The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576557610352019804.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop <comment><USER2> >> In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft.

I'm not sure if it is entirely fair to single out the education system here (once again), or at least batch it in with "yet another failing". I believe more is at fault here.

Unless I'm mistaken, tax payers in a particular school district (or county) fund the school district they're part of. A consequence of this fact, in the name of fairness for the parents, is the necessity for your child to attend a school that you are directly funding (and not attend a school you're not funding, which is what the mother in the story is doing). As long as we're sticking with this system of funding our own schools in this manner, we will naturally be encouraging segregation of classes and have no choice but to turn down those who try to get around it.

So I agree a woman shouldn't be jailed for trying to circumvent the system in this manner, but with the above knowledge of how the system operates, it doesn't surprise me that she would be punished, as I'm sure many others are as well.

Allowing people to attend any school they like (which this article is arguing for I believe?) is a pretty fundamental shift in the system.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that American cities are structured to keep the poor and minorities in nominally independent cities or suburbs that are geographically indistinguishable from the richer areas, but just independent enough to ensure that property taxes aren't shared.

It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs were explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other undesirable groups. Until the sixties, houses in these communities often carried a restrictive covenant that explicitly prohibited sales to non-whites.

Canada shares a lot of the basic educational structure as the US, and sadly a good share of the racial baggage as well, but our cities are far more monolithic than most American cities. There are only two school districts in my city (pop. ~1 million) and students can register in any school throughout the district. The only choice I make as a taxpayer is which district, public or Catholic, I want my property taxes to fund.

<comment><USER4> > It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs > were explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other > undesirable groups.

Actually, it's pretty easy to escape that "fact" because it simply isn't true.

Yes, there were some covenants like that, but they were relatively rare.

And, most of the housing stock is newer than that, so even if such covenants were somewhat common and were still in force, they'd cover a small fraction of the population.

Since they haven't been in force for decades....

> Canada shares a lot of the basic educational structure as the US, and sadly > a good share of the racial baggage as well, but our cities are far more > monolithic than most American cities.

More "monolithic" is right. Canada is about as diverse as Minnesota.

<comment><USER5> I was mostly with you till that Canada/Minnesota comment. Perhaps Minnesota is exceptionally diverse...

Because Canada is very definitely more diverse than the US.

<comment><USER6> Wikipedia puts the "Visible Minority" population of Canada at 16.2% [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_minorities) and the (at least partially) non-"White" population of the U.S at 27.6%. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)

<comment><USER7> The absolute numbers don't tell the whole story, and illustrate part of the difference between the U.S. and Canada on this.

The Wikipedia article on Canada is horrible on one point: "Black" isn't a single minority group in Canada. We have people from the Caribbean and people from many different regions in Africa and, yes, like U.S. we also have descendants of black slaves (in sometimes surprising places). But while they often share similar skin colourings, that is often the only thing they share in common. Many of the Ghanaians, Nigerians, South Africans, and Caribbeans I know have nothing in common except their skin colour—and their love of partying, at least the ones that I've come into contact with over the last ten years.

So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is _primarily_ descended from black slaves. This group may be less diverse, but it's also something that the U.S. must come to grips with as much as Canada must come to grips with its treatment of its Aboriginals (which, to be honest, the U.S. must do, too, but they're not as visible to most Americans).

<comment><USER4> > So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse > population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is primarily > descended from black slaves.

Maybe half of the US black population is descended from slaves. The rest, which is about 6% (from your numbers) comes from the same places Canada gets its 2.5%.

And then there are all of the different groups under the hispanic label.

<comment><USER7> The numbers do not support your assertion.

> Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an estimated total of 0.8 > to 0.9 million Africans have immigrated to the United States, accounting for > roughly 3.3% of total immigration to the United States during this > period.[4] - > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_Unit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_United_States)

At 0.9 million African immigrants, that's a bit less than 1/30th of the overall African American population in the U.S. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)).

