Does anyone at the Post review these stories before they are printed?I've got a fundamental "ide" for you: You misread the text! And so did the many comments on the comment, like this one, laughing at Elba: "Hehehe, the author obviously never spent an evening in the Chem Library at Berkeley." (Here's Emba's profile. She went to Princeton and studied public and international affairs.)
The author's conventional wisdom comment that "the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT. These schools also tend to be white and wealthy, the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education that’s been driven by racial self-segregation and poverty." seems to vary from the facts I found on the net.
I didn't spend more than 10 minutes doing some research but this is what I found: Wikipedia indicates that the 2010 Census (latest available) had the US as 72% white. Harvard's latest admitted undergraduate class was less than 50% "white"; Yale undergraduates are 44.7% "white"; and Stanford's "white" population is listed as 37% (although there is a block of "non-resident alien" students that is not broken out by race/ethnicity).
These kinds of statistics which conflict with the author's words, assumptions, and fundamental ides should be addressed in this article.
Now, force yourself, you knee-jerk mockers. Here's what Elba wrote:
The graduates of the top 200 elite high schools make up a full third of the student body at the most prestigious colleges: the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT. These schools also tend to be white and wealthy, the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education that has been driven by racial self-segregation and poverty. Giving less-obvious applicants a chance is well and good, but real equity will take more than an end-stage score adjustment."These schools" = "the top 200 elite high schools." Elba is saying those high school tend to be wealthy and white, not that the Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT are majority white. All she says about those colleges is that they are one third from those high schools. She isn't even saying that the third from those high schools are majority white. The third from those high schools might be Asian-American or something else. Her point is that there are some great high schools that are available to some fortunate young people, and the SAT "diversity" score might give some boost to the young people who didn't get that advantage, but that it might distract us from what's more important: providing better education at the primary and secondary level.
Posts
128 comments:
you say that the US is 72% white; what is the percentage of college age kids that are white?
Whoa. Some commenters did a bad job parsing an article.
Ann, too much time on your hands?
looks like back in 2014, 58% of 18-35 year olds were white
https://newrepublic.com/article/120370/five-graphics-show-why-post-white-america-already-here
You had me at schools...
You misread the text!
It was very poorly written.
"a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education"
That sounds....false.
The new tool is confirmation from the College Board that the SAT has failed as a holistic measure of college-worthiness.
It actually hasn't from what I know. It predicts college success. She has more about race and class but the argument that the SAT does not do what was intended is weak.
The black underclass has adopted a number of self destructive cultural mores, like unwed motherhood and male "Warrior" conflict that is based only on chip-on-the-shoulder pride. It is now adding a heavy dose of white hatred as shown by the Somali youth behavior in Minnesota and youth behavior in Chicago.
If the focus of your article is that 200 Elite HS or prep schools produce 1/3 of the Ivy league grads, then don't use the word "White" because you're making a CLASS argument, not a RACE argument. Like all these WaPo/NYT articles, the authors act like middle class and working class whites don't exist. No, every white person goes to Groton Prep.
It is sad when it requires an ex professor to translate for the masses what an ivy league is trying to communicate...
Standardsdon't blame the readers..
that the top 200 elite HS/prep schools tend to be rich - goes without saying. Obviously, successful people tend to have money, and also tend to have kids that want to go to elite colleges. And they afford it too. As for "they tend to be white" is also meaningless, because the USA "tends to be white". If they weren't "tending" to be white, that would be NEWS.
"a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education"
Complete and utter bullshit. Spending per student has gone up, and continues to go up. Unfortunately most of it goes to administration and bureaucracy.
Standards are dropping; don't blame the readers the Ivy Leaguers have lost the ability to communicate with others ...
Blame the artificial diversity policies
I'd like to see the author's dataset for those 200 schools. Google is no help. Anyone want to post the link? Is there a link?
Maybe politicians, teachers and administrators are getting dumber.
Parents too.
"...the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT. These schools..."
You could call that a faulty referent, but yeah they should have been able to see that he meant to schools before that list. It's not the clearest writing but should be good enough for WaPo readers.
The piece is carelessly worded. Making it "these high schools..." would remove the ambiguity.
Michael K said...The black underclass has adopted a number of self destructive cultural mores, like unwed motherhood and male "Warrior" conflict that is based only on chip-on-the-shoulder pride. It is now adding a heavy dose of white hatred as shown by the Somali youth behavior in Minnesota and youth behavior in Chicago.
you left the big one off in this subject:
Peer pressure not to "act white" by studying and deferring gratification to the future...
PS: since it's Memorial Day: Here's to Absent Comrades!
The problem is that the article is badly written. While it is clear after consideration that the antecedent to "they" is the high schools, the closest possible antecedent is the colleges, which are also schools. A normal speed read leaves the impression she is talking about the colleges and only at the end of the sentence does the possibility of the high schools as the antecedent arise.
