Originally Posted by Whatfur (Post 174700)

We are still waiting for GQ to do that investigative article on Barack's college days. Most of what we know comes only from him or his handlers and sounds alot like BS and lacks not only people to back it up but also transcripts.

Attachment 147

Originally Posted by paulkdeuter (Post 174749)

The school food system is based on the premise that kids are coming to school hungry. At the same time, we are worrying about obesity. Which is it?

Originally Posted by TwinSwords (Post 174751)

Throwing away some unwanted apples is a small price to pay for a stronger, healthier, smarter, more productive, and ultimately happier population. There are few things government can do that will have the broad positive impact of school lunch.

People either want to live in a better society or they don't.

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 174805)

Oh yes!

It is up to the government to provide us with healthier, smarter more productive and happier children. Such a lot for a government to do!

Originally Posted by GCox (Post 174782)

Progressives make no sense. The solution to having too many fat kids is longer school days? How does that compute? It's not like school is an active activity. Even if it does help it seems like a very indirect way of solving the problem. Why not be more direct and just directly incentivize the kids/parents. A fat tax or a skinny subsidy either one seems like it would have a better chance of providing results. Ethically it seems no more abominable than compelled education.

Which brings me to my real rant. What about the kids? What if they don’t want longer school days? I’m 31 now but I don’t remember ever wishing that school was longer when I was a kid. Consider that time is finite and that every minute I spent in school I could have been doing something else. How many awesome things did I miss out on so that when I was 18 I would be qualified to work a factory job? Compelled education is a monstrous thing we do to our children and should be abolished.

Originally Posted by Wonderment (Post 174738)

This dialogue raised interesting questions about the challenges educators and parents face.

I wish there were some way to get beyond the usual noise about teachers unions. The system is broken in lots of ways, but it's mostly broken because education is underfunded (let's have wars instead!), especially inner city education.

I am most hopeful about outside-the-schoolbox programs. It's true that the school day is not long enough, but the school system may be incapable of addressing the problem. After-school programs, whether faith-based or secular, do a lot of good. It still requires plenty of grant money from the Gov. and the private sectors, but at least the $$$ can be delivered outside the standard bureaucracy.

Originally Posted by GCox (Post 174782)

Which brings me to my real rant. What about the kids? What if they don’t want longer school days? I’m 31 now but I don’t remember ever wishing that school was longer when I was a kid.

Originally Posted by bjkeefe (Post 174827)

Oh I do. When it was good, it was the best way to spend time -- organized sports, art classes, music, watching movies in science class, blowing shit up in science labs, quiz games in math class, getting access to the computers, being let loose in the library to look stuff up, hearing interesting stories told in history and English, that feeling of having the penny drop, in any class, after a prolonged period of struggling to understand it, all sorts of ways.

Sure, unstructured, unsupervised free time just to hang out with friends is also good, but I remember many times thinking that too much of it was ultimately kind of boring. Think back to the ends of summer vacations in your childhood memories -- yes, there was dread of the looming new school year, but weren't there also some feelings of relief, and even excitement? How many times in August did you say, "MAAAAAAHHHHM! There's nothing to DOOO!"? Maybe it's just me, but I had those a lot.

Originally Posted by Eliezer_Yudkowsky

Your Strength as a Rationalist

11 August 2007 12:21AM
(The following happened to me in an IRC chatroom, long enough ago that I was still hanging around in IRC chatrooms. Time has fuzzed the memory and my report may be imprecise.)

So there I was, in an IRC chatroom, when someone reports that a friend of his needs medical advice. His friend says that he's been having sudden chest pains, so he called an ambulance, and the ambulance showed up, but the paramedics told him it was nothing, and left, and now the chest pains are getting worse. What should his friend do?

