**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

That's one point of view, here's another:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national...m_source=atlfb

Finland's education system is more competitive than the American system.

Finland's system could be better too. Finland is in a unique situation where it has a small, mostly homogeneous population of people who share similar culture and values. In this kind of place, it's not that hard to have a public system that's generally all right because the subjects generally want the same things. There are still some drawbacks, but they're the kind that Americans care more about and Finnish probably don't.

Transplanting this to a diverse population would spell disaster. The funny thing is that a lot of what American conservatives and Trump supporters are fighting for are things that Finland already values and already has. We want to be able to govern ourselves like you guys do. Finnish government is much more representative of the Finnish people than the American federal government is of American people. Some of our state governments are probably about as representative, but most aren't.

[CoccoBill]

Finland's system could be better too. Finland is in a unique situation where it has a small, mostly homogeneous population of people who share similar culture and values. In this kind of place, it's not that hard to have a public system that's generally all right because the subjects generally want the same things. There are still some drawbacks, but they're the kind that Americans care more about and Finnish probably don't.

Finland is both population-wise and geographically the size of an average US state. To my understanding schools and their governance operates there on state level, so I would argue that size is of consequence here. What things are wanted from American schools that's different to Finland? I'd think most just want quality affordable education. Just having a few different religions or cultures practiced by the students is not an issue, it's already accommodated in Finland.

Transplanting this to a diverse population would spell disaster. The funny thing is that a lot of what American conservatives and Trump supporters are fighting for are things that Finland already values and already has. We want to be able to govern ourselves like you guys do. Finnish government is much more representative of the Finnish people than the American federal government is of American people. Some of our state governments are probably about as representative, but most aren't.

The key points are to have a single payer system that ensures all kids regardless of background and location have access to the same level of schools for free, there's no competition for best schools since they're all the same. Teachers are respected and you're required a university degree to become one. There's less homework, less standardized tests and more focus on creativity. I don't see how any of this would spell disaster.

[wufwugy]

Finland is both population-wise and geographically the size of an average US state. To my understanding schools and their governance operates there on state level, so I would argue that size is of consequence here. What things are wanted from American schools that's different to Finland? I'd think most just want quality affordable education. Just having a few different religions or cultures practiced by the students is not an issue, it's already accommodated in Finland.

If I can take my own state (approximately the same size as Finland), Seattle and Spokane are two very different places. There isn't a "Washington nation." Seattle has more in common with San Francisco (a couple states to the south), and Spokane has more in common with South Dakota (several states to the east). Some counties, like Yakima, probably have more in common with New Mexico than with the rest of Washington. Bellingham has more in common with British Columbia than it does Spokane.

Washingtonians don't think of themselves as Washingtonians. Well, maybe some Seattleites do, but they're the kind who might think Seattle=Washington=Utopia. We've got a bunch of people from China, from Norway, from Mexico, from other parts of the US. Even though Washington probably does have more homogeneous people and culture than some other places in the US, it's still crazy diverse.

When it comes to what parents in Washington want for their kids' educations, it's all over the place. Some want lots of their specific religions in their schools, others don't. Some want focus on practical skills, others don't. This is the kind of place that would benefit greatly from a private system absent of government funding and regulation. Lots of parents send their kids to private school or homeschool already, and these parents bear a big cost for doing so. The government has made it very hard and expensive to not go to the public school based on your district. Lots of parents would prefer to go private or homeschool but don't due to these costs.

From my personal experience at a community college, I have discovered that if I have kids, they will be homeschooled. I knew a whole bunch of different people there, and the ones who were homeschooled were miles ahead of everybody else. It's pretty astounding actually. I thought "well adjusted teenager" was an oxymoron until I met homeschooled ones.

The key points are to have a single payer system that ensures all kids regardless of background and location have access to the same level of schools for free, there's no competition for best schools since they're all the same. Teachers are respected and you're required a university degree to become one. There's less homework, less standardized tests and more focus on creativity. I don't see how any of this would spell disaster.

In a sufficiently competitive system, products and services aren't that differentiated.

From what I've read on Finland, there is a measure of school choice. This does a fantastic amount of good for competition. In most (or all?) places in the US, we're forced to attend a specific school based on location. Simply being able to choose between a small handful of schools would make our system far more robust.

It isn't that a public system can't be improved. It can. Add vouchers to the US public system, and it will improve vastly. My initial point includes how the kind of problem that has arisen in our public system is the kind that arises due to it being a public system. Also, even though Finland has some smarter elements in its system, I think it would be greatly improved if totally private.

