Democracy has stopped working. How can we improve this?

[knoath]

@Nick_Papagiorgio

Your 20% is under a 5th grade level.

Is that all the potential contestants for Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

[Indy]

I am worried about democracy in the US. I am not worried about “spending too little on schools”.

I worry about people building (or falling into) information silos, especially information relevant to public policy.

We can’t have a democracy without some commonly accepted body of “facts”. That is just falling apart.

[Macroman]

I don’t think that funding is the problem with education. There are plenty of counties spending less and getting better educational outcomes. We need to start by valuing education as individuals. Most people in the US are not valuing education.

Same thing with health care.

[my_alt]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@Nick_Papagiorgio

Show me evidence that democracy is working worse than it has in the past. I think this is a common lamentation that is just not true. I think people bitching about democracy is at an all time high, but I’m not convinced that means it’s not working and may even be an indication that it is working. IE most of the bitching is about individual self interests that the public has voted to not indulge.

Part of the problem is that we have a representative democracy, but we keep voting in such ways as to set government ups such that only “we” have representation, at the expense of “them”.

This has been a problem throughout American history. The unique aspect of the current times is that we’ve had such a prolonged period where “we” and “them” are approximately equally-sized groups.

[Cooke]

I am not familiar with how the USA allocates it’s education dollars to public schools so maybe someone can enlighten me. In Canada, there is a great deal of redistribution so that schools in poorer areas are not deprived of funding simply because their tax base is lower than schools in good districts. Thus the education outcomes between schools in rich and poor neighbourhoods are narrowed a bit.

In the US, are schools in poorer neighbourhoods possibly more underfunded?

One thing I am familiar with is the relative low pay that US public school teachers get versus Canada. It is appalling what my South Carolina nephew is paid to teach high school versus Canadian teachers. Could this be part of the problem? The teaching profession/education system seems to be under attack in the US as their main Union is a lightning rod for criticism? We don’t have politicization of education here nor the culture wars around “wokeness”, etc., yet.

Kids here get a course in critical analysis. For example, they are taught to look at the nature of a source of information to assess its bias or accuracy. I know such courses also exist in US schools but maybe not as widely as they could be? In a well functioning democracy, it is pretty fundamental to be able to assess truthfulness.

Just throwing out a bunch of questions that maybe posters can answer to help enlighten those of us less familiar with the intricacies of the US education system. Tks.

[twig93]

@Cooke

In Canada, there is a great deal of redistribution so that schools in poorer areas are not deprived of funding simply because their tax base is lower than schools in good districts.

Mostly the opposite in the US.

Schools get a little federal funding. State funding varies a lot. Washington state is probably the highest level of state funding, which has its own unique problems. (The cost of living in Seattle is a LOT higher than out in the Po, yet when I was teaching in Washington the pay was nearly identical.)

In most areas, local property taxes are, by far, the largest source of funding. Which does mean poorer areas get hit harder… and simply have higher property tax rates.

Even if the good schools are spending 25% more per kid than the bad schools, if the ratio of assessed value per kid is higher, they can have lower property tax rates. In the rich neighborhoods you have a crap ton of assessed value and not that many kids. Maybe 1 kid per $3,000,000 of assessed value.

In the poor areas the assessed value is a lot lower but there are way more kids. You might have 1 kid per $40,000 of assessed value.

So the property tax rate goes way up to compensate. Somewhat offsetting is the businesses, which are fewer & further between in the wealthy suburbs and do help out wherever they are located.

[twig93]

And to be clear, the good schools do NOT pay better than the bad ones. They don’t need to.

[Cooke]

@twig93

Schools get a little federal funding.

This reminded me of another difference between the US and Canada. There is no federal spending nor input on curriculum, etc., in Canada. There is a federal involvement in education in the US, which may complicate the education system a bit?

[Indy]

@Cooke

. There is a federal involvement in education in the US, which may complicate the education system a bit?

A hot political topic.

This looks like a good rundown of funding. https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/how-is-k-12-education-funded

Note that the Feds only cover 7% of total spending. It is targeted at disabled and poor kids. State funding is 47%. State formulas generally try to reduce the discrepancy in money available. From what I know (very little) state aid formulas tend to be “very complicated”.

[Indy]

@Cooke

Kids here get a course in critical analysis. For example, they are taught to look at the nature of a source of information to assess its bias or accuracy.

I think we had a thread on “what should schools teach?”. This is critical to me, the only route I see to make our democracy work.

I don’t know what’s going on in schools today. I think some history teachers try to work on critical thinking skills. I don’t know how many 20-somethings (or HS teachers) we have here who could give us some perspective.

[The_Polymath]

What I see in the US:

1. A sustained, highly organised, and well financed effort to embed religious education in the US.

2. In the vast majority of cases, a religious education results in an industrial level drive to get rid of the concept of critical thinking skills.

3. Religious education is essentially anathema to improving critical thinking skills in the US.

Over the last 20 or so years, I have seen the scales tilt more and more towards poorer educational outcomes in favour of religious teachings.

And now (presently) we have a critical mass of these folks who now also have cover via the Supreme Court and all the friendly judges that were installed by the GOP.

So even if you did try to improve the situation, you would likely be judicially blocked by religious judges.

All of this was by design mind you. And that should worry you.

[magillaG]

@The_Polymath

In the vast majority of cases, a religious education results in an industrial level drive to get rid of the concept of critical thinking skills

I don’t think it’s the religious part per se. Instead, it is a tradition that thinks asking questions will undermine good values. This attitude can take both religious and non religious forms.

[now_samantha]

Anecdotal only, but I lived in England for a year during elementary school. We had both religious instruction and better critical reasoning instruction than I received in the US.

[The_Polymath]

Must have been a Church of England (C of E) school?

They are Anglican so not as fervent in their religious bias (you will not find anybody questioning Darwin in the UK for example. They would get laughed out of the school)

[Cooke]

@now_samantha

I lived in England for a year during elementary school. We had both religious instruction and better critical reasoning instruction than I received in the US.

My kids had a few years in state schools in England and found the transition from, and back to, the Canadian public school system to be seamless.

My wife did her first three years of high school at Walter Johnson High School (no bonus marks for guessing that was near Washington DC) and she made an easy transition to her final year of high school in Toronto in 1967. That is pretty anecdotal and certainly dated!

I would make a distinction between religious instruction (which can be indoctrination in one religion) and education about religions. I think knowing the tenets of various religions helps understand the world around you and helps the student spot the falsehoods that many politicians spout about religions. I don’t think there should be state funding for religious schools but for historical reasons that is prevalent in Canada.

[dr_t_non-fan]

Walter Johnson, our 17th President. Of course it is in DC.

[Cooke]

Guessing that Walter was more popular in DC area than Andrew so that is why he had a high school named after him.

[soyleche]

Average Familiarity

[Indy]

@The_Polymath

What I see in the US:

I’ve lost track of how much time you’ve spent in the US recently.

@The_Polymath

In the vast majority of cases, a religious education results in an industrial level drive to get rid of the concept of critical thinking skills.

Six of our nine Supreme Court justices are graduates of Catholic high schools. No, I don’t like their decisions regarding religion. But, somehow their critical thinking skills were good enough to get them into prestigious colleges and law schools.

Now, if you are thinking about “Christian Academies” that won’t teach evolution, then you may have a point.