i am not sure why you cite good public schools doing great as an answer to the claim that bad public schools are doing terribly (even with a lot of money spent on them).

good public schools don't have many poor students.

the more public schools self sort the student population, which happens more with real estate prices and rent at ATH and a quarter/third of the population doing better than the rest more and more, the more the best schools will do better and the worst do worse even if you never change the funding, even if you believe the funding has a significant effect, because no matter the effect of funding, students inherent qualities matter more.

you can't practice as a physician if you didn't do residency in the USA lol, that matters as well.

but no, the excess isn't only because of bloated nurse/physicians wages and insane drug prices (although both things matter).

the admin load is beyond belief, fraud is extremely rampant, and the system is set up to over prescribe procedures for several reasons.

medicare/medicaid fraud alone is around 100 billions/year but that's only the most conservative estimate possible of the extent of fraud.

Sure, it’s pretty hard to fake data in a convincing enough manner though, there are many checks yiu can do. I mean I also “considered” the argument that Trump really won in 2020, the covid vaccine is unsafe and inflation had been over 10% continuously since the Obama years and government economists are hiding it. I concluded that ideologically driven cultural conservatives are about the least mathematically literate group out there and will believe anything they want to regardless of truth or even common sense.

is that anecdotal or do you have an expert study to back it up?

as an aside, liberals are the ones who abhor common sense. right wing types will generally use the power of observation to draw conclusions, while liberals throw 'expert data' in your face.

examples:
R: there are two genders, because that's what we've seen since the dawn of man.
L: no, there are in fact one thousand (or none) because Dr.Leftinexpert did a study that shows this.

R: A certain subset of the population commits most of the violent crime.
L: No, we need gun control.

R: the school system sucks. teachers are miserable because 5-10% of the class ruins it for everyone else.
L: while our studies indicate people are magically smarter since federal law said they had to be...or else.

R: the only people dying from covid are old and weak. certainly not children.
L: if you dont wear a mask, you are essentially a terrorist. if your kid doesnt wear one he cant be educated.

Sure. Cultural conservatives will say they are data driven before showing up to a rally and storming the Capitol. But aside from hardcore cultural conservatives, where the view is dominant, the claims that Trump won are rightly derided as lies. Even controlling for the lack of education and higher education among conservatives, it’s hard to explain such obvious lies gaining traction in only these heavily ideological culturally conservative groups; without confirming my obvious anecdotal conclusion and the opposite of yours, that these guys are somehow able to look around and make up for their lack of IQs/education with the power of observation.

While you talk down at conservatives using your various graduate degrees as a stand-in for a credible argument, a massive group of people who have voted in a near monolithic bloc for your politicians of choice continue to suffer.

Milwaukee has been run by card-carrying socialists or democrats for well over a century on every level of local government and spends more on the local school district than the entire budget of the United States Coast Guard, but they still can't figure it out.

Spending twice or thrice what other schools do on a per-pupil basis hasn't worked, and they're just all out of ideas.

Sure. And rural areas have been culturally conservative/backwards since before the civil war and sill are some of the worst places in the country to live today. I never said I knew how to solve whatever problems may or any not even exist in Milwaukee or the ones we know do exist in rural shitholes. You made a claim about the cause that doesn't make much sense.

As the libs are always keen to point out, those rural areas don't hold very many individuals.

Milwaukee Public Schools represents 10% of the total student population in the entire state of Wisconsin, and it's an unmitigated disaster.

Sure...rural America has been struggling and unable to support itself for a while now causing massive population drop or best case enough development to get the promotion to sparse suburban, most of which still suck. But again, nothing to do with your point and diagnosis for supposed poor school performance.

calling guys like these culturally conservative is... a joke I hope

this was 2015, top and bottom of the rankings.

aside from the fact that even the "best" state has horrendous results given the money spent, this doesn't look at all like a democrat vs republican nor an urban vs rural thing, especially when you consider Washington DC horrible numbers.

nasty rural republicans destroying American education!

btw this is what is basic level for NAEP in grade 4, basically reading comics understanding the story would be more than enough

Wait what? 65% of American kids can't read properly? I mean, I knew it was bad, but WTF! I'm looking at the first chart with the US overall bar.

The traditional debate is whether it's a oligarchy or a plutocracy.

*in public schools iirc

half the 10y old in LA public schools can't read a comic understanding it.

And according to experts IIT that's because of the state of schools in rural Alabama, and because of republicans.

According to other people that's because some of those kids are very violent and disrupt teaching and nothing is done to keep them away from the normal kids.

no one cares to admit if your brain is normal and you parents are good, you can read a comic at 10 even if you don't go to school.

many of us could before they went to school!

I'm looking at the 35% bar in the first diagram, what exactly is that saying? That 65% of 10 year olds in the US can't read properly? I mean, I understand that's what it's saying, that is just crazy to me. What are the comparable stats for UK or other European countries?

That's the bottom of the rank, the second is the top of the rank, 2015 data about public schools, proficient level or better in literacy per state.

Then I gave one data point about a democrat urban feud, in a democrat state with horrible public school results in urban areas (to counter the claim it was about ruralness, or about republicans).

There half the kids aren't even at basic level (reading a comic)

It's 65% of the 10y old that go to public schools can't read WELL (not proficient), or rather couldn't, in 2015.

How does the US as a whole rank second from? Shouldn't it be around median? The states towards the bottom don't seem to be the most populous ones, I'm confused.

To clarify: I am looking at the bar that says "United States 35%".

ETA: Sorry, just realised it's not second from bottom. Looks like I can't read either, well, not diagrams anyway.

Do you have these stats for any European countries?

Actually I imagine California at 28% and Texas at 31% drag down the average quite a bit.

International comparisons can be done but to my knowledge, we dont have the internationally comparable data (PISA scores, a very decent attempt to measure students achievements internationally in a comparable way) divided between public and private schools for the USA. Or maybe we do but I can't find them.

Anyway the USA for PISA has decent absolute numbers, a little over OECD avg, at 15y old (that's what PISA measures).

But that includes private schools, and the good public schools we discussed.

USA has under OECD average results for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th quintile of income distribution (*international income distribution, so it's not 60% of students, rarher way less)

So, it seems the consensus here is that our education systems is bad, but nothing can be done about it.

le sigh

What would your suggestions be?