[politics & society] education reform

[laurenhat]

I often feel somewhat torn between more progressive and more libertarian views on various issues. I generally know what my goals are, but it's rarely clear to me what the best approach is for achieving those goals, especially when there are any economics involved. Empirically, what's the best way to make changes? I am not generally in favor of

Comments

Re: I haven't even had a whole cup of coffee yet

[tyopsqueene]

1. general point How do we ensure that the people with the least resources don't get screwed? This is my shouty, knee-jerk question to most reform. But I'm an authoritarian socialist who likes people to be TOLD WHAT'S GOOD FOR THEM rather than make bad choices, so ymmv, etc.

2. specific to this comment - GCSEs are not a 'general' qualification but are also subject-specific, just like A and AS levels. The majority of the population don't even get the baseline, 5 GCSEs in separate subjects at a reasonable grade, let alone go on to A-levels; the vocational qualification system is a complete mess.
The trend here is confusing, as we're moving away from fewer, subject specific A-levels, which is good as you don't end up becoming 'a scientist' or 'a humanities student' due to decisions you make at 15. But on the other hand we're moving towards 'specialist schools' which are good at academic or vocational or sport or Languages or whatever, which basically means kids get to pick a career at the age of 10 or 13 and then suck it up.
I am anti-most of these ideas.

Re: I haven't even had a whole cup of coffee yet

[laurenhat]

Yeah, one thing I *didn't* want to suggest when I said I thought there should be more choices for different tracks for older kids to explore is that they should be stuck in any particular track. Ideally, I want them to be able to try several things for a while, and then optionally if they want to in late high school start focusing on one thing. I just want there to be more types of learning experiences beyond the sitting in the classroom learning lots of required facts on required topics thing.