In WA they always pass levies for education funding at local and state level however results are not there.
Mississipi is doing better on reading, the biggest difference being that they use phonics approach to teaching how to read, which is proven to work, whereas WA uses whole language theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language), which is a terrible idea I don't know how it got traction.
So the gist of it, yes, spend on education, but ensure that you are using the right tools, otherwise it's a waste of money.
First time hearing of whole language theory, and man, it sounds ridiculous. Sounds similar to the old theory that kids who aren't taught a language at all will simply speak perfect Hebrew.
I almost agree, but too many people will take that to mean “we need to do more with less”. It’s a feature of capitalism. Teachers are stretched thin in most places, that’s always the main problem. Are WA teachers compensated about the same as other similarly educated professionals? As cops?
Hire smart motivated people, pay them well, leave them alone, they’ll figure this one out. It’s not hard, anyone can google what Finland does.
> WA teachers compensated about the same as other similarly educated professionals
WA teachers are among the best salaries in the country for being a teacher (within top 5). You start at around 84k$ I think, 90k$+ if you have a masters degree, at least in Seattle, and it can scale up to 150k$ with enough seniority, as well as pension plan.
> Hire smart motivated people, pay them well, leave them alone, they’ll figure this one out. It’s not hard, anyone can google what Finland does.
The problem is not the teachers themselves, it's what the system tells them to teach. You can have the best teacher in the world, but if they use BS curricula students will unfortunately learn BS.
Think about it, you can have brilliant engineers, but an idiot ceo, and the company will fail despite the engineers.
In my own social/family circle, there’s no correlation between net worth and how someone leans politically. I’ve never understood why given the pretty obvious pros/cons (amount paid in taxes vs. benefits received)
That's interesting b/c I see it very obviously in mine with the partial exception of myself. The more professional and private sector their job or spouse, the more conservative they are. E.g a real estate lawyer is conservative, a lawyer for the state is liberal, a software engineer is a communist, and the musicians are libertarians or socialist-lite.
Professional or artisanal work are petit bourgeois positions, so are flexible in their outlook regardless of income.
The people most vociferously for conservative values are middle class, small business owners, or upper class, though the true upper class are libertine (notice who participated in the Epstein affair). The working class is filled with all kinds of very diverse people united by the fact they have to work for a living and often can't afford e.g. expensive weddings. Some of them are religious, a whole bunch aren't. It's easy to be disillusioned with formal institutions that seem to not care at all about you.
Unfortunately, a lot of these people have either concluded it is too difficult to vote, can't vote, or that their votes don't matter (I don't think they're wrong). Their unions were also destroyed. Some of them vote against their interests, but it's not clear that their interests are ever represented, so they vote for change instead.
In WA they always pass levies for education funding at local and state level however results are not there.
Mississipi is doing better on reading, the biggest difference being that they use phonics approach to teaching how to read, which is proven to work, whereas WA uses whole language theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language), which is a terrible idea I don't know how it got traction.
So the gist of it, yes, spend on education, but ensure that you are using the right tools, otherwise it's a waste of money.
First time hearing of whole language theory, and man, it sounds ridiculous. Sounds similar to the old theory that kids who aren't taught a language at all will simply speak perfect Hebrew.
I almost agree, but too many people will take that to mean “we need to do more with less”. It’s a feature of capitalism. Teachers are stretched thin in most places, that’s always the main problem. Are WA teachers compensated about the same as other similarly educated professionals? As cops?
Hire smart motivated people, pay them well, leave them alone, they’ll figure this one out. It’s not hard, anyone can google what Finland does.
> WA teachers compensated about the same as other similarly educated professionals
WA teachers are among the best salaries in the country for being a teacher (within top 5). You start at around 84k$ I think, 90k$+ if you have a masters degree, at least in Seattle, and it can scale up to 150k$ with enough seniority, as well as pension plan.
> Hire smart motivated people, pay them well, leave them alone, they’ll figure this one out. It’s not hard, anyone can google what Finland does.
The problem is not the teachers themselves, it's what the system tells them to teach. You can have the best teacher in the world, but if they use BS curricula students will unfortunately learn BS.
Think about it, you can have brilliant engineers, but an idiot ceo, and the company will fail despite the engineers.
2 replies →
Not true, most people are not upper-middle class anti-tax wackos. They benefit from those people being taxed.
In my own social/family circle, there’s no correlation between net worth and how someone leans politically. I’ve never understood why given the pretty obvious pros/cons (amount paid in taxes vs. benefits received)
That's interesting b/c I see it very obviously in mine with the partial exception of myself. The more professional and private sector their job or spouse, the more conservative they are. E.g a real estate lawyer is conservative, a lawyer for the state is liberal, a software engineer is a communist, and the musicians are libertarians or socialist-lite.
Professional or artisanal work are petit bourgeois positions, so are flexible in their outlook regardless of income.
2 replies →
The electorate in the U.S. commonly votes against its own interests.
Pithy, but not true.
That's why you phrase it as "woke liberals turning your children gay!"
In USA K-12 education costs about $300k
350 million people, want to get 175 million of them better educated, but we've already spent $52 trillion dollars on educating them so far
The people most vociferously for conservative values are middle class, small business owners, or upper class, though the true upper class are libertine (notice who participated in the Epstein affair). The working class is filled with all kinds of very diverse people united by the fact they have to work for a living and often can't afford e.g. expensive weddings. Some of them are religious, a whole bunch aren't. It's easy to be disillusioned with formal institutions that seem to not care at all about you.
Unfortunately, a lot of these people have either concluded it is too difficult to vote, can't vote, or that their votes don't matter (I don't think they're wrong). Their unions were also destroyed. Some of them vote against their interests, but it's not clear that their interests are ever represented, so they vote for change instead.
4 replies →