34 Comments

I have to say I loved the little bubbles at the bottom of the article where it said "What is school for?" and every one was positive or poetic such as "Hope," "Connecting to Nature," "Care," except for Bryan's which read "Wasting time."

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Sep 1, 2022·edited Sep 1, 2022

I'm a high-school math teacher, and I largely agree. Couple of quibbles:

1. In my regular classes, the kids learn very little and will retain none of it. In my AP classes, the kids learn a ton. Yes, most will forget it within a year, but many will continue to use the AP Calc and AP Stats concepts for years.

2. "When schools shuttered, they stopped performing their sole undeniably valuable function — providing day care."

I don't view that as the only function. In my experience, students with traumatic home-lives (more than you would expect), find comfort and healing being around the often (though not always) positive and loving adults in a school. You could call this "day care" I suppose, because day care provides the same function, but I wouldn't belittle this benefit-- it's real.

3. Related to point 1. The kids in my AP Calc class learn a ton. Many of them don't learn anything in art. Conversely, there are kids who learn a ton in their ceramics class (you should see some of the things they make) who will learn nothing in a math class. It's almost like brains are empty vessels that are ready to be filled by certain ideas. I'm not saying public school is the answer, but you kind of have to in a school have classes ready to fill different types of brains. Yes, the art student may be wasting his time in my math class, and my calc kid may be wasting his time in art class, but they are in fact both learning something at some point.

4. Also just to say is $15,000/kid for daycare that bad a deal, especially because they are in fact learning at least something?

These are just quibbles your main points are I believe exactly right

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No doubt. The panic proved that in blue states schools exist to employ teachers not to educate kids.

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"Schools are out, for the summer"

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You conclude that parents primarily value convenience of schooling based on two propositions, that we remember little grade school arcana and that parents given the choice sent kids back to in person school.

These premises do not imply the conclusion. It could be that in person grade school teaches something other than the arcana which parents value.

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Churchill again. He's a distant relative of mine.

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Bryan, please take a look at my book, "It Takes the Whole Damn Village" available on Kindle, and for about $50 you can buy a rare hard copy. I've since revised my transition plan for closing the schools and this shows up in a three-page letter I wrote to Sec. Cordona last week. I would like to have a way to share it with you. Thanks. —sb artdome97@gmail.com

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Hi, Bryan. Are you aware of my book ,"It Takes the Whole Damn Village?" I would like to share a letter I wrote to Sec. Cordova (President's Cabinet—Education) with you but this site doesn't allow me to send an attachment (or if it does, I don't see it). It's quite prescient to your view that education is an expensive waste of time. I have a plan, too large for Twitter. Please email me at artdome97@gmail.com —S Barnhouse

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School is only for wasting time and money insofar as its ostensive purpose is to educate pupils. But if we consider its function to be anointing the advantaged students as winners and branding the disadvantaged ones as losers, it is an unqualified success — and the true reason it is compulsory. On this point, I commend you to James Herndon's memoir and analysis of his years as a teacher, How to Survive in Your Native Land (Simon & Schuster, 1971).,

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Loved this article. Have 3-year old twin grandkids and my son sent me your article. I’m thrilled he liked your work. Also, your Sicily travelogue was fascinating. Looking forward to visiting the land of my grandparents.

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Just back from the NYT - and the comment section. Reading comprehension among NYT commenters looks shockingly low. Just re-checked for "reader's picks" - most upvoted, I guess - it is so depressing. :(

Number one - 266 recom. - : "School is about learning how to learn. Knowledge is a byproduct of learning how to learn. Whether forgotten or not, knowledge is the currency of learning. Like lifting weights to build muscle." -

I guess you can still lift those same weights after building all those muscles. (And no comment with evidence about the claimed intellectual muscle building resp. its correlation to school.)

If we had baby-schools for walking and talking, I assume they will insist: "babes would never have learned it, where it not for those precious lessons". (I also assume: many more kids then having trouble walking and talking- but at least they would have "learned how to learn", I guess.)

I was pleasantly surprised the NYT let you publish. But now I see why: They knew their readers would "destroy" you. Worse for them.

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And this is why we economists have so few friends :)

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I think this is a fair question.

How have you approached the education of your own children?

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Schools provide socialization for young kids. I've yet to hear any complaints from fellow parents about learning loss, but I've heard a lot of complaints about their young children not having socialization opportunities. This went double during the pandemic because anywhere you would want to take your kids to socialize also had pandemic restrictions.

Even if you had someone to watch your kids during the pandemic like we did, we noticed a dramatic social impact from the isolation. Being around other kids is really important at that age.

Beyond that, what you're taught in school clearly has some impact on attitudes and worldviews. I don't mean that they remember the facts that were taught in civics class, but they do pick up on things like:

1) What is the proper way to behave

2) What is high/low status

3) What is taboo and/or required

The pandemic is theoretically over, but I'm still not sending my kids back to woke public school. I have no doubt their SAT scores would end up roughly the same there, but I'm not sure they will end up the same on the other metrics on which we live our lives.

Beyond that, anyone that would do to children what was done during the pandemic is not someone I can trust to make good decisions with my kids.

I wouldn't degrade schools too hard. If it's just daycare, why bother with vouchers. If it was just daycare, I wouldn't be bothering to pay extra money to send my kids to a different daycare. Even in the context of daycare, kids can have fun or be miserable. Be shaped to have good or bad habits. Public schools have degraded to the point they aren't "good enough" on that other stuff.

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School (college/university) is also for socializing. It's very good at enabling that.

Just responding to the title (article is behind paywall; won't read).

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Cowen writes a post on Marginal Revolution talking about how people are beginning to embrace Caplanism, and the next morning I see your name in my NYT daily newsletter. I'm not sure how I feel about this development.

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