[CoccoBill]

In a sufficiently competitive system, products and services aren't that differentiated.

From what I've read on Finland, there is a measure of school choice. This does a fantastic amount of good for competition. In most (or all?) places in the US, we're forced to attend a specific school based on location. Simply being able to choose between a small handful of schools would make our system far more robust.

I'm not sure what you mean by competition here? That's exactly how things are here, you're pretty much assigned a school based on your location the first 9-12 grades of basic education, after that it's all application based. There is no competition between schools, they aren't even compared to each other, no measuring of performance or any kind of metrics like that. They actually make it a point to not publish statistics on test scores, and nowadays I don't think kids even receive numerical grades until grade 5 or 6. And that was exactly the point of the article, it doesn't matter which school you go to, they're all basically the same. That equality and lack of competition is a key aspect of why Finnish schools perform so well.

It isn't that a public system can't be improved. It can. Add vouchers to the US public system, and it will improve vastly. My initial point includes how the kind of problem that has arisen in our public system is the kind that arises due to it being a public system. Also, even though Finland has some smarter elements in its system, I think it would be greatly improved if totally private.

Making the system private would ensure they wouldn't be of the same quality. Schools would have to employ every strategy imaginable to attract students, like manipulating performance metrics or at least concentrating solely on standardized test performance, which kills creativity. Studying should be about learning stuff, not about learning to perform well in tests.

[wufwugy]

I'm not sure what you mean by competition here? That's exactly how things are here, you're pretty much assigned a school based on your location the first 9-12 grades of basic education, after that it's all application based. There is no competition between schools, they aren't even compared to each, no measuring of performance or any kind of metrics like that. They actually make it a point to not publish statistics on test scores, and nowadays I don't think kids even receive numerical grades until grade 5 or 6. And that was exactly the point of the article, it doesn't matter which school you go to, they're all basically the same. That equality and lack of competition is a key aspect of why Finnish schools perform so well.

I don't know enough of the Finnish specifics to provide robust input on specifics. This guy argues that the Finnish system has a strong element of choice. Interesting also: he argues that the Finnish system is underperforming in other areas due to its system.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/06...ation-miracle/

Making the system private would ensure they wouldn't be of the same quality. Schools would have to employ every strategy imaginable to attract students, like manipulating performance metrics or at least concentrating solely on standardized test performance, which kills creativity. Studying should be about learning stuff, not about learning to perform well in tests.

I like that you're thinking in terms of cause and effect. Also saying that schools would have to employ strategies to attract students is a good way of putting it. They would. This type of thing works well in other areas of the economy. It should probably be encouraged.

Regarding the idea of "quality," in some ways, yeah, some people might get lower quality education YET get increased quality of life due to their limited resources going to more productive things. I won't go in deep on this, but one element is that I would argue that education is one of the worst things that teenagers can be doing with their time. The incentives for them should revolve around working as much as they can and investing most of their wages. The exponential growth of their investment at that age is an enormous good that nobody talks about. In addition, the most productive way to increase productive skills is to work. Education instead of working for the young carries a colossal opportunity cost that nobody is talking about. If education went private and then it became more beneficial for those on the margins to leave school and enter the workforce, that would be a good thing.



If I could do it all over again, I would drop out of school at 16 (maybe get a GED), work full-time in a restaurant (due to bad regulations, it would probably be two restaurants), start by washing dishes, eventually work up to bartender and maybe management. And the most important thing is that I would, without exception, put 15% of what I earned in each paycheck into a dollar cost averaging investment strategy and 5% into a rainy day fund.

And guess what, my life would be amazing (restaurant work is quite fun), and I would retire a millionaire. We're killing kids when we tell them they need to waste the most productive years of their lives being unproductive. Government policies should revolve around having kids work at as young an age as is reasonable and heavily invest. After a few generations, the amount of millionaires in the country would increase many times over, the level of poverty would diminish to virtual nothingness, the average job would be a pretty decent job that the average person could work, and then school attendance rates would increase due to the new kids having such rich families that there is more incentive for those kids to focus on creative endeavors.

Education was always an aristocracy thing. We can't forget that. Education was never meant as a tool to get people out of lower classes. The modern West has internalized the idea that formal education is a tool for advancement for the poor, and this is causing all sorts of problems. We're leading our kids down the wrong path.