Needs an editor who can speak English
The top comment, with lots of follow-up comments, trashes her for getting something wrong that she does not get wrong and trashes WaPo. The essay makes some points and it would be interesting to address them, even to disagree. But the whole enterprise is shot to hell by an attack based on misreading.
The writer and editors do have some responsibility. They could have noticed the potential for misreading and tweaked the sentences a little. The writing style is not elegant and is actually pretty annoying to read. I especially dislike: "These schools also tend to be white and wealthy, the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education that has been driven by racial self-segregation and poverty." There's a writing problem there that goes beyond the misunderstood, ambiguous phrase "these schools." There are just too many ideas strung along and not supported. You're supposed to already know what everything refers to — schools "left standing" and "disinvestment," what "disinvestment" was "driven by," what "racial self-segregation" is and why it would "drive" "disinvestment," and then "and poverty" stuck on in the end. Is "poverty" something that, like "racial self-segregation," drives disinvestment, or does the "and" pair "poverty with "disinvestment"? Does it make any difference? Too many phrases strung along, losing the structure. Try to diagram that sentence. You'll see you have to make decisions about what goes with what.
Very poor writing leads to major misunderstanding of author's point.
In other news, the sun again rises in the east and water is found still to be wet.
The black underclass has adopted a number of self destructive cultural mores, like unwed motherhood and male "Warrior" conflict that is based only on chip-on-the-shoulder pride. It is now adding a heavy dose of white hatred as shown by the Somali youth behavior in Minnesota and youth behavior in Chicago.
It began long ago when Black and Brown kids began to accuse successful Black and Brown kids of "acting White". Then there was the attempt to declare Ebonics a language and demands that kids be taught in it. Now because Black and Brown kids (mainly boys) tend to misbehave more, there is a disparity in the suspension and expulsion rates, so now in California at least it is almost impossible to suspend or expel troublemakers. My Black and Brown kids are tardy and absent more often than my White kids.
When you combine the dysfunctional minority culture with lower IQs, you get a disaster. All attempts to "correct" the disparities ignore both of these factors. Tracking, which is very effective, is abandoned because of racial disparities. "Experts" attempt to come up with the Next New Thing that will solve all the problems , and instead create new problems.
Lastly the push for "college for all" and the abandonment of vocational tech and general education classes in favor of academic electives and college prep classes drives the final nail into the coffin lid.
The real discrimination is in birth order. National Merit Scholorships go dis proportionally to first borns. Not sure what data social engineers are going weight attempting to 'fix' this flaw of nature.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/04/argument-disparity-thomas-sowell/
Gahrie is right.
Actual resources allocated to American public education, per capita enrillment, have been constantly increasing.
Indeed, the whole question of the utility of additional funding to education outcomes has been definitively settled for at least 50 years. And moreover is well understood everywhere else on earth. This is one of those things where the American intelligentsia has developed cast iron skulls. Facts can't get in.
Those 200 schools that supply so many kids to the elite do so because they act as a filter, they don't really add much value. If you want to create an elite school simply arrange things to only let in very smart kids. The students make the school.
A bad school has many bad students.
"it might distract us from what's more important: providing better education at the primary and secondary level."
Just make damned sure you don't ask why, despite ever more resources, education never gets better.
The article is simply full of lies.
This matters much more than the misreading.
"but real equity will take more"
"equity"? What is this thing called "equity" in modern prog-speak?
equity"? What is this thing called "equity" in modern prog-speak?
The demand for "equal" outcomes instead of equal opportunity.
According to research that is no longer being conducted, the SAT is the best single predictor of first year success in college. The same can be said about the GRE and grad school.
Of course, school use multiple predictors to assess students, but the SAT is the most important. It is essentially a measure of general intelligence which is the best single predictor of success in most cognitively oriented endeavors.
That is extremely inconvenient for SJWs.
'There's a writing problem there that goes beyond the misunderstood, ambiguous phrase "these schools."'
I think the problem is actually the word "also". "These schools also" implies that "these schools" were the subject of the preceding sentence. But the subject of the preceding sentence was "The graduates". The universities were not the subject of the preceding sentence, but they were listed emphatically at its end, and the sentence would make grammatical sense if they were the subject of the next one. To see that they are not requires reading to the word "secondary", which is a long time to wait before conclusively parsing the preceding sentence. Most readers don't have stacks that deep, just as most readers won't follow the analogy at the beginning of this sentence.
“providing better education at the primary and secondary level.”
A fortune has been spent on urban public schools and they are massive failures. Ann has posted about the Madison schools. I’d like to see their numbers.
Ann rightly complains about her $17k property tax bill. I’m guessing that 60% goes to the public schools.
Education in America will never improve unless there is school choice. But that will never happen because of the corrupt and unholy alliance between the unions and the Dems. Practically ever Dem Presidential candidate I have seen in Iowa panders to public school teachers.
A Jesuit Christo Rey school in Madison would be a huge success and at one-third the cost.
what's more important: providing better education at the primary and secondary level.
Gahrie is correct, we regularly invest heavily in primary and secondary education, though whether school boards use that money wisely and well is a matter for debate — I rather doubt that Madison, WI, does a good job, to name names.
