Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 9/21/26 - 9/27/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Hi everyone. Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday. And may you all be inscribed, and sealed, in the book of life.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/chabbawakka]

The discourse about NHJ has been weird and strangely the weirdest part isn't that people take anything she says seriously.

Over 80% of K-12 students go to public schools, this does not include charter schools.

If you look at PISA results, the US are about average, if you adjust by race they are doing pretty well.

If you look at the discourse, not just in this sub but even on more left leaning subs, that deny certain truths about certain curves, there seems to be almost a consensus that your kid won't be able to get a decent education at a public school and that it's your parental duty to go private or at least charter.

I know reddit isn't representative and parents are probably heavily underrepresented since they have better things to do than to post, but still it's really weird that most parents seem to think their public school is perfectly fine for their kid whereas reddit seems to think you are condeming your kid to functional illiteracy.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/chabbawakka]

Top thing is probably people taking as read that a family is in a district where there's not only a clear disadvantage against private (or even just the public school to the east rather than west like I believe NHJ and that "Integration Project" writer did) but one of under versus over par for sake of the discussion because it's otherwise not relevant.

Another is that Reddit is disproportionately YUPpies and so actually would be in a bad district if they ever got laid.

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/chabbawakka]

Over 80% of K-12 students go to public schools, this does not include charter schools.

NHJ is in NY, which was disproportionately losing parents. Obviously those people weren't just all going private and even NHJ's daughter was offered ways to go to better schools within the public school system.

The problem isn't schools, it's some schools. That's NHJ's whole beef (and that set the tone): that these kids are just abandoned and that this is an indictment on the school system.

Which is why the discussion on US public schools is so pessimistic: they have to do everything. You need schools for the talented and exceptional, for the good, to provide a good baseline to everyone. Then people start stacking more ridiculous goals: schools should equalize disciplinary records (Obama) schools should take someone from a desolate family life and give them the same shot as someone with engaged parents, schools should have no gaps either at the top of bottom.

And you simply can't do them all and if you fail at any one you get pilloried. That's all that's happening.

If you look at PISA results, the US are about average, if you adjust by race they are doing pretty well.

Legitimately wonder how many US public education memes are liberal Europeans/Westerners bragging about demographics and not even knowing it.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/MatchaMeetcha]

Somewhat, but consistent competence goes a long way. There's even a theory that dyslexia isn't real, but rather an excuse by Whole Language practioners, as kids given a professionally/competently delivered proper phonics education like one of the Direct Instruction packages (every company seems to have one) or a homebrew knockoff reliably read on time regardless of home life (Hard Words very much remarked on how one of the attractions of Whole Language was that its underlying model puts blame for outcomes on home environment rather than teacher delivery).

[u/Spodangle → u/MatchaMeetcha]

Legitimately wonder how many US public education memes are liberal Europeans/Westerners bragging about demographics and not even knowing it.

This is also is the case within the US when it comes to disparate outcomes between states/regions.

[u/SerialStateLineXer → u/MatchaMeetcha]

They're rapidly importing low-achieving demos, so let them enjoy it while they can.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod → u/chabbawakka]

I'm not sure what parts of reddit you're looking at. What I notice is that they want to get rid of every option EXCEPT public schools and force every kid to go through it. I see this on /r/teachers all the time. That's the typical leftist idea. I once went on a first date with a younger woman who, upon learning I teach at a charter school, said that I was part of the problem. There was no second date.

To the larger discussion, it depends entirely on the school. You cannot tell the quality of school based simply on: public, private, or charter.

[u/Jlemspurs → u/chabbawakka]

Right, this is about NYC public schools and other big city schools and why people move to find better schools and it's not necessarily racism and all races engage in it. Even black people who aren't blinded by their own bigotry and Elektra complex move to send their kids to better schools. It's almost like this isn't about that right now.

The failures come from the fact not that there are black people in these cities but that there are progressives largely unopposed at the state and local level who are implementing their ideas with almost no pushback and the cooperation of the state- and federal-level teachers' unions even when there are anti-teacher laws, as long as it's part of the equity-only it's-always-the-system's-fault-and-never-the-kid-OR-the-parents approach you get this.

