That’s the title of my editorial in the New York Times’ new education symposium on “What is School For?” Read the whole thing on the official website, but here’s my favorite paragraph to whet your interest: School closures were a disaster for convenience. And while you’ll never hear a “convenience above all” political speech, actions speak louder than words. By February of 2021, about 90 percent of private schools serving elementary or middle schoolers offered in-person instruction. Why? Presumably because they knew that parents cherished the convenience of in-person education. Less than half of corresponding public schools, funded by taxes rather than paying customers, were fully open by that time. Many large districts stayed closed or in hybrid mode for over a year. While the pedagogical costs of closure remain speculative, the convenience costs are beyond all doubt.
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."
What drives me nuts about it is that so many of the answers are either grammatically incorrect or nonsensical.
What is school for?
- Everyone. (Nope... that would answer "Who" not "What".)
- Us (See above.)
-Connecting to Nature (Lol... what? Is your school not a giant brick building where kids over the age of 9 spend nearly all their time sitting in desks?)
- Parent Activism (Uhm... what?)
I suppose some of the answers are aspirational, but man... no wonder public schools are messed up.
It might be possible to be too pedantic about the grammar, but it does make me wish someone had written an essay titled "Learning Grammar." Real pedantry would criticize them for ending the sentence with a preposition. :)
Then again, "What is ___ for?" generally means "For what purpose is ___ meant?" which is why expanding the answer to "Us is what school is for" sounds strange. The question asks about a category of nouns, albeit a broad one, and people are generally not within that category of being a purpose. People have purpose, but are not generally the purpose themselves. If someone asks "What do kids spend time doing in school?" answering "Everyone" is going to raise an eyebrow. Answering "Us" will hopefully start an investigation.
Above, "but are not generally the purpose" is incorrect grammar. "generally" is modifying the verb, "are," connected to the adverb "not," and correct usage reminds us to always put the adverb directly ahead of the word it is modifying; thus, "but generally are not the purpose."
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 $15,000/kid for daycare that bad a deal, especially because they are in fact learning at least something?
These are just quibbles your main points are I believe exactly right
You misapprehended Caplan on point 2. He said that day care was their "their sole undeniably valuable function". In other words, it isn't the only function, but the only function that one can't deny is valuable. That very real benefit you accuse him of belittling is exactly what he is saying is the only undeniable benefit.
(The benefit of having kids mainly socialized by other kids and the... uneven quality of teachers is in my experience debatable, but it is equally debatable in the case of day care so I think the comparison is appropriate.)
Depending on where you are, 15k$ per kid for day care 9 months out of the year is really high. The day cares/pre-schools we have sent our kids to were much cheaper and had pretty decent educational aspects, in so far as under 5 years old education goes, at least.
Right-- in an ideal world I would fill each kid's brain with the exact right amount of math until it stops being useful. That's a lot easier said than done.
For instance even just in Statistics many students really aren't equipped to understand a lot of inference procedures. They still benefit hugely from basic probability. So what do you do? Of course we would love to have an individualized plan for each student, but good luck with that.
The standard libertarian response is "Private schools!" OK, probably yes. But even still, guess what? You're hiring the same teachers. Many of my colleagues in public schools have taught in private schools. We're the same people. Fewer regulations-- yes agreed that is good. But still we are kind of working on the margins here. $15,000/kid isn't even that bad for straight daycare, let alone going to a semi-functional school. Just imagine if you are at all interested in what I'm typing that there are kids in my school who get to have these discussions with me every day. That's valuable!
Again, I totally agree with the basic thesis just to say
I don't think the teachers would be the same. I have known some terrible public school teachers that essentially can't be fired, and many good teachers who can't teach in public schools for want of a certificate. Eliminating that would shake up the pot quite a bit. (Although there are plenty of great public school teachers who would also teach in private schools as well, of course.)
I am a little fuzzy on the line between arithmetic and algebra myself. Granted, I am quite good at math so I might not have noticed the step change, but other than maybe factoring and dealing with roots and imaginary numbers, most algebra is a more organized version of "4+ ___ = 10" style arithmetic.
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.
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
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
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).,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
What drives me nuts about it is that so many of the answers are either grammatically incorrect or nonsensical.
What is school for?
- Everyone. (Nope... that would answer "Who" not "What".)
- Us (See above.)