[CoccoBill]

I don't know enough of the Finnish specifics to provide robust input on specifics. This guy argues that the Finnish system has a strong element of choice. Interesting also: he argues that the Finnish system is underperforming in other areas due to its system.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/06/is-finland-a-choice-less-education-miracle/

By no means are the schools perfect, I'm just talking about the reasons why they've been doing well on PISA tests. It's true that there is choice, there are a few private schools such as Steiner's, there's are Swedish and English schools etc, but I'd wager 95+% just pick whichever school they're assigned to. I find it a bit of a stretch to claim that amounts to any significant level of competition, let alone that it would be a defining factor in the performance of the schools.

I like that you're thinking in terms of cause and effect. Also saying that schools would have to employ strategies to attract students is a good way of putting it. They would. This type of thing works well in other areas of the economy. It should probably be encouraged.

Norway has a very similar socioeconomical status and culture to Finland, but they're educational system much more resembles the American model, mostly private schools than compete with each other for students. Their PISA performance has been mediocre.

http://www.thelocal.no/20131203/norw...hs-and-science

Regarding the idea of "quality," in some ways, yeah, some people might get lower quality education YET get increased quality of life due to their limited resources going to more productive things. I won't go in deep on this, but one element is that I would argue that education is one of the worst things that teenagers can be doing with their time. The incentives for them should revolve around working as much as they can and investing most of their wages. The exponential growth of their investment at that age is an enormous good that nobody talks about. In addition, the most productive way to increase productive skills is to work. Education instead of working for the young carries a colossal opportunity cost that nobody is talking about. If education went private and then it became more beneficial for those on the margins to leave school and enter the workforce, that would be a good thing.

I would think in the coming years with AI and robotization most jobs that require no education will be obsolete. Not everyone can just run a service business or be an artist. Many people are still enticed by earning more than minimum wage, having benefits and relatively secure jobs compared to entrepreneurship, but I guess that's slowly changing. I don't view education purely as a pragmatic or profitable enabler, but also, if not mainly, as a source of knowledge, culture and understanding.

If I could do it all over again, I would drop out of school at 16 (maybe get a GED), work full-time in a restaurant (due to bad regulations, it would probably be two restaurants), start by washing dishes, eventually work up to bartender and maybe management. And the most important thing is that I would, without exception, put 15% of what I earned in each paycheck into a dollar cost averaging investment strategy and 5% into a rainy day fund.

And guess what, my life would be amazing (restaurant work is quite fun), and I would retire a millionaire. We're killing kids when we tell them they need to waste the most productive years of their lives being unproductive. Government policies should revolve around having kids work at as young an age as is reasonable and heavily invest. After a few generations, the amount of millionaires in the country would increase many times over, the level of poverty would diminish to virtual nothingness, the average job would be a pretty decent job that the average person could work, and then school attendance rates would increase due to the new kids having such rich families that there is more incentive for those kids to focus on creative endeavors.

Education was always an aristocracy thing. We can't forget that. Education was never meant as a tool to get people out of lower classes. The modern West has internalized the idea that formal education is a tool for advancement for the poor, and this is causing all sorts of problems. We're leading our kids down the wrong path.

All I can really say is that we see things quite differently here.

[wufwugy]

By no means are the schools perfect, I'm just talking about the reasons why they've been doing well on PISA tests. It's true that there is choice, there are a few private schools such as Steiner's, there's are Swedish and English schools etc, but I'd wager 95+% just pick whichever school they're assigned to. I find it a bit of a stretch to claim that amounts to any significant level of competition, let alone that it would be a defining factor in the performance of the schools.

When people have the choice to go elsewhere yet don't, it's a sign that competition is working.

We want things to be where a marginal shift in consumption results in the need for innovation by producers. 5% going elsewhere than the nearest school might be more than enough to get that.

I would think in the coming years with AI and robotization most jobs that require no education will be obsolete. Not everyone can just run a service business or be an artist. Many people are still enticed by earning more than minimum wage, having benefits and relatively secure jobs compared to entrepreneurship, but I guess that's slowly changing. I don't view education purely as a pragmatic or profitable enabler, but also, if not mainly, as a source of knowledge, culture and understanding.

I think we are overly concerned about this. The trend is always that technology is speculated to reducing employment opportunities, yet each time technology increases them. Maybe eventually things will be different, but the way things are now and will be for a long time is that technology is not pushing simple skills out, in aggregate.