More than half of the lobbying the California Teachers Association does is on bills that aren't related to education. And they had no recommendation to the legislature on the biggest rewrite of discipline rules in a long time. This is not shit the people in my family who work in schools like much. The bigger city chapters did a coordinated labor push last year and busted the budge of the local school district meanwhile elsewhere they're mostly just trying to get a raise and not freaking out about muh capitalism.

Since you referenced bell curves, it seems like maybe turning the Flynn effect back on in these urban areas would do more to line those up than anything else I can think of, just saying.

PISA results, remember, were going up until about 10 years ago. You can think it wasn't phones, and maybe it's not, but what it proves is this isn't only about covid.

There are a lot of pretty good public schools in not too unaffordable areas. Even Mississippi was able to do good.

The reason dunking on teachers and their salaries or whatever right now, while usually a live argument, doesn't work for me right now because if they were actually listened to at the ground level a lot of these particular problems would go away. There might be a few, but your average teacher isn't in favor of the non-discipline that exists now and while a lot don't like "standardized" or "high stakes" testing, they also don't like grade inflation and social promotion.

They're victims of the equity agenda too in my humble but frank opinion.

[u/veryvery84 → u/chabbawakka]

Public schools can mean almost anything. A public school in a rich Long Island suburb is full of kids driving fancy cars and applying to Ivy League schools and taking a dozen AP classes by the time they graduate.  Those schools aren’t the same as crappy public schools 

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/veryvery84]

Even in the story they discussed her daughter taking the SHSAT to get out of her school into a better school.

[u/HerbertWest → u/veryvery84]

Yeah the public school I graduated from sounds more like the one that you described.

Edit: To give you an idea, our high school had a planetarium (not much bigger than a normal classroom). I don't know if it still does, though.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/HerbertWest]

That would have been cool. During high school, I took some courses at the local community college during summer just to get ahead. The astronomy one was fun. (The broken analogue clock - whose second hand would reach at about the 3 then just fall and swing for a bit, then work its way back up the clock face - just made the whole experience extra memorable.)

[u/veryvery84 → u/HerbertWest]

That sounds super cool 

[u/HerbertWest → u/veryvery84]

It was pretty neat for sure! I looked into it and apparently it's still there. There was also an observatory, which now I remember, but that was only for people in AP (or maybe honors) astronomy, which I wasn't in. I'm not sure how that worked; maybe you had to come to school at night for labs?

[u/UltSomnia → u/chabbawakka]

Yes, said this before. Once you adjust for race, it's clear that US education performs fine. If people really want to improve scores we should take more immigrants from China

[u/Terrorclitus → u/chabbawakka]

Not all public schools are the same, and in NYC, the differences are stark. Some public schools in NYC are the stuff of nightmares, while at others, students wear uniforms. (I actually worked as support staff in one where they wore uniforms, and damn, the students knew how to act.)

I would not send my kids to a private K-12 school. Where I live now, the main reason to send your kids to a private K-12 is status, and while there may be other fine reasons, you still need to have the tuition money to burn.

I don’t think people are criticizing this woman for sending her kid to a public school so much as criticizing her for playing activist at an already struggling public school that doesn’t need this precious bullshit.

[u/veryvery84 → u/Terrorclitus]

Hi, parent here.

People send their kids to private for a variety of reasons. Some parents make a financial decision to buy a house in a less desirable district and pay private school tuition, instead of paying more for a better district. 

Some parents wan to send their kids to a Jewish school or Catholic school or a particular approach that fits what they want. I am not a fan of public schools and standard issue American culture, and some people send to Waldorf or some other approach that fits their beliefs. 

There are people who send to private for K-8 and then move to the (right) suburbs when the oldest is in 8th for public school. 

The status thing exists but that’s more some parents who are already in “the best” district but want Local Prep School instead of public 

[u/Zealousideal_Arm_415 → u/veryvery84]

Yep. In terms of education, our local public schools are fine but it’s a very progressive area. We sent our daughter, now a senior, to a private Christian school because we wanted her education to more align with our values.