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-   -   I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused. (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=879)

taxwonk 08-23-2016 01:48 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502430)
I didn't grow up in the projects. I grew up near them. My mother was very well educated and I had advantages in travel and experience when growing up that most adults could only dream of.

The project kids I knew only left their neighborhood to go Six Flags once a year on a field trip with our shitty public school. Maybe. Their whole world consisted of a five block radius and television. They were often left alone because even in Section 8 housing, their parents had multiple jobs just to put food on the table. I've told stories here of the games these kids played which basically amounted to stealing so they could have something to eat. I won't talk about incarceration for selling or possessing weed or the basic, every day danger of living in the projects. But thinking that anyone in these circumstances can just decide to make their kids' educations a priority in the same way you might is crazy.

Yeah. Tear down all projects/Section 8 housing, spread low income families all over the place with halfway decent housing and affordable housing so neighborhoods all have a true mix of classes and there are no concentrations of the super-poor. Allow everyone to vote (felons included) and make it a public holiday. Fund all public schools equally (per capita). Tax private schools to fund shortfalls in public schools. Increase the minimum wage. Provide access to daycare everywhere. End racism. Maintain these changes for 5 generations and reevaluate at that point. I suppose that's a good start.

TM
A negative income tax would fund all that by eliminating the existing bureaucracy. The whole point, I assume, of tearing down the Section 8 housing and going to low-density housing would be to put kids in the types of school districts I was talking about, am I right? Same with the increase in the minimum wage: it would allow more parents to escape the barriers to them being involved with their families and their childrens' education.

You're not arguing different effect, just accusing me of failing to appreciate the cause. I appreciate the causes of parents in low-income areas lack of involvement. I didn't outline it, but that doesn't mean I don't know or understand it. I didn't discuss the causes since, no matter how we affect change in the amount of parental involvement, we aren't going to improve the quality of education in lower-income areas without it.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 08-23-2016 01:48 PM
Re: Which Way to the International House of Panaceas?
 
Bernie would give me a panacea.

Donald will give me a panacea.

Why can't you turkeys give me a pancea!!

taxwonk 08-23-2016 01:51 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502439)
What's really sad is that Savage Inequalities is probably a more important read now than when it came out, almost thirty years ago.

People need to read it. https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Inequa.../dp/0770435688

TM
Thanks for the recommendation. I just ordered it.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 08-23-2016 01:52 PM
Do I see a panacea?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502457)
A negative income tax would fund all that by eliminating the existing bureaucracy.
So you're saying this is a panacea?

Adder 08-23-2016 02:28 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502457)
The whole point, I assume, of tearing down the Section 8 housing and going to low-density housing would be to put kids in the types of school districts I was talking about, am I right?
I can think of a number of other points.

Also, it's not as simple as that. While we want subsidized housing in mixed-income neighborhoods, we also need to be wary of placing those who need housing assistance in low-job-density, car-dependant suburbs too. Putting housing where you need a car to get around is itself an inherent and sizeable negative subsidy.

ThurgreedMarshall 08-23-2016 02:41 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 502455)
All of this goes to show that it's very difficult to assess the job that schools are doing in educating kids -- the true outputs. IMHO, this is the prime reason that teachers are paid lockstep -- it's very difficult to figure out how to pay them for doing a better job, because even if you trusted the administrators to try to do that right, they wouldn't really know how.
You ask the teachers to rank which schools would be their first choice to work for, shake our the results based on where the teachers live. And pay the teachers who work in the lowest ranked schools significantly more than those at the top ranked schools. Adjust as you go up the line.

TM

ThurgreedMarshall 08-23-2016 02:56 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502457)
A negative income tax would fund all that by eliminating the existing bureaucracy. The whole point, I assume, of tearing down the Section 8 housing and going to low-density housing would be to put kids in the types of school districts I was talking about, am I right? Same with the increase in the minimum wage: it would allow more parents to escape the barriers to them being involved with their families and their childrens' education.

You're not arguing different effect, just accusing me of failing to appreciate the cause. I appreciate the causes of parents in low-income areas lack of involvement. I didn't outline it, but that doesn't mean I don't know or understand it. I didn't discuss the causes since, no matter how we affect change in the amount of parental involvement, we aren't going to improve the quality of education in lower-income areas without it.
I don't think that's right. I don't think you just hand people who have no confidence in any system (educational or otherwise) a bunch of cash and say, "This should work itself out."

