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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33980 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Teachers told me that schools were underfunded, and I believed them.

Practical question. What do you do when people say "our underfunded schools" or similar nonsense? Do you reveal your power level or do you just nod along?

Last night at an event someone used the word "underfunded" to refer to Seattle's famously bloated school system. It was all I could do not to spit out my drink. But it's hard, and probably counterproductive, to push back against someone's quasi-religious beliefs. I don't want to destroy people with facts and reason. I just want to chill. But I just hated leaving stupidity unchallenged as well.

In the end, I just said something about how I'd never send my kids to Seattle Public Schools and then changed the subject.

I imagine, if they really want to spend more funding on teacher pay, and want to increase the performance of the school, the best way to do so is to fire many of the existing teachers, and hire top-notch new ones.

Good luck advocating for that.

Personally, I nod along unless I foresee some reason to have significant future dealings with them. I tend to leave stupidity unchallenged; "let wrong people be wrong," is what I usually say in life. If I'm in a room with people who say things like "our underfunded schools," I'm generally thinking about how to leave that room and go somewhere else.

With people who I respect and who I know are actually open to thinking about the topic, I would ask them if they could describe to me what the schools need more money to do; if they could name specific budgetary shortfalls, or if they had any idea of the amount that is currently spent per student, and what they think that amount should be instead. Questions like this can lead to an interesting discussion with a non-hostile interlocutor. With a hostile interlocutor, they'll probably see you're trying to trap them and terminate discussion somehow.

I'm trying to model their responses in my mind now, and I know I've often heard, "Pay teachers more." But I don't see the path for that leading to better educational outcomes, and indeed if we pay them more for shitty educational outcomes, that would work against incentives.

Anyway, as you know, few people are actually thinking about the issues to this level of depth. I rarely have these conversations in real life.

Practical question. What do you do when people say "our underfunded schools" or similar nonsense? Do you reveal your power level or do you just nod along?

Not who you address this to, but I 100% reveal my power level on the subject. It’s totally doable.

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