> One of the more noted aspects of Black Canadian history is that while the > majority of African Americans trace their presence in the United States > through the history of slavery, the Black presence in Canada is rooted > almost entirely in voluntary immigration.[17] > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canadians>

I reiterate the original point: Canada is a substantially more diverse place than the U.S. in terms of places of origin, even though the U.S. has a larger percentage of visible minorities.

<comment><USER4> Africa isn't the only source of black people. Also, as your source points out, there were basically no controls on African immigration until the 1920s.

BTW, a significant number of fleeing slaves went to Canada....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra AS if anybody cared - how it works in Russia:

\- There are virtually no private schools, every school is public.

\- There are better schools and worse schools. In a big city there are a few really good ones and a bunch of mediocre ones.

\- A school have to accept anyone living in a proximity, but it may also accept anyone else. So the good ones set up entry exams. Mediocre ones enroll everybody.

\- I guess there are some bad schools, some really poor ones, but there are probably none or a very few "failing" ones, with meaning as in article.

By the way, where do illegal immigrants' children go to?

<comment><USER8> The problem with that in America is that allowing entrance to schools based entirely on tests scores results in large numbers of Asians and whites and very few black and Hispanics and you end up with this racial discrimination mess.

<comment> guard-of-terra The solution is that you perhaps should be making bad schools less bad, instead of making the awesome schools more shiny and then digging moats around those.

<comment><USER9> Therein lies the problem. How? In general, bad schools suffer from a lack of funding and the political will to do something about it.

<comment><USER10> The answer is to stop funding schools locally. Until that's done, nothing we do education-wise matters.

<comment><USER11> You want the Federal government to fix the school system?

<comment><USER12> Works in many places in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> America is still a deeply segregated society. And the segregation is built in such a way that it tends to keep people where they always where.

<comment><USER8> Is there something wrong with groups of people wanting to self segregate?

<comment><USER14> If by "wrong" you mean "leads to worse outcomes" - then very possibly yes.

<comment><USER15> How do we define "segregate"? Is it just across 'skin color' / 'irrelevant heritage' lines? What if I identify with and want to live around entrepreneurs? atheists? 'survivalists'? Homosexuals?

I think I can make a fairly strong argument for homosexuals preferring to live among themselves as being ultimately detrimental to society (reduced exposure to homosexuals allows intolerance and misunderstanding to fester), however I would never _dream_ of calling the desire to isolate themselves from hatred "wrong".

Edit: I take it from the downvotes that we're just talking about segregation across _"'skin color' / 'irrelevant heritage'"_ lines for some reason...

<comment><USER14> I'm not arguing preference here. All of your examples still apply. And I would simply say that right and wrong are poor constructs to let us formulate ideas about how we should live.

There's a good chance that atheists who choose to live only among atheists are going to suffer worse outcomes. Living in a diverse society leads to more perspective and better ideas, and an eventually better society.

Only living with other gay people or other Hacidic Jews or other white supremacists may feel comfortable, and it might lead to a functioning society. But is it ideal? Does it leave the people better off? Society at large?

I don't actually know the answer tho these questions, but I suspect you're better off meeting all sorts of people, living in all sorts of places, and absorbing all sorts of ideas.

I don't really believe in right and wrong.

<comment><USER15> I fully agree that these sorts of segregation are ultimately bad things. I merely disagree that we should label them "wrong", since I think that doing so expects too much of the individuals. Society will certainly become better off if Athiests spend more time with theists, however I cannot in good conscious really fault them (say that it is 'wrong') for their decision.

I think we pretty much agree in other words ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure if, as I progress through my 30s, I am becoming more liberal, more cynical or more jaded, or what, but it seems like every day I read some article about the United States which elicits a, "What the FUCK?" from me.

This is one of those articles. Seriously? _Prison_??

<comment><USER17> Why do you associate this with becoming more liberal? Seems the reverse should be true.