The short term goal of spreading people in government housing out is to make sure that kids can attend schools in neighborhoods that the return from a negative tax sure as hell wouldn't allow. The long term goal is to increase exposure to other types of people everywhere, which helps people understand one another. It's like busing without the actual busing.

TM

ThurgreedMarshall 08-23-2016 02:57 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502459)
Thanks for the recommendation. I just ordered it.
Just a fantastic book. I'd like to hear what you think.

TM

Tyrone Slothrop 08-23-2016 03:07 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502462)
You ask the teachers to rank which schools would be their first choice to work for, shake our the results based on where the teachers live. And pay the teachers who work in the lowest ranked schools significantly more than those at the top ranked schools. Adjust as you go up the line.

TM
Makes sense, but will never happen, because parents who live in the better public-school districts want to retain that advantage, not least because it is so material to the valuation of their home, which is most people's biggest asset.

sebastian_dangerfield 08-23-2016 03:28 PM
Re: Tim Wise
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502440)
And on the "Is racism dispositive when it comes to whether one is a Trump supporter" needs to read more Tim Wise.

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/22/ther...m-the-shadows/

TM
I don't know if that article touches the question of whether it's dispositive, or whether that question needs to be asked at all. (Assessment of racism in Trump voters is a discussion of degree, of course.)

But nevermind all that, because this quote from that piece nails the question of what happens next:
"These people who are voting for Donald Trump are not convertible. They are not our allies. They are not our potential friends. It is about literally either steamrolling and defeating them and imposing a just and decent society or it is about letting them win. And I don’t believe there is any middle ground between that. I’d love to think that there was, but I just do not see it."
We are going to have numerous cultural civil wars.

One hand, it'll be what this author describes - the Trump Army versus the Govt and progressives generally. On another much different one, it will be continued rage against official oppression manifesting itself in things like Milwaukee's riots and Ferguson.

The cure for most of this is an economic resurgence that distributes wealth broadly enough to mollify the would-be angry.* That isn't going to happen.

It's going to get ugly.

_______
* See Hoffer, True Believer, for good primer on the proposition those who see possible economic gain and betterment run to that instead of raging in the streets. Those who see no hope find it in crazy movements.

ThurgreedMarshall 08-23-2016 03:30 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 502465)
Makes sense, but will never happen, because parents who live in the better public-school districts want to retain that advantage, not least because it is so material to the valuation of their home, which is most people's biggest asset.
Oh, let's be clear. None of this shit will ever happen. If anything, segregation is going to get worse and worse.

TM

Pretty Little Flower 08-23-2016 03:33 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502464)
Just a fantastic book. I'd like to hear what you think.

TM
It is brutal, but yes, a fantastic book. Today's Daily Dose is "Ghetto Funk":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ZUtYEGU8g

sebastian_dangerfield 08-23-2016 03:35 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
A negative income tax would fund all that by eliminating the existing bureaucracy.
And turn them into wards of the state, offsetting all gains with another monstrous problem. What else would these enormous masses of talentless bureaucrats do?

Quote:
The whole point, I assume, of tearing down the Section 8 housing and going to low-density housing would be to put kids in the types of school districts I was talking about, am I right? Same with the increase in the minimum wage: it would allow more parents to escape the barriers to them being involved with their families and their childrens' education.
We can enhance minimum wages, but not enough to cover the difference between income and cost of living needed to allow parents with modest jobs to become more involved.

Tyrone Slothrop 08-23-2016 03:41 PM
Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502467)
Oh, let's be clear. None of this shit will ever happen. If anything, segregation is going to get worse and worse.
I think it's worth underscoring the fact that some of the solutions for improving public education will be actively opposed by people whose interests would be harmed by them. It's not just that change is hard (because of recalcitrant teachers or incompetent administrators or whatever), it's that problems persist because those problems are to the benefit of people who have some clout.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 08-23-2016 04:06 PM
Re: You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502467)
Oh, let's be clear. None of this shit will ever happen. If anything, segregation is going to get worse and worse.

TM
Have we considered prayer?


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