We will not see improvement in primary and secondary education until the teachers’ unions are broken, and until the classroom disrupters are removed from classrooms. As the residents of the incompletely sane state of Wisconsin, and their deluded Governor Evers, are about to find out, throwing money at problems doesn’t solve them.
I think the problem is actually the word "also".
I'm annoyed by the phrase "top 200 elite"
Is that the top 200 of the "elite" schools or just the top 200 schools?
A really useful qualifier would have been "public and private" if that is the case.
Agree with AA comment here. Writing a bit confusing. The thing that got me though was the comment by gilbar. Who cares what the percentage of the population is. It's the percentage of the cohort that matters. I'm surprised WaPo missed it.
I'm afraid that you cannot reform even by removing the teachers unions.
Nor by reorganizing governance or financing.
The rot is spiritual, in the sense of the ideology and culture of the entire system.
It starts at the intellectual tip of your systems hierarchy.
Teachers teach (and select) teachers that teach (and select) teachers, down the pyramid. You can even have adequate persons, in terms of ability, throughout the system, but if their minds are wrong they will not do any good.
It's very poorly written and I don't fault the commenters for misunderstanding. The "schools" closest to the "white" assertion are the universities. I doubt most people know what "secondary education" means--I had to look it up to be sure before making this comment.
The fault is Emba's.
BTW: I've got a fundamental "ide" for you: You misread the text! And so did the many comments on the comment, like this one, laughing at Elba:
It's like a law of the snarky comment: Emba, not Elba.
the corrupt and unholy alliance between the unions and the Dems.
Public employee unions, many of them teachers' unions, are almost the only unions left and certainly the most useless. They serve no useful purpose except to fatten salaries and pensions and bankrupt cities and states.
East High School has a 4 on a 10 point scale.
“This school is rated below average in school quality compared to other schools in Wisconsin. Students here have about average college readiness measures, and this school has below average results in how well it’s serving disadvantaged students. Large disparities in absenteeism and suspension rates exist at this school, which is concerning.”
"... it might distract us from what's more important: providing better education at the primary and secondary level."
That's always been the point of Affirmative Action.
The overwhelmingly Democratic governments of our cities have been grossly failing to provide education for American minorities for generations -- and Affirmative Action is a way of diverting the anger about that from those failing city governments (or the NEA) onto Republicans and a vague, national policy debate.
Actual resources allocated to American public education, per capita enrillment, have been constantly increasing.
The author definitely deceives by saying "a generation of disinvestment". That is a false statement.
Current expenditures per student enrolled in the fall in public elementary and secondary schools were 15 percent higher in 2014–15 than in 2000–01 ($11,734 vs. $10,228, both in constant 2016–17 dollars). Current expenditures per student increased between 2000–01 and 2008–09, peaking at $11,914 in 2008–09, and fluctuated between 2008–09 and 2014–15, reaching $11,734 in 2014–15.
It is true that public spending on secondary education dipped in many states following the 2008 recession and has slowly come back to pre-2008 levels (on average).
But if you look at such spending on a state by state level the entire argument is exposed as spurious.
I don't think Ms. Emba is complaining about underfunding in Utah.
I live in Chicago. My response to all these comments is “Yes”.
The overwhelmingly Democratic governments of our cities have been grossly failing to provide education for American minorities for generations -- and Affirmative Action is a way of diverting the anger about that from those failing city governments (or the NEA) onto Republicans and a vague, national policy debate.
In many, if not most cases, blaming the city governments or education unions is just as wrong. The problems are with the students and parents, but no one is willing to say so.
"Is that the top 200 of the "elite" schools or just the top 200 schools?"
The top 200 schools. Many are private but some are public, such as New Trier. Bottom line: it's hard to beat the quality of education at a school like Exeter with 15 students and 1 teacher. The students are excellently prepared, which means the teacher can push the students forward, rather then spending a lot of time trying to catch up the slower students.
But select publics north of Chicago, such as New Trier in Winnetka, are known to Ivy League admissions officers. And they are excellent.
A "color" quota (i.e. "diversity") that purportedly balances the scale while denying individual opportunity and dignity. Once you go PC...
providing better education at the primary and secondary level.
That's actual not very important at all because it doesn't change the students.
E.g. "Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration."
And who says the Ivy League, Stanford and MIT are the best colleges in America?
The sooner this country breaks the Ivy League racket, the better we will be.
My youngest was more than well qualified for Yale and she wasn’t accepted. We have now learned more about the corruption in admissions. Other than for D1 sports, it should be a lottery system.
blaming the city governments or education unions is just as wrong. The problems are with the students and parents, but no one is willing to say so.
Fathers need to stay with their babies momma. The two parents need to see the child shows up to school EVERY DAY, fed and rested.
There I just fixed education for you.
Fred
Check out the numbers of Rockhurst high school in Kansas City. The Jesuits run it.