I was confused by this story. I remembered reading about homeless people in New York who would call ambulances just to be taken someplace warm, and how the paramedics always had to take them to the emergency room, even on the 27th iteration. Because if they didn't, the ambulance company could be sued for lots and lots of money. Likewise, emergency rooms are legally obligated to treat anyone, regardless of ability to pay. (And the hospital absorbs the costs, which are enormous, so hospitals are closing their emergency rooms... It makes you wonder what's the point of having economists if we're just going to ignore them.) So I didn't quite understand how the described events could have happened. Anyone reporting sudden chest pains should have been hauled off by an ambulance instantly.

And this is where I fell down as a rationalist. I remembered several occasions where my doctor would completely fail to panic at the report of symptoms that seemed, to me, very alarming. And the Medical Establishment was always right. Every single time. I had chest pains myself, at one point, and the doctor patiently explained to me that I was describing chest muscle pain, not a heart attack. So I said into the IRC channel, "Well, if the paramedics told your friend it was nothing, it must really be nothing - they'd have hauled him off if there was the tiniest chance of serious trouble."

Thus I managed to explain the story within my existing model, though the fit still felt a little forced...


Later on, the fellow comes back into the IRC chatroom and says his friend made the whole thing up. Evidently this was not one of his more reliable friends.

I should have realized, perhaps, that an unknown acquaintance of an acquaintance in an IRC channel might be less reliable than a published journal article. Alas, belief is easier than disbelief; we believe instinctively, but disbelief requires a conscious effort.

So instead, by dint of mighty straining, I forced my model of reality to explain an anomaly that never actually happened. And I knew how embarrassing this was. I knew that the usefulness of a model is not what it can explain, but what it can't. A hypothesis that forbids nothing, permits everything, and thereby fails to constrain anticipation.

Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

We are all weak, from time to time; the sad part is that I could have been stronger. I had all the information I needed to arrive at the correct answer, I even noticed the problem, and then I ignored it. My feeling of confusion was a Clue, and I threw my Clue away.

I should have paid more attention to that sensation of still feels a little forced. It's one of the most important feelings a truthseeker can have, a part of your strength as a rationalist. It is a design flaw in human cognition that this sensation manifests as a quiet strain in the back of your mind, instead of a wailing alarm siren and a glowing neon sign reading "EITHER YOUR MODEL IS FALSE OR THIS STORY IS WRONG."

Originally Posted by Alexandrite (Post 174871)

The Denial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaTrh0a8rT4#t=2m30s

I'll discuss some of the other things in the video later if I get a chance.

Originally Posted by bjkeefe (Post 174874)

I'm not going to bother watching that video, though thanks for sharing the link, because as far as I'm concerned, the length of time it took him to issue a denial -- i.e., after a day or two of trying other tactics, not to mention however long GQ gave them before running the story -- strongly suggests to me his aides were running around seeing who needed to be shut up, how much that was going to cost, and what else they'd need to do to pull off a successful denial.

The Eliezer post was pretty fun to read. Thanks for that, too.

In our conversation, she elaborated that she doesn’t want her name in print because she’s a clinical psychologist who works with former members of the military, some of whom are Tea Partyers, and fears that complicating Paul’s Senate run could put her in danger.

Originally Posted by bjkeefe (Post 174878)

But wait, there's more Randy news!

Greg Sargent of The Plum Line got an exclusive interview with the woman who reported being kidnapped, etc., by Paul (but not "in a legal sense," she now says). Jack Stuef catches the important part:

Originally Posted by AemJeff (Post 174807)

Can you name another means of providing education for children that's ever shown a fraction of the success of the current system? What are you advocating?

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 175010)

He was talking about school lunch, not public education. But more broadly, I don't think the federal government is responsible for a stronger, healthier, smarter, more productive, and ultimately happier population. That's what parents are for.

