Yeah, offering that as a "solution" was too much - kind of a stupid post. Mea culpa. What I should have said is that it would be a good step.

Why? If that's really the case, there are some pretty huge problems that need fixing. Not that money is a cure-all, but more money shouldn't be a problem.

Because if you normalize spending, you're going to be bringing the worst performing districts down to the level of those who somehow get twice the performance with significantly less education spending.

Or, you're bringing the suburban districts way way up in spending, but why bother? They're doing fine as-is.

There's some amount of money that will fix this, but it's way way more than we're spending right now, and the question you have to ask yourself is why does Milwaukee get such terrible results with 30-40% more spending than its neighbors?

There was a proposal a few years ago to increase the MPS budget from 1.3 billion to 2 billion, but it was shot down. At that figure, they'd have been spending quite literally double the amount of money per pupil as the districts just down the street who excel year after year.

There are indeed huge problems that need fixing, but probably not the kind that can be solved during the 6 hours a day when these kids are supposed to be getting their education.

OK, so obviously a lot more complicated than making sure everyone gets the same money. Fair enough. But as for your question about Milwaukee - a similar question could be asked about US K-12 education as a whole. The US is one of the top spenders in the OECD, but doesn't seem to have the results to match.

But...could not two things be possible at the same time? For example, cities like Milwaukee getting poor results no matter how much money you throw at the problem, while there could be other places where wealthy areas (and subsequently well-funded districts) have correspondingly better results than poorer areas?

Whatever the results might be, I can't see how it's healthy to have a system where the wealthiest neighborhoods have the best-funded schools. Likely that's only part of the problem, and maybe a small part of it, but it still seems worth fixing. Nothing stops government from fixing other issues at the same time.

A small FYP, and then I agree.

The USA is a big place. Those huge cities with spectacularly terrible results bring our average down quite a bit.

If you could do a Freaky Friday style school system swap between Milwaukee and Helsinki, do you think that would solve all of Milwaukee's education problems? No, and I suspect the children of Helsinki wouldn't suddenly end up with 30% lower graduation rates, either.

I think the achievement gap boils down to the differences in home life and parental involvement. If you ever need some true peace and quiet, show up at a random MPS school during parent/teacher conference nights. You'll see a few parents, but it's a sad state of affairs.

Most US state governments agree with you, which is why this isn't how it works. Not all states are created equal, however. We have a few states where the entire system is just grossly underfunded and you have teachers making about as much as an Amazon warehouse worker. The only thing keeping them in the classroom is passion, and that really limits your pool of qualified applicants.

On the other hand you have places like Milwaukee, who pay their teachers well and have fantastic benefits. Still, they have nearly 40% turnover by year 3 because no amount of money is worth being called a c**t all day long by a bunch of 9 year olds and breaking up your 6th fight of the day, running the very real risk of losing your job because you touched a student in the process. I'm not a prude; I went to a Lutheran school growing up and there were some girls at the 8th grade dance showing off their tits in the locker room, but a colleague of my wife had to break up a pair of 5th graders who were having sex in a bathroom in the middle of the school day, which is not an uncommon occurrence. These behavior problems aren't the school's fault, but they are the ones tasked with somehow working around them and producing educated children in the end.

This sort of thing isn't unique to big cities, but it's much easier to deal with 1 problem child in a class of 30 than it is to deal with 8 of them all feeding off each other while the rest of the class waits for the adults to try and manage the chaos.

Families will solve this, not the government.

Through federal and state initiatives, the funding differences between poor (namely urban) and rich (namely suburban) schools have closed for most of the American population. You have to get pretty far into outliers (very wealthy neighborhoods) to find schools that spend significantly more $/pupil than, for example, a public school in DC/NYC. To the extent you find schools with very low spending/pupil, you will often find them concentrated in certain states where the local governments have been extremely hostile to public education funding (Wisconsin and Oklahoma come to mind).