-Connecting to Nature (Lol... what? Is your school not a giant brick building where kids over the age of 9 spend nearly all their time sitting in desks?)
- Parent Activism (Uhm... what?)
I suppose some of the answers are aspirational, but man... no wonder public schools are messed up.
You are being too pedantic about the grammar.
It might be possible to be too pedantic about the grammar, but it does make me wish someone had written an essay titled "Learning Grammar." Real pedantry would criticize them for ending the sentence with a preposition. :)
Then again, "What is ___ for?" generally means "For what purpose is ___ meant?" which is why expanding the answer to "Us is what school is for" sounds strange. The question asks about a category of nouns, albeit a broad one, and people are generally not within that category of being a purpose. People have purpose, but are not generally the purpose themselves. If someone asks "What do kids spend time doing in school?" answering "Everyone" is going to raise an eyebrow. Answering "Us" will hopefully start an investigation.
Above, "but are not generally the purpose" is incorrect grammar. "generally" is modifying the verb, "are," connected to the adverb "not," and correct usage reminds us to always put the adverb directly ahead of the word it is modifying; thus, "but generally are not the purpose."
Madam, that is something up with which I will not put.
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 $15,000/kid for daycare that bad a deal, especially because they are in fact learning at least something?
These are just quibbles your main points are I believe exactly right
You misapprehended Caplan on point 2. He said that day care was their "their sole undeniably valuable function". In other words, it isn't the only function, but the only function that one can't deny is valuable. That very real benefit you accuse him of belittling is exactly what he is saying is the only undeniable benefit.
(The benefit of having kids mainly socialized by other kids and the... uneven quality of teachers is in my experience debatable, but it is equally debatable in the case of day care so I think the comparison is appropriate.)
Depending on where you are, 15k$ per kid for day care 9 months out of the year is really high. The day cares/pre-schools we have sent our kids to were much cheaper and had pretty decent educational aspects, in so far as under 5 years old education goes, at least.
No kid who "doesn't like math" should be forced to learn any calculus at all, probably not any algebra.
Every kid should be drilled until they're good at simple arithmetic; however long that takes.
There are too many useful things in the world to teach to kids to waste time on things they'll never care about or use.
Right-- in an ideal world I would fill each kid's brain with the exact right amount of math until it stops being useful. That's a lot easier said than done.
For instance even just in Statistics many students really aren't equipped to understand a lot of inference procedures. They still benefit hugely from basic probability. So what do you do? Of course we would love to have an individualized plan for each student, but good luck with that.
The standard libertarian response is "Private schools!" OK, probably yes. But even still, guess what? You're hiring the same teachers. Many of my colleagues in public schools have taught in private schools. We're the same people. Fewer regulations-- yes agreed that is good. But still we are kind of working on the margins here. $15,000/kid isn't even that bad for straight daycare, let alone going to a semi-functional school. Just imagine if you are at all interested in what I'm typing that there are kids in my school who get to have these discussions with me every day. That's valuable!
Again, I totally agree with the basic thesis just to say
I don't think the teachers would be the same. I have known some terrible public school teachers that essentially can't be fired, and many good teachers who can't teach in public schools for want of a certificate. Eliminating that would shake up the pot quite a bit. (Although there are plenty of great public school teachers who would also teach in private schools as well, of course.)
100% totally agree that's a great point I didn't think of it like that
I am a little fuzzy on the line between arithmetic and algebra myself. Granted, I am quite good at math so I might not have noticed the step change, but other than maybe factoring and dealing with roots and imaginary numbers, most algebra is a more organized version of "4+ ___ = 10" style arithmetic.
Am I missing the distinction?
You're right, "4+ ___ = 10" is stealth algebra.
No kid who hates math should be expected to solve those. Just straightforward addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
I'd leave it up to the kids to decide if they'd rather take algebra or something else.
No doubt. The panic proved that in blue states schools exist to employ teachers not to educate kids.
"Schools are out, for the summer"
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.
What did you have in mind as an example of what in person grade school is teaching?
Churchill again. He's a distant relative of mine.
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
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
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).,
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.
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.
And this is why we economists have so few friends :)
I think this is a fair question.
How have you approached the education of your own children?
He mostly home schooled then sent his kids to Vandy for the signal.
Thanks. Assume "Vandy" its Vanderbilt.
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.
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).
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.