Comment by programjames

To make a couple other points:

> 30 student classes obviates any benefit you'd get from anything else. There are no systems with those class sizes that are achieving the outcomes we want.

I disagree? Universities have larger lectures, and students can move to lower classes if theirs moves too fast. I think your argument goes somewhat like:

| Assume each student randomly needs extra help some x% of the time. Then, the expected length until no needs help is (1-x%)^-n. Just to throw a number out there, assume ten students can move half as quick as one student. Then by the time you get to thirty students, you're moving 20% as fast as with ten students.

However, x% decreases with higher-salary teachers, and you can just move on without answering questions: "Ask me after class, we don't have time today." Finally, if you organize classes so similarly ranked students are together, the correlation in needing help increases, and the pace improves.

> You also can't literally fire all teachers. The NEA or teacher tenure won't let you.

Not with that attitude! Milei layed off 20% of his federal employees, and Musk 80% of Xitter. So, it is possible. They can protest, but I don't have sympathy for shitty teachers looking after their own interests.

> Training and interviewing 2.333 million teachers (plus administrators) is a gargantuan undertaking. Who moves to the middle of nowhere in Arizona, or Mississippi? How will you find so many qualified people?

I think the key is to steal employees ;). If you're offering double the salary, I think the local universities might lose a few professors. Also, as I mentioned, the university pyramid scheme is pumping out more PhDs than they know what to do with. There are also many universities shutting down as enrollment drops. Finally, interviewing 2 million teacher positions is a gargantuan undertaking, but each town only needs a few dozen. The federal government can create a teachers' job board for people to apply to, and let local towns do the hiring. Lots of doctors move to the middle of Nowhere, Mississippi, so I'm sure lots of teachers would too for a competitive salary.

> You also get stuck in tracks, so if say your mom dies in 3rd grade, you do poorly on the test and get bumped down, you're probably bumped down forever. That's a bad outcome.

Bad for whom? It's great for the kid who got bumped up. If you really want a better spot, you can study harder for the next test. No one is *stuck* in tracks. Do you know how I got good at math? I just solved thousands of math competition problems I found on AoPS.com. I would have improved faster if I had a coach/teacher to guide me, but the resources are out there if someone actually wants to hop tracks. It'll be harder than just never losing your spot, but that's no reason to give up.

> This [olympiad problem->curriculum writers] doesn't work because different people learn in different ways. You need dedicated, educated, well-compensated, supported professionals applying state-of-the-art techniques and research to get the outcomes we want. Also when you talk about replacing Common Core with some new standard, you're still not escaping Goodhart's Law.

I call bullshit. The SAT/ACT do not go high enough to distinguish the top 0.1% from the top 0.5%, and other (American/state) standardized exams are even worse, which means the so-called professionals literally do not have metrics that can capture that signal to tune their curriculae against. On the other hand, olympiad problem writers/camp counselors have a proven track record of doing exactly that. Here are two anecdotes:

1) In elementary school, my gifted class' teacher was complaining that her evaluations looked bad, because her students never showed improvement. It wasn't because they didn't improve, it's just because they stayed at 99%.

2) When Luke Robitaille got second in MATHCOUNTS in sixth grade, the next two years of exams became much harder, solely to make sure he wouldn't get a perfect score. His eighth grade year had the lowest top twelve cutoff in history, but at least there was a full spread at the top.

At the very least, we should agree that smarter students need an Uncommon Core curriculum.

> Today they're throwing stuff in class, tomorrow they're breaking the windows of your car or running drugs in your neighborhood. At that point in the School-to-Prison Pipeline, rehabilitating the person is extremely expensive.

In my other reply, the TLDR; is essentially, "it's the other way around". It's much more expensive to rehabilitate them in the classroom than in the prison system.