So while I've been talking about all the ideological positions, there is a massive question of politics that's going to sneak in here, and has already been commented upon by a couple of my regular commentators.
Without going too far down the PCE/Moldbugian path of all politics being inherently corrupt, let's ask a simple question as an illustration
Why do progressives support the massively inept public school system which does as much as anything else we can think of (all other factors combined?) to ensure that the urban poor stay urban poor?
A progressive's analysis.
1. The poor are indeed harmed
2. The teachers are a member of the progressive coalition, and in the Monks class. To act would damage the teachers.
3. The people suggesting to do something else are enemies of most of our efforts to help the poor
4. They are suggesting we use markets which at best don't solve problems fast, and which we don't trust, and which will result in some instances of even worse education.
5. We're responsible for public education in the first place, and to back out would massively switch a historical position.
6. So long as it's a public system, it remains a collective action problem, where we progressives have the advantage.
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5 comments:
There are two issues missing from this - equality and socialization.
Do we need a certain amount of consistency in education?
Does the functioning of society require shared values, beliefs, history...?
Can their be equality without equality of education?
Would a hodgepodge of private schools do better than the hodgepodge of public schools we have?
Melanie,
I believe you are correct. I had not figured out how to talk about socialization in a way that was generous to the advocate. However, equality was a complete oversight on my part, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Whats more how come they in general do not support known methods for how to use the existing public school infrastructure and people with better instructional techniques that are known to solve the so called education gap? Even though the methods were validated with by the department of education largest educational experiment Project Follow Through (see Direct Instruction).
(Aretea has heard the following but for others...)
Basically we know how to take a school in the bottom 20% (Tittle 1) and with the existing staff (no hire or fire ability), the existing kids (no ability to cherry pick or exclude), the same amount of money, with the same amount of hours of school (no crazy KIPP like long days) and bring the school into the 50%. Similar size improvements can be found across the scale.
That's stunning and completely ignored. The problem was solved 30 years ago, and its still the hot button educational issue. Again you can not think that the primary goal is to help poor children, to create progress etc and explain this. Oh it makes some teachers uncomfortable, it makes school administrators that have to be accountable very uncomfortable. But it helps poor kids receive the same educational outcomes as middle class children.
So this along with many other cases (see also the HOPE Probation (Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement). The Good behavior game, heck even medical checklists.
Basically the problem we face with the current system of our government is that there is no apparent force that replicates successful practices from one section of the government to the others. (which was a primary goal of the founding fathers) If something works, it does not mean it will spread. This is in a way a libertarian critique, but it need not only be so.
I think this is a good wedge to discuss with progressives. Because you can find things they should want to spread, you don't need to even propose the market as a solution (its not the only one) but you need to encourage them to think seriously as to why systems seem to fail year after year even when under democratic/government control even when there are known solutions to the problems.
Oh and consider the Teach for America solution. Take elite ivy league students and turn them into teachers. This is not thing but a truly crass method of grabbing power the good old fashion Yale and Harvard way.
Look up the job openings for Teach for America and they are all about how to raise more money and put people in places of power...not a single job about how to synthesize their efforts or discover better scalable ways to teach children.
I have no doubt that most of the people in the organization think they are the most progressive of people. Again solving the problem seems not to be on the their agenda. (which is to close the education gap)
Robert, great info! I've hit wiki to follow up on Project Follow Through and DI, thanks!
To give my own answer to Aretae's question, I think there's a lot of demagoguery and resistance to change going on.
First, I'm taking as a given that progressives want equality, as Melanie rightly points out, and have a high level of distrust for free market solutions.
Second, the NEA is an extremely powerful lobby that has consistently resisted any changes that could potentially lead to a reduction in the total number of teachers. Additionally, the NEA overwhelmingly favors progressive candidates with campaign dollars.
Based on these items, progressives accept that the system isn't perfect, but for practical (loss of NEA funds) and theoretical (free markets can't be trusted) reasons progressives are unwilling to embrace any of the currently available alternatives.
I think if an alternative is proposed that makes the NEA happy and provides a measurably better result than the current public education system, they would support it.
Caveat: I'm not a progressive so there may be other motivations at work here.
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