<comment><USER18> One of many reasons the single-axis scale is misleading. :)

It does somewhat fit the traditional fault lines over school districting, though. Traditionally, conservatives quite strongly opposed to allowing school attendance to cross boundaries, supporting separate districts in which each district was funded exclusively by local taxpayers and attended exclusively by children resident in that distrct. Mix of reasons, ranging from (on the nicer side) federalism/decentralization to (on the less-nice side) maintaining de- facto segregated schools.

In addition, liberals have tended to be the main ones behind aggregation-with- choice programs, in which many smaller districts in a metropolitan area would be aggregated into one organizational district, where parents could choose to send their kids to any school in the district. Conservative suburbanites have tended to prefer keeping their schools separate, without cross-boundary enrollment permitted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My state has a more rational state law. For more than twenty years now, all public schools anywhere in the state offer open enrollment to all students anywhere in the state, up to the limits of the capacity of each school district to receive students.

[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Academic_Excellence/School_...](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Academic_Excellence/School_Choice/Public_School_Choice/Open_Enrollment/index.html)

Funding of course is based on enrollment.

<http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf>

More students means more enrollment, so school districts make efforts to provide attractive programs that will bring students across district lines. This competition among school districts has promoted innovation in programs and resulted in a fair amount of interchange among students who live in different neighborhoods. For example, the first public school program for "highly gifted" students in our state

<http://www.invergrove.k12.mn.us/atheneum.html>

began precisely because the offering district knew it could build a program that would attract in new students to the district (which was losing student population because it was in an inner-ring suburb with an aging population). That district enjoyed such success with its program that soon other school districts set up similar programs.

[http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthous...](http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthouse.asp)

[http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms...](http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=201931&sessionid=7ed12a7f68aafbb779daff0c410248ec=bb1f727f0c37c2c7a6f2b98cb942232c&sessionid=7ed12a7f68aafbb779daff0c410248ec%3Dbb1f727f0c37c2c7a6f2b98cb942232c)

[http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/P...](http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx)

And the main point is that school districts don't just compete with programs for "highly gifted" students, but also with programs for fine-arts-inclined students, or students who desire language immersion programs (Spanish immersion and Chinese immersion programs are both hot programs in Minnesota), and students with many other characteristics. Some school districts gain almost half of their enrollment from open enrollment, and correspondingly some of the historically worst school districts in Minnesota have lost large percentages of enrollment to families crossing district boundaries to look for better schools. (Minnesota also has a huge number of charter schools, which is a distinct form of competition for publicly subsidized students, but they cannot offer some of the programs that public school districts can.) This competition keeps all districts accountable for providing a good learning environment, and helps change the psychology of teachers and principals dealing with families from one of treating learners as a burden to one of treating learners as an opportunity to be grateful for.

Any other state in the United States could do the same, and a few already have.

[http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task...](http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=636)

[http://www.ecs.org/html/offsite.asp?document=http%3A%2F%2Fww...](http://www.ecs.org/html/offsite.asp?document=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eecs%2Eorg%2FOpenEnrollmentDatabase)

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. It's clear that Missouri (where I used to live) doesn't have open enrollment. A huge amount of resources are spent on ensuring students do NOT cross district lines. As a personal example, certain ESL students in my mother's class are visited at home very often to validate that they truly do live where they say they do.

When schools have to serve students that they're not getting paid for, the incentive to keep those students out is surprisingly strong.

tokenadult, Are you aware of any downsides/negatives to the open enrollment system?

<comment><USER20> I dont't want to generalize, but if there is one thing I have learned from my limited experience working in both a Title I HS district and a fairly affluent K-12 district is that these problems are very, very complex.

aik, Here's one example of a downside: Even relatively well-performing school districts can struggle when their student population starts moving to a new charter school in the area. Since many of the costs for education are fixed within a certain margin, it becomes difficult to shed costs to compensate for the lost funding for each student that left the district.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

<comment><USER22> If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...

<comment><USER23> I suppose the Free Market would make sure that their 'customers' had input into how tuition money is spent. After all, if the government isn't involved and you're free (Free Market, remember) to move your student, then the school needs to cater to your expectations or lose tuition money.