Reading comprehension has declined in the general public. Unfortunately the most “vocal” people online tend to be the least able to understand, state, analyze or refute an argument. The commentariat here has some similar tendencies.
In 2017. It's gone up since 2017.
"Spending on high school students was close, with $614 separating New Trier at $25,006 per student and Lake Forest at $24,392. District 113 was in between at $24,761. District 225 spent $22,941."
New Trier: 25,006 per student vs. Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--
I don't know why people would be surprised that more money often equals a better educational product. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.
In many, if not most cases, blaming the city governments or education unions is just as wrong. The problems are with the students and parents, but no one is willing to say so.
Partly right but the failure to enforce standards in discipline allows the "students" who should not be there to bully and disrupt the education of kids who might be saved by old fashioned methods of behavior enforcement. That is what the school boards and local politicians are doing to destroy what might be saved of the black underclass.
It will end very badly, Detroit is an example. Chicago is headed there fast.
Bad parenting and unstable homes produce students unable to learn. Cost matters very little. Don’t know what the solution to that is, other than what looks a lot like taking Indian kids off the reservation and putting them in boarding schools like in the bad old days.
Fear is a great motivator, often times more so than the carrot. Make it conditional that in order to get welfare benefits and or unemployment benefits one must be a highschool graduate (with a national standard of literacy and numeracy) or have the equivalent ( GED) and the problem will largely resolve itself. People who are sufficiently educated to be employable will become employed ( absent criminal tendencies or dysfunctional behaviors).
I don't know why people would be surprised that more money often equals a better educational product. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.
Fallacies do not make good arguments. They Kansas City experiment was decades ago.
It began in 1985. In 1995, a quarter century ago, it was shown to have failed.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.
The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.
wwww said...
In 2017. It's gone up since 2017.
"Spending on high school students was close, with $614 separating New Trier at $25,006 per student and Lake Forest at $24,392. District 113 was in between at $24,761. District 225 spent $22,941."
New Trier: 25,006 per student vs. Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--
I don't know why people would be surprised that more money often equals a better educational product. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch."
No there isn't. However what makes New Trier New Trier instead of Kansas City is that New Trier has has a much wealthier taxbase. And that isn't accidental. I'm pretty certain if the spending were flipped New Trier will still outperform Kansas City.
Ann makes a tremendous point when she says that the "adversity scores" distract from the real problem: that US education in so many areas is second rate and no one seems willing, or able, to do anything meaningful about it. Charter schools have mixed success on a national basis, but in metropolitan areas where the worst schools are concentrated they have a proven record of success. ( Stanford Research ) It's no wonder so many black and brown parents are demanding expansion.
But it's about more then $$. In these elite schools, high schoolers have been getting a superior education product for years. Their elementary schools are superior. They socialize with children who work at a higher cognitive level and have higher skill attainment in mathematical thinking and languages. A sub-standard high school would have to spend significantly more $$ then a New Trier to catch students up to the level of New Trier students.
My 13 year old cousin was fluent in four languages when he entered Exeter. Elite students are not entering high school at the same level as your average 12 year old Kansas City student.
"No there isn't. However what makes New Trier New Trier instead of Kansas City is that New Trier has has a much wealthier taxbase. And that isn't accidental. I'm pretty certain if the spending were flipped New Trier will still outperform Kansas City."
I agree in that the parents have put the students in excellent educational situations for years before high school. However, there's no way these parents would let their students enter a sub-standard situation. They would raise money for educational opportunities such as summer school, tutoring, and, if the law allowed, they would clamour to put up educational bonds and raise the $$ spent on schools. The districts with excellent schools tend to vote and pass lots of educational bonds for the public schools.
I mean, this is why retired people leave the Chi-town northern burbs and move to Florida with lower taxes and a lot of substandard schools. Taxes are cheap because retired people don't have kids at home and don't want to spend the $$.
A generation of disinvestment in primary and secondary schools? After No Child Left Behind countless state and local initiatives? The only disinvestment in education over the last generation is not money, but cultural.
When the NYC public school district is officially labelling individual responsibility, perfectionism and respect for the written word as White Supremacy, that is the ultimate disinvestment. Bad enough for Black peers to label reading and study "acting White." When the administrators of the district adopt that message, there is no hope. No parent of a child of any color who wants their child to get an education would entrust their kid to such a system, regardless of the district's per pupil expenditures.
In many, if not most cases, blaming the city governments or education unions is just as wrong. The problems are with the students and parents, but no one is willing to say so.
Partly right but the failure to enforce standards in discipline allows the "students" who should not be there to bully and disrupt the education of kids who might be saved by old fashioned methods of behavior enforcement.
That is forced on the schools by activists and parents who see disparate numbers and insist it is due to systematic racism, even in schools with all Black staff and administration and run by all Black school boards. Then there is the problem of what to do with them if you kick them out of school. No one has an acceptable answer for that.
Her point is that there are some great high schools that are available to some fortunate young people...
