Item — HN Reader

> When we sent our kids to public school,

And there's the problem. Public schools do not want groups of children to go faster than other children because it is inequitable.

By simply teaching first grade content for several years, equity is ensured since it is impossible to get ahead.

The system is working as intended.

1 comments

This is a very cynical take, and completely wrong.

My daughter is at level Z, and some of her peers are level P or Q. It's fine, and encouraged. She just gets different work while they are still working on up-leveling.

Only lazy or underpaid/under-resourced teachers give every kid the same work.

how is that supposed to work? i mean, i agree that this would be ideal, but i believe it is far from the norm. at best advanced students get some extra work, and students who are behind gt some additional tutoring. i got advance work too, but in order to teach each child individually you need a completely different system like montessori, that is designed for that.

in particular i do not understand how more pay would give teachers more time to do this. more/better resources might help, but taking care of each student individually is something else entirely.

This is my experience as well. OP is parroting a common talking point from the groups that want to privatize education.

I went to a Math/CS magnet program for high school with selective admissions. It wasn't racially diverse and 90% Asian, but most of them were born into working class families. Virtually everyone went to top universities and did extremely well. My brother who went to a top tier private school used my teacher's math curriculum.

They eliminated the selective admissions after I graduated and now the program is worse. The teachers teach less because the students cannot learn. The students don't go to top universities anymore. But it is diverse and equitable.

I don't want to live in a world where I must buy my children access to education. Not getting into a good university and being forced to suffer the consequences of my actions made me realize the value of hard work.

If from 0-18, the determinant of my children's success is how much money I spend on them, I'm not teaching them to be better than me.

OP is sharing their experience, and you are sharing yours. neither experience is universal, and it has nothing to do with wanting to privatize education. rather it is a call for reform of the school system. (all public schools should adopt the montessori method in my opinion for example. it's not expensive. it takes just one year of training for teachers)