The influence of SCHOOL spending/pupil on educational outcome, at this point, is very well documented. There is a very little benefit after a certain point (not a high point, I don't remember) but if you fall some thresholds, the outcomes fall off like a cliff, even in otherwise reasonably well off suburban districts (you find some of these in Wisconsin).

The video I linked explicitly said almost all the efforts are carving out whiter more segregated districts. The Vox article I linked explicitly said some of the efforts are carving out majority white districts from majority black districts.

The video you linked was very poor and I gave up on it after he claimed that wealthy districts have bigger [student] budgets than poor ones, which is demonstrably untrue in most cases, and that the wealthy districts are performing better because all the parents pay for tutors for their kids, which is obviously laughable.

Maybe it got better in the second half, but carving out white districts from majority black districts doesn't matter in a world where the statewide funding formula exists. If anything, those new tiny white districts will lose money if they consistently outperform their former black overlords.

Equalizing funding is the key to a better educational system. The signal big difference between European university systems and the US university system is that the former attempt to homogenize funding, to guarantee that a kid in Alabama has the same opportunities as a kid in Massachusetts. The same is basically true at the primary and secondary level. It's probably the single biggest reason why almost every European country has greater social mobility, less income inequality, and better educational outcomes than most of the US.

Right, and that's the issue. Now, it could be that money isn't the thing most needed, but something certainly is.

Of course this problem isn't unique to the US. Here in Canada, inner city schools are always where you're going to see more students struggling. I expect that's an issue in many other countries.

So there's a good example of funding disparity issues. But on the other hand...

There's an example where it isn't the problem.

Of course these are just anecdotes, but I can believe there's plenty of truth there.

Definitely a huge factor.

Why not both?

I agree that I oversimplified previously, and funding alone isn't going to solve every ill. But the education system can't just throw up its hands and say it's up to the families, either. Some families need more support outside of the education system. And unfortunately, some families are at a state of dysfunction where it's all going to be up to the kids and the education system.

This, this, a thousand times this.

Baltimore City Schools: 41% of high school students earn below 1.0 GPA

Knowing that the teachers are pressured to simply push kids through to the next grade regardless of performance, it's sad to realize that a significant number of these people might be functionally illiterate, with the snowball having started many years prior.

It's certainly not a spending problem.

From 2021:

On the list of the country's 100 largest school districts, Baltimore was the third biggest spender on a per-pupil basis in 2017. That was when they were spending $16,184 per pupil. I don't know if the more than 10% increase since then changed their ranking.

Montgomery County School District directly to the south spends less and blows Baltimore out of the water in terms of results. They have a majority minority student population, too.

What can the government do, short of babysitting the Baltimore kids 24/7 to make sure they take their education seriously?

Then again, maybe simply getting them into their seat would be a good start.

At Augusta Fells, 83% of students were chronically absent in 2019, but the school somehow recorded a 48% graduation rate.

If you can't wake up in time to put on your free school uniform to get on your free school bus in time to go get your free breakfast before receiving your free education, broken up in the middle by a free lunch and then a free ride back home each day, then honestly, what the hell are we supposed to do?

Europeans ITT, what would happen if 80% of a school's student population couldn't be bothered to show up to class consistently? My guess is there isn't a policy in place because you cannot fathom such a situation arising. That's how it is in most of the United States, too, but then we have huge cities like this dragging our overall stats down.

In my country school is not mandatory (though there is a general misconception among my countrymen that it is), but education is.

Basically, there is a duty to educate the child, and this trumps parents rights. That's the logic behind it. If a child does not attend school, it must be documented that the child receives an equivalent education.

So essentially, the parent(s) is / are bound by the law to make sure their child attends school (unless they are providing an equivalent education). If this doesn't happen and absenteeism continues, charges will be likely be filed against the parents and child services notified. There are "softer" steps prior to that, but that's the endgame.

This is for elementary and secondary education.

Walking thru the trenches/front lines of the drug war in the city on the way to school probably isn't helping many kids much. Montgomery may as well be a different planet by comparison

Possession of personal drugs is decriminalized in Maryland.

If you live more than a mile from school, you receive door-to-door yellow bus service.