The issue is that the quality of the students determines the quality of the high school, rather than the reverse. It's why all of our educational social engineering experiments fail miserably.
wwww,
There are many states that equalize funding, removing the link between the local tax base and school funding. California is one of them.
And so, there are hordes of parents trying to get their kids into Lowell High in San Francisco, in spite of it being the poorest-funded per capita. And that includes additional external/parent funding.
It is always and entirely about people, students, and nothing else at all. Your school could be under the shade of a mango tree and be the finest on earth. Indeed, in my day we little kids, first to fifth grades, sometimes were taken out of our stifling un-airconditioned classrooms and under the mango trees. Where we memorized and recited Tennyson.
they would clamour to put up educational bonds and raise the $$ spent on schools. The districts with excellent schools tend to vote and pass lots of educational bonds for the public schools.
There is a law in California that demands that all school districts have the same spending levels. I believe that Beverly Hills is not allowed to spend more per pupil than Inglewood. Since I took all my kids out of public schools, I do not have recent experience,. My grandkids go to charter schools after the public schools were doing a poor job.
"a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education"
I recently saw a Dick van Dyke episode from 1964 in which a character says "He's a teacher...and they're underpaid." So the 'beggared school' cliche is more than 50 years old.
There is a law in California that demands that all school districts have the same spending levels.
Yes. I know and it's a real shame. These are stupid laws. A lot of affluent parents will move their kids into private schools and the public schools will continue to go downhill.
Great private schools have gotten very pricey. Some parents will do homeschooling or charter schools. But it's it's rare for charter schools to be a good as, say, New Trier or a great private. Some friends in California recently moved their kid into a private high school. Insanely expensive but the publics aren't good enough. Husband works in a Google research group; they can afford it.
What's a real shame are the people who are upper-middle class or middle-class and used to be able to get a great quality education from a public school by moving to one of these districts. The restriction of funding ruined that situation. 30 kids to a class is not a gonna give a top tier experience.
30 kids to a class is not a gonna give a top tier experience.
In my district, high school core classes are "capped" at 35. (You can put more kids in, but have to pay the teachers extra per kid. I once taught a year of middle school with 38 in each class.) That's History, English, Math and Science. Electives often have 40 or more.
I agree in that the parents have put the students in excellent educational situations for years before high school. However, there's no way these parents would let their students enter a sub-standard situation. They would raise money for educational opportunities such as summer school, tutoring, and, if the law allowed, they would clamour to put up educational bonds and raise the $$ spent on schools. The districts with excellent schools tend to vote and pass lots of educational bonds for the public schools. "
You don't get it. New Trier is New Trier simply because of the people who live there. You are confusing markers of upper middle class with the traits that result in being upper middle class. Districts with excellent schools have schools full of excellent students with parents who push their kids to excel. Money doesn't buy that.
"I mean, this is why retired people leave the Chi-town northern burbs and move to Florida with lower taxes and a lot of substandard schools. Taxes are cheap because retired people don't have kids at home and don't want to spend the $$."
Beg your pardon, I live in FL and we do have plenty of excellent public schools. Unlike the North, we also have mandated forced busing schemes from the 1970's still in place that bring in kids from the inner cities. You don't have that up North. My High School was a near peer to New Trier prior to forced busing. Bus in kids from the Chicago hood to New Trier and see what happens. Culture matters, more than money. As for retired folks not wanting to spend the money, it's a free country and it's their money, not yours.
I'm assuming Illinois hasn't passed the California-style laws. Friends in the northern Chicagoland northern burbs have 2 boys in publics. medical docs. They would pull them out if the schools weren't great.
Another couple -- husband is a police officer in Chicago -- put theirs into a swanky private in one of the northern burbs. He met Rahm Emanuel who asked what school his kid was in and was visibly taken aback when he heard the name. Guess he didn't expect one of his cops to send his kids to an elite school.
"the ones left standing after a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education"
The usual prog BS.
From US News:
"EVERY STATE IN THE nation and the District of Columbia spent more money per student on public elementary and secondary education during the 2017 fiscal year, continuing a trend of increased investment after recession-driven budget cuts at the federal, state, and local level at the start of this decade.
New tables released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau show an average spending increase of 3.7% to $12,201 per pupil, compared to $11,763 per pupil in 2016. Fueling that spending is a rise in funding. In 2017, public elementary and secondary education revenue from all sources tallied up at $694.1 billion, up 3.4% from $671.2 billion in 2016."
Cubanbob,
I'm not a critic of it. Lots of my parents friends moved to Florida. I'm sure there are good schools in the more affluent suburbs.
But New Trier is one of the best in the country. I'm talking about elite schools that can compete with Exeter. The schools that are good enough to be on the top 200 list of private and publics. And, to be honest, New Trier isn't as good as Exeter.
The commenters should have focused on this howler from Elba:
"a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education"
What fucking planet does she come from? We spend more money today on secondary education than ever before in the country's history. We might be misinvesting in it, but we are certainly not disinvesting in it.
American education is dominated by a corrupt culture that prefers lies to truth.
It cannot be reformed, only destroyed.
