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Bagholder's avatar

Not so sure there is a credible connection to be found between $$ spent (or racial integration) and educational performance. If you want an underlying cause for the varying degrees of educational performance, the best indicator I have found in my limited experience is whether the student is from a traditional nuclear family - or a single parent home.

Natalie Wexler's avatar

Yes, as I say in the piece, school funding (after a certain point) doesn't seem to correlate with improved student performance. And yes, there's evidence that having two parents at home is correlated with better outcomes, although I don't know that there's evidence of a causal relationship. But I prefer to focus on what schools can do directly to improve outcomes, using curricula and teaching methods that line up with cognitive science -- and there's a LOT they can do, as compared to what they can do, e.g., to boost the number of traditional nuclear families.

Bagholder's avatar

Fair enough, to be honest I haven't much in the way of solutions - but I can offer you some ideas on what the schools are doing wrong. I wrote a blog last year, the first half of which addresses schools. https://bagholder.substack.com/p/my-way-21-08-25 Not sure you will agree with much in there, but I suspect you will find it interesting. If you have 5 minutes, check it out.

Peter Margolis's avatar

Regarding reading comprehension flood the schools with content videos for prior knowledge background knowledge to compensate for limited prior knowledge background knowledge parents