Anyone else who meets one of these criteria can also receive door-to-door service:

- Do not have a safe route to walk
- Have an Individualized Education Program (IEP)
- Are homeless
- Receive English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services
- Are in pre-k
- Have a 504 plan


Also, it's interesting that this is a valid excuse for you in this case, but not when comparing certain statistics between the US and whatever Scandinavian country outperforms us in it.

I realize in hindsight that the question was probably more aimed towards the school's role.

If we assume the problem is correct (I don't know much about schools in Baltimore) and we assume a similar situation arose in my country whereupon a lot of students lacked even basic skills such as literacy, the school would be in violation of the law, but those violations would likely have been picked up at a much earlier stage.

You'd see a lot fines, a lot of heads rolling and very likely political heads as well. The public outcry would be enormous. Unless immediate action was done, I'd expect political heads to start rolling nationally as well. I'd personally expect the minister of education to step down.

I believe you.

Your first post talked about the ultimate responsibility falling on the parents, though. I am in 100% agreement with you on that, but we don't have the stomach as a nation to follow through.

Fines are meaningless if they go unpaid. What will child services do?

It's my contention that the primary failing on the part of the schools is that they don't show enough preferential treatment to the shining stars. I'd rather spend extra money busing all the kids with functioning families to one central school than leaving them sprinkled throughout the district and hoping they rub off on their peers.

Dude I've had family in md since the 1600s lol I'm well aware Tons of kids use reg. pub transportation/buses etc--so keep googling those fairytales The number of bodies stacked up this year so far says otherwise Comparing bmore to mont. county as if it's some 1:1 situation is just silly. Mont. Co is one of the wealthiest/most well-educated spots in the entire country--being directly connected to the heart of the greatest power the world's ever known might put a little spin on things in its favor

Yet, their "students of color" succeed where Baltimore residents fail. It's the same curriculum, the same standards, and presumably the same overall school structure. Baltimore spends more money per student, but consistently produces significantly worse results.

The families, or lack thereof, are the variable. If it were just a matter of rich vs poor, then the performance disparities would be much greater. Fix the culture and you'll begin to heal America's cities. Government is already providing the financial support, so it's up to the parent(s) to handle the spiritual/emotional side. Teach the kids right from wrong, make sure they show up to school, and prioritize education from the very beginning.

At some point it's time to stop blaming "the system" and hold people accountable for their own actions.

It's not simply rich v poor. You think the cops chilling out(on just users which was already not where the real focus was--not like it's not business as usual otherwise btw) for a few months in a ~50+yr fight is going to produce instant results? lol How's that going to magically make up the difference on things like a ~1/3 of the pop. having grad+ etc degrees plus the good jobs to match. Those just aren't things that get fixed overnight--or a covid year. Even if every perfect move started tomorrow which let's face it probably ain't happening--you're looking at years before things start to show results on some of those fronts.

How many 9 year olds do you know that get harassed by police officers?

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/projec...chool-is-chaos

Keep on making your excuses while absolutely nothing changes. You're right, this doesn't fix itself overnight. But while you're complaining about drug busts, another batch of 2nd graders won't learn how to read because a bunch of their peers have absolutely no idea how to behave themselves and the teacher isn't allowed to teach.

Military-style boarding schools. No age minimum. If the parents won't do their job, let Big Brother have a go.

They're not excuses--it's just kinda reality. These are just the results of the mess they've made. If they didn't want those results--then why do all the things that have made them so?

I agree. At this point it's pretty clear that the residents are content to lie in the bed that they've made for themselves.

Liberals in Dallas being given the opportunity to personally address systemic racism.

It would be kinda kewl to be a White Liberal in Dallas right now. I would consider it a badge of honor to be on the list of people who did not sign the pledge.

addendum: I wouldn't have to be doxxed for not signing the pledge; I would be bragging about it!

Incredibly sad how the US education system has been placed on the front lines of political culture wars.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...king-state-law

I can't imagine raising a kid in Texas or Florida these days. I think I'd move if I had kids in school and lived in either state.

Seems legit!