I do not see signs of destruction coming, yet, so you have at least another generation of increasing degradation coming.
Unfortunately efucation is one of those things that can poison the rest of a culture, and it has. I am not sure at this point what part of American culture will destroy that which needs to be destroyed.
I see we have commenters from a higher quality of education here at Althouse College.
Exeter has more effective, targeted filters than simply paying more for a house.
You can buy in to New Trier for under $500K
Try that in San Francisco or Palo Alto.
"New Trier is New Trier simply because of the people who live there. You are confusing markers of upper middle class with the traits that result in being upper middle class. Districts with excellent schools have schools full of excellent students with parents who push their kids to excel."
Yes, of course socializing with excellent students makes a difference. I wrote that in a above comment. Students are in excellent situations from day 1, and, of course, their parents give them excellent opportunities outside of school. Language, Hebrew, Latin, music, dance, tutors. Culturally, students are expected to respect education. One of my friends, at 11, told me she was worried she wouldn't get into a top school. Another friend planned to be a doctor from first grade.
But....parents put their money into it. It's foolish to think that money doesn't make a difference. Taxes were high and the school was generously funded. Students have access to chemistry, biology, astronomy, horticulture, field trips to the Art Institute, music, Great Books classes, language all before they turn 13.
"You can buy in to New Trier for under $500K Try that in San Francisco or Palo Alto."
Yes. More then 500K for a house, but it's do-able and there are other housing options. We know many who have left CA because of the school and housing situation. One couple went to Vermont after considering several options.
In 1973 I eked out an SAT score of 750M/760V, highest in my HS. Obviously white privilege.
My parents divorced when I was 10. Mother had custody. Mom was a full blown alcoholic. The house was full of conflict and yelling and screaming until my older sister ran of to live with grandmother. Exactly how does the adversity index capture that?
I found this list of where New Trier students from 2018 were going to school. 2 of them were going to Stanford.
52 to University of Illinois
29 to Indiana
28 to Wisconsin
19 to Michigan
12 to Northwestern
17 to University of Colorado, Boulder
1 Harvard
1 Yale
You get the drift. Why are we talking so much about New Trier?
Gospace- I agree.
I think there should be a way for colleges to see kids who soar at schools that don't make it easy for a kid to soar.
But the adversity index doesn't take into account adversity other than that. The kid whose parents fight all day and all night, the kid who moved a lot and had trouble fitting in, the kid who had parents who were addicts or perhaps struggled and overcame addiction themselves, the kid who never fit in, the kid who seems perfect but feels constant anxiety.
"You get the drift. Why are we talking so much about New Trier?"
Because it's one of the public schools that's recognized as close to the quality of a couple of elite publics by Ivy admissions officers. The Lake Forest/ Winnetka area is where families used to put on debutante balls for their daughters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Trier_High_School_alumni
I found this stat about Harvard:
In total, one out of every 20 Harvard freshmen attended one of the seven high schools most represented in the class of 2017—Boston Latin, Phillips Academy in Andover, Stuyvesant High School, Noble and Greenough School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Trinity School in New York City, and Lexington High School.
There's obviously a strong East Coast bias.
You know, it bothers me that we so quickly dropped the discussion of how The College Board was taking bribes and scamming the system.
I know New Trier, wwww. I'm wondering why we are talking about it w/r/t this discussion about kids getting into college.
Or are you just bringing it up because it's a good public school that you know about?
Because it doesn't look like a really high percentage of New Trier graduates go to the Ivies.
"Partly right but the failure to enforce standards in discipline allows the "students" who should not be there to bully and disrupt the education of kids who might be saved by old fashioned methods of behavior enforcement."
***********
Anyone recall Cat Stevens bleating in a song: "by the time I could talk I was ordered to listen"?
Seems to me that's the proper role of students, to shut up and behave themselves in the classroom. God knows why teachers surrendered to the notion that the kids are now in charge.
Or are you just bringing it up because it's a good public school that you know about?
It's like saying "Harvard" or "Exeter." People who know, know what you mean when you say it. It's shorthand for a select group of publics and privates. The admissions officers know the name of the school. The school has been in movies like Ordinary People.
Here's an interesting stat from Harvard's website:
Most surveyed students—63 percent—live in the suburbs. Just 9 percent of respondents are from rural areas. from the class of 2019.
9% from rural area.
"Why are we talking so much about New Trier?"
Because of John Hughes.
Another couple -- husband is a police officer in Chicago -- put theirs into a swanky private in one of the northern burbs. He met Rahm Emanuel who asked what school his kid was in and was visibly taken aback when he heard the name. Guess he didn't expect one of his cops to send his kids to an elite school.
That sounds like North Shore Country Day or Lake Forest Academy.
I was very familiar with those schools in the late 60's/early 70's as well as New Trier East. The parents and the schools drive kids to maximize their potential. When parents make the financial commitment to a prep school or a high tax suburban HS, they are giving their kids the message that school is their primary job at that point in their lives and the kids need to take it seriously.