Originally Posted by chubbykidresearcher (Post 175000)

re: childhood obesity

I haven't been so horrified for a long time. The woman from the daily beast started her argument with something along the lines of we learn about food in our families and neighborhoods and then goes on to suggest that we should keep "poor kids" in school for all 3 meals (breakfast, lunch, and an 'early dinner'). What was she REALLY saying? That social engineering is okay so long as it's only for poor kids and families? That what poor kids learn from their families and their neighborhoods about food is SO AWFUL that they need to go to school to eat all 3 meals. And even worse, she overlooks the fact that school staff and teachers just might have their own families waiting for them at home!

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175443)

It has been proven time and time again that money is not the issue

Sorry, but this is just kind of a ridiculous thing to say. There are plenty of evidence-based, targeted programs that have been proven to work. As a teacher of generally low SES children, and working with their families, I could give you a lengthy list of ways in which more money would have real social results. There is a problem in getting the right programs funded, but the bottom line is that people don't want to pay for it.

The greatest example of a program that is proving you wrong daily is the Harlem Children's Zone, which spends on average of 3x the money per student and so far almost every child goes to college. I suggest you check out their site for an idea on how more money can equal real results.

Lastly, it's worth saying that the modern public school is essentially expected to provide every child with an equal education. You simply can't do this without taking the community and family into account. Changing that equation will be expensive, but it is a long-term investment that pays off. Not only that, but as a civil rights issue, I think every child getting a fair shot at life can be well argued from the constitution.

Originally Posted by Ocean (Post 175013)

Perhaps subsidizing the purchase of fruits and vegetables for poor families would be a reasonable measure.

Originally Posted by Lyle (Post 175463)

Food stamps for veggies. Interesting idea, but my guess is it'll be like the kids in the cafeteria who pass up the greens they're given... those on food stamps will too. Nice idea though.

Originally Posted by Whatfur (Post 175461)

The examples you site are rather marginal. Special education is one of the biggest reasons education spending is off the charts. If it takes the Harlem Children Zone 3x the money per student then I would suggest it be abolished. I also doubt your facts. The much publicized philanthropic babysitting of a whole class of youngsters proved an utter failure recently...maybe you can provide some documentation.

Concerning my "ridiculous" statement...

Spending doubled, test scores stagnant.

Money not the answer.

The Washington Post.

Cato Institute.

The Heritage Foundation


Concerning your comment about the Constitution welll...Do you walk to school or carry your lunch?

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175475)

Wait a second, you're telling me you wouldn't want to spend 3x as much on poor schools if it meant that every kid was graduating college-ready? You can argue whether this actually works, but assuming it does that is an unequivocal bargain.

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175475)

Well, if you doubt my facts simply do a little research on the HCZ. They've got a lot of material on their site that explains exactly what they are doing, and what their success rate is. The programs they implement are not being done in most districts, which, as you say, have been spending more and more money but with little to show for it.

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175475)

The reason for this is not that more money magically produces results, but that targeted spending can. The stories you've cited are generally about entire states and districts increasing their overall budget. This means that poor schools aren't really getting much more than wealthier ones.

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175475)

Let me back up a little. Have you heard of human and social capital theory? Human Capital is all the stuff you've learned that facilitate agency. So everything from emotional and cognitive development to concrete knowledge, cultural facility, etc. Social Capital is everything available to an individual outside his body: parents, family, friends, neighborhood, wealth, school, etc.

Kids develop with vastly different levels of these forms of capital. Such that, by kindergarten, lower socioeconomic children tend to have much lower levels of both. This directly translates into huge disadvantages over their lifetimes, specifically in relation to academic K-12 performance.

What schools can do is increase many of these forms of capital in a student, thereby facilitating his own agency. HCZ does this very successfully because they look at all forms of capital. They target not only the child's human capital but also his social capital, by working with the community to increase their ability to provide their children what they need.

Originally Posted by eeeeeeeli (Post 175475)

Here are some articles that explore these issues:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/journal.html

and the Harlem Children's Zone

Lastly, my question to you is this: Is there a moral imperative to intervening in poor kid's lives when their family is not offering them what they need to succeed? And if so, what is the best way of doing this? And any evidence you can provide for it working would be appreciated.