Arthur D. Hlavaty

Turns out, Harvard students aren’t that smart after all

2021-11-19T09:04:59Z

In which my Swarthmore condescension is validated [Guardian]

Thanx to Metafilter

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The Student as Convict

2021-01-11T11:19:42Z

Cop shit in our schools [HackEducation]

Thanx to Metafilter

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This one is about me

2018-09-05T09:50:48Z

Can a public school system that does not track by ability adequately serve the gifted and talented? Spoiler alert: NO

Thanx to Slate Star Codex

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Are we not cabinet? We are DeVos

2017-02-08T11:33:19Z

40 years ago I was where our new Secretary of Education is now: wanting to smash the public school system. I felt that way because I thought it existed to serve the social order.

OK, that’s a smart-ass oversimplification, but one of the minor disastrous results of Nehemiah Scudder’s tie-breaking vote was to dig up John Green’s dim-witted post that begins with an endorsement of totalitarianism and ends not knowing the difference between stupid and ignorant.

I believed the libertarian oversimplification that the State gives everyone what the dictator or the majority wants but the Market has requisite variety. I seemed to be an example. Public school, where the dull normals set the pace, exacerbated my attention and anger issues, making me (and often my classmates) miserable. Then, an intellectually rigorous prep school kept me interested enough in learning that I was merely as unhappy as teenagers usually are, brought my oppositional defiant disorder down to challenging the dress rules, and enabled me to suck up huge wads of math, science, and literature.

I gave up my support for the voucher system when I realized it would turn the schools over to the kind of people who run insurance companies. That was typical of my abandonment of libertarianism. I still agree with Tim Leary that politics is so animalistic it should be done on all fours, but business is every bit as quadrupedal.

And education, like public health, is a public good that, alas, has to be centrally coordinated by an organization to which we give the monopoly of legitimized force. It is a public good because giving everyone a chance to develop their abilities (even if they’re dark-skinned or their families are poor or they start out not speaking English) will make things better for everyone.

As Uncle Sigmund said, the paranoid is never entirely mistaken. There are many people who really do want the schools to serve the social order. They want to protect the tender minds of the young from Godless heliocentrism or make them have lots of unwanted pregnancies (excuse me, I mean they want to indoctrinate them with the fantasy of Abstinence Only, which always winds up that way). Or they want the schools to make everyone equal instead of developing everyone to their fullest; some even believe that both can be done simultaneously, which is at least as feasible as lining up alphabetically by height. There are those who want the school draft to have no exemptions: Those with intellectual or financial resources must send their children into the system so that (in theory) they cannot be educated without educating everyone. The word I would use for that is “hostages.”

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Charter

2016-06-30T10:00:15Z

Education, like the not entirely unrelated institution of prisons, is something the free market does worse than the state.

Thanx to Charles P. Pierce

ETA: who also has an excellent reply to the usually reasonable Matt Taibbi and all the other populists who want to brush aside the Stupid White People Hating aspects of Trump & Brexit.

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Preparation for life

2016-02-02T21:32:42Z

coding is not like school.

Thanx to andrewducker

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I am Tom Brady click I am Tom Brady click I am…

2015-08-09T11:09:05Z

This form of robot emulation does not appear to be dystopian satire.

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Oklahoma

2015-02-21T15:11:21Z

Reaction

2015-02-18T12:21:24Z

Teenage girl hits abuser back first. School blames her. Mother schools school.

Thanx to andrewducker

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Monopoly of legitimized violence

2015-01-23T11:12:34Z

Illinois schools are requiring students to hand over their Facebook passwords. Needless to say, this is purely intended to protect victims and is not in any way a totalitarian power grab. As they explain,

The main driver behind the new cyberbullying law is to minimize destructive behavior associated with it, including “antisocial behavior, such as vandalism, shoplifting, skipping [classes] and dropping out of school, fighting, using drugs and alcohol, sexual harassment, and sexual violence,”

And of course failure to respect the principal's authoritye

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Give me the child before he is seven

2014-04-27T12:25:58Z

Kindergarten art show sends the wrong message.

Thanx to Pharyngula

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Radical suggestion

2014-01-29T11:28:18Z

Law school should teach people to be lawyers.

Thanx to Chronicle

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And you thought your elementary school sucked

2013-11-25T11:00:51Z

The 6 Most Horrific Lessons Ever Taught in Elementary School

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Schooling

2013-10-03T10:24:57Z

My public elementary school made me believe in vouchers, until I realized that would turn the schools over to the kind of people who run insurance companies. Diane Ravitch has been on a similar journey.

Thanx to Charles P. Pierce.

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Scary thought

2013-08-25T12:52:49Z

School is no place for a reader.

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Escapee

2012-05-26T12:02:41Z

An honor student in Texas was jailed for missing too much school.

"But the judge said Tran's case was bigger than the individual situation of one student.

"'If you let one run loose, what are you gonna' do with the rest of 'em?,' said Judge Lanny Moriarty. 'Let them go too?'"

Maybe the Texas schools need a work-release program.

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Schooling

2011-09-21T16:08:50Z

[comment promoted to post]

I come from a family of teachers and unsurprisingly think they take too much of the blame. The school system has a set of goals as incompatible as those of the prison system (not the only thing the two have in common). The teachers are supposed to Leave No Child Behind, a goal that makes as much sense in schooling as it would in a track meet. They are evaluated on the performance of their students on an objective test (a grotesque idea in itself) and then told they must not teach for the test. They are subject to the pressures of idiots who want their offspring protected from godless ~~heliocentrism~~ evolution. Their unions are probably no worse about protecting incompetent and harmful members than the AMA. Nobody has a clear idea of what they should do, but everyone knows they're doing it wrong.

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Bad law

2011-03-15T10:36:40Z

Jon Carroll tries to think of something good about No Child Left Behind. Fails.

ETA: And any conservative who supports it should be required to send his kids to public school.

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Arthur D. Hlavaty

Turns out, Harvard students aren’t that smart after all

The Student as Convict

This one is about me

Are we not cabinet? We are DeVos

Charter

Preparation for life

I am Tom Brady *click* I am Tom Brady *click* I am…

Oklahoma

Reaction

Monopoly of legitimized violence

Give me the child before he is seven

Radical suggestion

And you thought your elementary school sucked

Schooling

Scary thought

Escapee

Schooling

Bad law

I am Tom Brady click I am Tom Brady click I am…