That does not happen in many other area. Thus, it is no surprise that kids do not take school seriously.
IQ differences are also an extremely important factor.
It's like saying "Harvard" or "Exeter." People who know, know what you mean when you say it. It's shorthand for a select group of publics and privates. The admissions officers know the name of the school. The school has been in movies like Ordinary People.
YEs, I know New Trier.
So you are using it as shorthand for a group of schools? I'm just curious.
Because as I said, it seems to feed the nearby state universities- which is great!- and Northwestern. It doesn't seem to take up more than it's fair share (it is a huge school) among elite university placements (except at Northwestern- is the article including Northwestern? Where 33% of the students come from within Illinois)
Why mention "white" if not implying that whites are then overrepresented at the universities?
Could be tricky writing rather than bad. "I never said whites were overrepresented at those universities..."
I agree, Freeman.
. He met Rahm Emanuel who asked what school his kid was in and was visibly taken aback when he heard the name. Guess he didn't expect one of his cops to send his kids to an elite school.
He was probably concerned the cop was getting money from somewhere he shouldn't have been.
So you are using it as shorthand for a group of schools? I'm just curious.
Why do I think of New Trier when I think of great public high schools? A mix of Ordinary People, John Hughes, & an admissions officer who talked to me about the great reputation of the school. & my family has roots in Winnetka back to the 1860s.
30 kids to a class is not a gonna give a top tier experience.
My classes in grammar school had 30 kids. You know the difference ?
Nuns. With rulers at the ready for some kid that mouthed off.
I saw a kid in second grade who literally got his mouth washed out with soap.
He was probably concerned the cop was getting money from somewhere he shouldn't have been.
He's a huge snob. He didn't expect him to know the name of the school, much less send his kid to it.
What an intemperate screed in response to people probably misreading a poorly written paragraph! There is in English often an ambiguity about the referent of pronouns. It is common in careful writing to specify. This is why the structures “these former” or “these latter” exist, although simpler would be to just write “such high schools” or “these high schools”.
MayBee,
& it's shorthand for a couple of other public high schools that are known to Ivy admissions. A couple of schools in the area have been celebrated at the top publics in the USA for decades. They got publicity for it: the cover of Life, Town and Country, stuff like that.
I'm not arguing they are Exeter or Andover. I'm saying these publics are in a select group who are known to admissions officers at the Ivys. This gives the grads an advantage when applying to select schools.
That said, a large proportion of students who go to privates, like Lakeside (Bill Gates), will likewise attend public Universities like University of Washington.
Two points;
1. At one time Harvard did try to get regional representation which included NOT admitting even top students from New England private schools. I knew a student at UC Berkeley who went to a private school in Southern Vermont (I don't remember the name, but it was a very good school.) He had top grades but Harvard turned him down. He came to Cal (where his father had once been a professor) got top grades and went to Yale Law School where he graduated first in his class. Yet Harvard had turned him down, presumably to admit someone who was not in the Northeast.
2. Looking at the list of New Trier graduates, almost all were going to college--a quick scan showed that one or two were "undecided" one was joining the Air Force and one on a LDS mission (probably merely deferring college). And though few were going to elite Ivies, almost all were going to quite respectable colleges, e.g., major state universities, good small private colleges such as Grinnell, and none to local junior colleges.
Omaha’s Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart has about 80 girls in the Class of 2019. Cornell, Stanford and Yale are where some of them are going next academic year. And I am sure the cost of education is less than at the Madison public high schools.
The question which is never answered: How much should we spend per student to provide a solid, fundamental education?
WTF does anyone get off on claiming we have "dis-invested" in primary and secondary education in America?
F*cking autocorrect.
Abme was I ere I saw Emba.
Here's what I found for a New Trier 2014 survey of 620 students:
Ivy: 4% =24 students
Little Ivy: 4% = 24 students
Elite: 8% = 49 students
Big Ten: 32% =about 198 students
Gap Year: 1%
Military/Alternative: 1%
1. University of Illinois (67 students)
2. Indiana University (39 students)
3. University of Michigan (39 students)
4. University of Wisconsin (31 students)
5. Miami University, Ohio (28 students)
https://better.net/chicago/life/education/oh-the-places-theyll-go-college-destinations-for-the-class-of-2014/
"The question which is never answered: How much should we spend per student to provide a solid, fundamental education?"
That's a great question.
But a solid education is not the equivalent of a world class education. If we're talking about Harvard, a solid student isn't going to be as top notch as a world class student. Doesn't mean that student couldn't manage to get through the school work. But that student isn't as competitive. How much should elite schools lower their standards?
WWWW- I was referring to primary and secondary education not college.
Paul McKaskle-
2. Looking at the list of New Trier graduates, almost all were going to college-
It's hard to know because it doesn't say anywhere the list is all inclusive. It is the students surveyed. So in the 2014 list, it's 620 students surveyed, but the graduating class would be closer to 1,000 students.
wwww- yeah, I found something similar for the 2018 class, above
How much should elite schools lower their standards?
