Comment by watwut
2 hours ago
The actual alternative is to provide resources to schools that are in bad areas. And to provide resources for people in those areas themselves.
2 hours ago
The actual alternative is to provide resources to schools that are in bad areas. And to provide resources for people in those areas themselves.
The results from Abbott Districts in New Jersey would suggest that increased funding and resources does little if anything to improve results. Abbott Districts in New Jersey have been getting funding at roughly the same level or higher as the wealthiest districts in the state since 1990, and they have nothing to show for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district
The difference in math proficiency for Abbott students vs. non-Abbott students has stayed roughly the same, while thr language proficiency gap has actually increased.
Resources != funding
Resources means teachers qualified, able, and willing to teach in those areas. That probably means paying them more than a similarly qualified teacher in an area that is currently doing better and hence more attractive. But it also means finding head teachers (principals in the US?) who can inspire the whole school, staff, pupils, and parents. Such people are not thick on the ground. And then you have to have stability.
Mere money will not do it, everyone has to work for it.
>Resources means teachers qualified, able, and willing to teach in those areas.
Then the culture in those areas has to change.
It feels like every single other option has to be tried before considering that there's real, settled cultural issues that society ought to tackle. It is insane, and I mean "nobody who ever holds views like these should have access to power or authority on these matters" type of definition of "insane" that there is more concern about equality, or equity, or whatever the last brand of discrimination, than about the problems around not respecting authority and not valuing an education. It is utterly dysfunctional regarding societal growth.
It's not just being poor. It's not just racism. Yes those are absolutely issues in society, but equality of that degree is an affordance you can work on when you have a functional system.
There is no magic teacher, no magic principal, no magic anyone that's going to walk through the door of a school and "set them kids right" with a biblical amount of kindness and understanding. That's a fairy tale, it's utterly detached from reality and a pathetic refusal to look at the problem.
Because there is such good precedents that providing unlimited resources to troubled areas actually fix problems.
As others have told you, there is no evidence that increased school funding in and of itself results in better results.
Contrary to what is often said, there is no shortage whatsoever of funding for public schools in urban areas. New York City spends more per student than anywhere else in the US. <https://www.silive.com/news/2019/06/how-much-does-new-york-c...> Baltimore, an incredibly poor and run-down city, spends the third most. #4-6 and #8 are all wealthy suburbs of Washington DC, but their schools are all far better than those of Baltimore or NYC on average, despite Baltimore spending slightly more per student and NYC spending 60-70% more.