re: Any takers for a discussion about “Marxian economics”?

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

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limiting new regulations

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Across the board?

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expanding school choice through vouchers,

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Have you seen evidence that vouchers have been successful in achieving better educational outcomes? I haven't. In fact, in Louisiana, the voucher system is rife with abuse and decreased outcomes for students.

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The pie-in-the-sky goals would be a balanced-budget amendment, congressional term limits, requiring government employees to participate in the same retirement and healthcare systems available to ordinary citizens, etc.

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I know these are pie-in-the-sky because we would have to rely on the people who benefit from the lack of these things to implement them, but these are the most likely to garner bipartisan support from voters (not the bourgeoise in DC).

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I'm under no illusion that we can unwind decades of government expansion overnight. But we can stop making the problem worse and start moving incrementally in the other direction.

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I think the only way we can achieve anything like this is through a critical electorate. Unfortunately, the standardized test fetish has basically forced public schools to discourage critical thinking and has helped to create a pipeline for the uncritical, unquestioning bottom-tier workforce, and a compliant electorate.

Worker productivity is a dumb metric for this argument.

It’s GDP/workers. When you import everything, “worker productivity” goes up. Workers aren’t really more productive.

Also, if I replace 10 workers with a computer, the remaining workers aren’t more productive.

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limiting new regulations

Across the board?

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The very basis of Regulatory Capture and why we have pseudo-monopolies in healthcare, education, big tech, on and on and on ...

It's also why the Frontier AI companies are using the same exact playbook with their scare mongering, bullshite AI escaping, 10% chance of human extinction, yada, yada, yada ...

No, it’s not.

The focus on testing hasn’t done away with teaching critical thinking. The curricula that the left love have done away with teaching critical thinking.

Those are two separate things.

Do public schools teach critical thinking? No.

Is that because of standardized testing? Also no.

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Across the board?

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What I meant was halting the unchecked growth of the Federal Register. New regulations might be introduced when warranted, but there should be a check against continually expanding the regulatory burden. Something along the lines of the 2-for-1 rule Trump implemented during his first term: requiring agencies to eliminate existing regulatory burdens when introducing new ones.

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Have you seen evidence that vouchers have been successful?

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Vouchers may not be the answer. Where have they been implemented on a large scale, and how are we measuring success? I think there's evidence of some success, but I'd stop short of suggesting all implementations have been perfect. It's the underlying market principles of choice and competition that I favor. Implementation is always the challenge, and perhaps an inherently political solution like vouchers won't produce the best outcomes.

If school choice through vouchers is evaluated at scale and over time, and the evidence consistently shows unreliable or disappointing outcomes, I'll be willing to reconsider my position - not in the direction of greater centralized control, but toward an even more market-based approach.

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the standardized test fetish has basically forced public schools to discourage critical thinking and has helped to create a pipeline for the uncritical, unquestioning bottom-tier workforce, and a compliant electorate.

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I definitely agree that the outcome you're describing is real, but personally, I'd be more careful about attributing it primarily to standardized testing. An overreliance on standardized testing may certainly be part of the problem, but it would be naive to place all the blame there or assume that the outcome is entirely unintended. There are broader issues involving curriculum, teaching methods, institutional incentives, and the objectives we're asking the education system to prioritize.

And these issues go hand in hand with what any voucher system with similar governmental restrictions could be expected to produce as well.

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but there should be a check against continually expanding the regulatory burden.

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I agree. It sounds like you want more intentional regulation as opposed to regulations for the sake of regulation.

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Where have they been implemented on a large scale, and how are we measuring success?

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I don't know that there is a standardized way to measure student success. Students aren't standardized. People are different and demonstrate their abilities through different media.

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If school choice through vouchers is evaluated at scale and over time, and the evidence consistently shows unreliable or disappointing outcomes, I'll be willing to reconsider my position - not in the direction of greater centralized control, but toward an even more market-based approach.

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I am not sure the capital-ization of education is the answer. I am a proponent of greater local, participatory control of education. I didn't attend schools according to districts and neither do my children, so I don't automatically favor traditional school districts. I don't favor the total standardization of education. I don't believe education is a commodity. I don't see it as primarily a tool for "the market," either.

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but it would be naive to place all the blame there or assume that the outcome is entirely unintended

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100%. I don't think all the blame for lower educational outcomes can be placed on any one factor. I understand the desire for reliance on standardized metrics. I taught for years and remember what i did when I didn't know how to be a good teacher (stress on the TEACH-ing part). I learned all the tricks to get kids to be compliant. If you walked into my classroom, it certainly looked like learning was happening, but kids weren't thinking critically. They were basically (and ironically) being indoctrinated. I was giving them information that they were receiving and were expected to be able to regurgitate it later. It wasn't until I realized that kids weren't really practicing intellectual thinking that I shifted my approach. My classroom got a lot messier, though. I stopped focusing on what student behavior looked like and focused on what students could actually demonstrate or produce to show comprehension. (ETA: we (me and the students) had a lot more fun this way, too. One of my biggest gripes about the education reformers is that their methods suck all the joy out of learning. Curiosity isn't fostered. Innovation is frowned upon. It's actually more opposed to what we see as "the American spirit" and American values than anyone will admit).

Standardized testing is a lot like my early years of teaching. If scores look one way, we can rest assured that kids learned something. But standardized test scores don't prove that kids can actually think critically, especially not outside of a classroom setting.

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Without outcome comparators, definitions, examples, or metrics, it's difficult to do much with floating signifiers such as "conditions" or "benefit." In application, those terms could mean almost anything.

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I just don't know what to call the things I'm referring to. It's my own linguistic limitations that are muddying the water here. But you also rely on floating signifiers like "responsible people" and "irresponsible people." "People who thrive in freedom." It's hard to have conceptual discussions using only rigid terms.

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Those who lack self responsibility benefit from government conditionally forcing it upon them.

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I read an interesting argument (that actually got me really excited) claiming that the emphasis on "grit" in charter schools is really a way to prepare kids for drudgery. It embeds the assumption that there are two educational systems or classes: one for the upper class and one for the lower. The charter schools like KIPP are meant for the lower class. These are the ones that emphasize grit and unquestioning compliance. Uncritical submission to authority.

The upper class kids get to attend schools that foster inquiry, curiosity, debate, critical thinking, etc.

I guess that can translate to your Social Security example. Everyone has to suffer the uncritical compliance while the upper class gets to also explore other investment avenues for wealth accumulation.

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I don't know that there is a standardized way to measure student success. Students aren't standardized. People are different and demonstrate their abilities through different media.


This is what the Mayor of Retardville says.

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Lol.

It's on the nose, in regards to the OP (and lots of people in our country).

The idea that everyone is a future Einstein ... "in their own way ..."

Similar to a thread OP started about "fairness" and "equity" ...

SSDD ...

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The idea that everyone is a future Einstein ... "in their own way ..."

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Who is "smarter": The person who can answer a question after reading a paragraph about someone building a car, or someone who can actually build a car?

Which person's teacher deserves to keep their job?