Since affirmative action, what standards?
There is a great deal of self-selection in high school populations. People can move to areas with great high schools or send their kids to private high schools (like Obama's high school). Much of the liberal agenda removes choice and freedom. This is why it is anti-human. It is also why today's dems are clearly the descendants of Jim Crow.
"Elba is saying those high school tend to be wealthy and white, not that the Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT are majority white. All she says about those colleges is that they are one third from those high schools. She isn't even saying that the third from those high schools are majority white."
Seems to me that Elba is trying to nudge readers towards the false impression that "whites" are disproportionately represented.
It's Emba, friends.
Elba belongs in the Napoleon post.
Omaha’s Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart has about 80 girls in the Class of 2019. Cornell, Stanford and Yale are where some of them are going next academic year. And I am sure the cost of education is less than at the Madison public high schools.
Your comments here indicate a preoccupation with Jesuit education. I'm sure it's of high quality. However, that's beside the point. W hat makes the difference for these girls are parents who are capable and stable. You could drop kids from the ghetto into that school and they would not be going to Cornell, Stanford and Yale. Your class of 2019 girls have parents who read to them every day of their lives, who had a nutritious dinner on the table every night, who made sure they got good sleep and clean clothes and nice friends and didn't watch filthy movies. They took spoke to their kids with positive encouragement and rich vocabularies and took them to church and told them family legends and laughed over board games. Those are the things that create healthy happy kids who are able to learn.
You could drop kids from the ghetto into that school and they should not be going to Cornell, Stanford and Yale.
FIFY. Virtue signaling by people who don't give a shit about those kids are doing this. They are being set up to fail.
This is what should be happen ing.
Ever read "Mismatch ?"
WWWW- I was referring to primary and secondary education not college.
Solid schools are great. But solid K-12 are not equal to world class level quality K-12. There are a select number of private (and a few public) high schools that admissions people view as world class level quality.
Part of it is reputation. But quality is a big part of it. World class high school education is better then the standard IB or AP opportunities.
My son and I both score well on the big standardized tests, but neither of us had any grades to brag about in h.s. I made my best grades in graduate programs but he is done with school after a few years of pretend-college. Neither of us have any idea of class rank.
My wife went (on scholarship) to a small Catholic girls high school, and graduated 6 or 7 of 42, but her standardized tests scores are usually not that great. The difference is, she cared about grades.
I'm pretty sure public ed in this country has had it, for reasons others have noted. When I was working, I was really impressed with most of the home-schooled I encountered, though of course I don't now how they scored on tests or what grades they made.
Narr
Glad I'm out
Blogger I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
Omaha’s Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart has about 80 girls in the Class of 2019. Cornell, Stanford and Yale are where some of them are going next academic year. And I am sure the cost of education is less than at the Madison public high schools.
Your comments here indicate a preoccupation with Jesuit education. I'm sure it's of high quality. However, that's beside the point. W hat makes the difference for these girls are parents who are capable and stable. You could drop kids from the ghetto into that school and they would not be going to Cornell, Stanford and Yale. Your class of 2019 girls have parents who read to them every day of their lives, who had a nutritious dinner on the table every night, who made sure they got good sleep and clean clothes and nice friends and didn't watch filthy movies. They took spoke to their kids with positive encouragement and rich vocabularies and took them to church and told them family legends and laughed over board games. Those are the things that create healthy happy kids who are able to learn.
You make a great case for the reality of white privileged.
The writer cites a Harvard Crimson story on "feeder" schools to Harvard, which lists these schools: Boston Latin, Phillips Academy in Andover, Stuyvesant High School, Noble and Greenough School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Trinity School in New York City, and Lexington High School.
I'm sure the private schools are mostly white and wealthy. The public feeders, such as Boston Latin, Lexington and Stuyvesant, primarily enroll middle-class kids with some low-income and working-class students, especially those from immigrant families. Stuyvesant is mostly Asian; Boston Latin and Lexington are about one-third Asian-American, far greater than their share of the population, and about half white.
Howard, I’m so sad for your racist little heart which evidently holds that non-whites are incapable of giving their kids a quality upbringing.
Making up tur difference:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-05-27/china-backs-yale-stance-on-foreign-students-rips-u-s-actions
No amount of money is going to make you wiser, better educated, or more capable of realizing your dreams if those dreams are valuable. Outside of pure luck, hard work is the only way there, and that is essentially free and unaffected by your race or socioeconomic background. Go get it while your competition is wallowing in self-pity. You have the inside track. The knowledge you need is far more available to you for far less than ever in history. What you need is at your fingertips, and not held by institutions that charge you obscene ransom for it. Higher education has become what high-end bottled water is to water.
"...a generation of disinvestment in secondary public education..."
Yea, as soon as you read that you should know the rest is not worth your time.
Howard just wishes he had some "white privilege" so he could get out of his crappy apartment.
How did you know I was in a crappy apartment, Mike? You scaring me, doc.
Better k-12? Two words: reform school.
Post a Comment