine years that nobody in my school had the slightest clue (beyond the utterly trivial) what scientists actually thought about atoms, or why. It was highschool chemistry before I learned the words "quantum mechanics," and a whole new set of questions could be dismissed with a wave of the hand in favor of emphasis on memorizing the names and correct spelling of the elements (which naturally bored me to death and earned my parents the standard "if only your son would apply himself" speech, as well as recommendations against my requests to take advanced math classes).

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But do you think you were not the typical student? How many pre-high schoolers would you say could really understand the kinds of things you are talking about?

And I'm not disagreeing with you that there are problems with the mentality you are talking about. I'm wondering how to fix that. And please no general "free market will take care of it answers", I think there will be a similar problem there in measuring quality of education and as I said in my previous post. If the free market is better, why specifically in this regard?
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