All I can really say is that we see things quite differently here.

I wish I bookmarked the awesome calculator I was using that showed this exponential quality in action. If somebody invests a proportion of their income, a dollar earned at age 15 is hugely bigger than a dollar earned at age 25. A dollar earned at age 15 can be many times a dollar earned at age 55.

I'm sure it's been quantified somewhere. I wonder how how much wages would have to increase for those who do 10th-"16th" grade in order for there to no longer be an opportunity cost to just instead working, assuming the same proportion of income invested. Of course, those numbers will probably be skewed in favor of the formal education group due to the crowding out effect that a society with such emphasis on formal education has.

[CoccoBill]

If I can take my own state (approximately the same size as Finland), Seattle and Spokane are two very different places. There isn't a "Washington nation." Seattle has more in common with San Francisco (a couple states to the south), and Spokane has more in common with South Dakota (several states to the east). Some counties, like Yakima, probably have more in common with New Mexico than with the rest of Washington. Bellingham has more in common with British Columbia than it does Spokane.

Washingtonians don't think of themselves as Washingtonians. Well, maybe some Seattleites do, but they're the kind who might think Seattle=Washington=Utopia. We've got a bunch of people from China, from Norway, from Mexico, from other parts of the US. Even though Washington probably does have more homogeneous people and culture than some other places in the US, it's still crazy diverse.

When it comes to what parents in Washington want for their kids' educations, it's all over the place. Some want lots of their specific religions in their schools, others don't. Some want focus on practical skills, others don't. This is the kind of place that would benefit greatly from a private system absent of government funding and regulation. Lots of parents send their kids to private school or homeschool already, and these parents bear a big cost for doing so. The government has made it very hard and expensive to not go to the public school based on your district. Lots of parents would prefer to go private or homeschool but don't due to these costs.

If you compare cities in Finland, you'll easily find similar differences. The bigger cities here of course also have people from around the world, there are more than insignificant population of Swedish, Russian, Estonian, Somalian, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Albanian, Chinese etc. You don't need to have hundreds of people from a certain ethnicity in a school for it to make an impact, even one person needs to be accommodated. While Finland has been incredibly homogeneous for most of its history, that has been changing fast in the past decades. Over 10% of the population are not ethnic Finns, and in larger cities that number is a lot higher.

From my personal experience at a community college, I have discovered that if I have kids, they will be homeschooled. I knew a whole bunch of different people there, and the ones who were homeschooled were miles ahead of everybody else. It's pretty astounding actually. I thought "well adjusted teenager" was an oxymoron until I met homeschooled ones.

The quality of homeschooling is exactly as good as the person teaching. I wouldn't make any kind of generalizations about it. I would personally be wry of enforcing my own prejudices and limitations to my kids, I'm not an expert on all subjects. BTW in Finland the concept of homeschooling is non-existent and counter to all common sense. Sure I could also do my own electric work and dentistry, but I'd feel much safer getting a professional to do it.

[wufwugy]

in Finland the concept of homeschooling is non-existent and counter to all common sense. Sure I could also do my own electric work and dentistry, but I'd feel much safer getting a professional to do it.

I know, right? And yet, kids that are taught to read textbooks, to do their work when told to, who do not learn laziness by daydreaming in lectures, and who aren't dumped into a sea of teenager politics that teach them to hate themselves, in my experience are doing far better than the rest.

[Poopadoop]

I know, right? And yet, kids that are taught to read textbooks, to do their work when told to, who do not learn laziness by daydreaming in lectures, and who aren't dumped into a sea of teenager politics that teach them to hate themselves, in my experience are doing far better than the rest.

Eh, my sense is the majority of the learning advantage from home schooling comes down to class size.

If there's a social advantage it's prolly pretty much wat u say about being kept away from other teenagers.

[CoccoBill]

I know, right? And yet, kids that are taught to read textbooks, to do their work when told to, who do not learn laziness by daydreaming in lectures, and who aren't dumped into a sea of teenager politics that teach them to hate themselves, in my experience are doing far better than the rest.

What's your sample size?

[wufwugy]

What's your sample size?

I don't recall. Over a dozen but not big. The striking thing was that 100% of those homeschooled I met were significantly above average. I discussed it with a couple of my teachers. They agreed that the homeschooled students were the best. My calculus teacher claims it's because they're used to doing what they're told, unlike kids in the normal school structure, who are used to getting out of doing what they're told.