<comment><USER24> Yeah so it turns out that the education consumer doesn't tend to spend the education dollar on quality education. Consider the current mess in privately- paid higher education.

Education is the vegetables on the dinner plate of life. I is a complicated long term investment to make good choices, but those choices have huge externalities. Parents make choices that affect their children (that is an externality) and those children grow up to affect society (another externality)

<comment><USER25> Don't forget that the for-profit colleges get 99% of their income from government financial aid. They don't have to serve their customers well; they just have to do the minimum amount of work to get the financial aid money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Ms. Williams-Bolar last year used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood.

This is not civil disobedience, it's just plain old falsification of records. If she had falsified another crucial piece of information - say, income level on a scholarship application - would Ms. Williams-Bolar still get all of this "end justifies the means" sympathy?

<comment><USER27> Obviously not. The whole point of the article is that poor, intelligent children do not have any way to enroll in schools that would allow them to excel. Presumably if you lied on the income level on a scholarship application, you would have the funds to send your kid to a nice school but you wouldn't want to pay for it. Note that if you were very poor lying about your income on your scholarship application would not be necessary.

If you're still not convinced, let me ask you: Would you _not_ lie about where you lived if it meant you could get a better life for your child? I am not sure you could be called a good parent if the answer to that question is no.

<comment><USER26> No matter how worthy the purpose, falsehood is falsehood. Is it really such good education for your children to demonstrate that lying should be used to obtain the important things in life?

<comment><USER28> Since you are purporting that falsehood is never wrong...

exodus 1:15-20 (NRSV)

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 'When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.' But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, 'Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?' The midwives said to Pharaoh, 'Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.' So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.

tl;dr : The king told midwives to kill baby boys. The midwives did not. When asked by the king why the boys still lived, they lied.

<comment><USER26> No, I'm not purporting that "falsehood is never wrong" (you meant "never right", I suppose). In context, I was talking about falsification of records with an intention to obtain educational benefits otherwise disallowed.

<comment><USER29> So falsehood is okay when midwives save infants' lives, but not when teachers educate them?

<comment><USER26> It's not OK to falsify records in order to get into a better school without paying extra; look at the original post, that's what the argument was about. Taking a subsequent phrase out of context and stretching it to bring in baby killing is not exactly adding to the conversation.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. I used the passage not to equate the two but to illustrate moral issues are not always straight forward. I personally am not sure that lying your way to a better school is the right approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> underground history of american education and an econ 101 textbook. These are the bare minimum of material you should be familiar with before spouting policy prescriptions on this subject.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is sad -- there is a need to restrict access to a limited resource, but for any individual parent, it's the right choice. The ultimate solution is to improve the quality of the bad districts, but that will take a long time.

For now, I think the best approach is strict enforcement of residency, but three tracks in for out of district students: cash payment substantially in excess of per-student marginal cost; competitive entrance for a limited number of students based on objective merit (not race based, like the PA/EPA system); and children of employees of the district (or maybe of city government in general).

I'd be fine with a parent who really wants to give a child a chance taking a job with the district primarily to get children into the schools. Maybe a second job, maybe part time, but the sacrifice should be made by the parent, not by other residents of the school taxing district. If this lets the district hire people more cheaply, or of better quality (which DOES happen in Palo Alto for just this reason), it's win/win.

<comment><USER32> Why not use a lotery? I don't see why any public district shouldn't be available to any state resident. What would be the rationale for any preference to residents or district workers?

Any other policy serves only to preserve the inequality of the education offered between districts.

<comment><USER31> They're funded locally, not by the state (in most states). There's just as much of an argument for a national lottery as a state lottery, if you want people outside the funding area to have an even shot of coming in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is hardly anything new. 20+ years ago, I knew kids with parents that did the same thing (though often for athletics instead of academics). Even within the city (where, at the time, you were required to attend the neighborhood school), parents found ways to game the system.

</comment><comment><USER34> This reminds me of how european peasants could not move to a different parish then the one they were born in unless the priest would accept a transfer.

The land of the free. Free to move to any trailer park in the whole country.

</comment><comment><USER35> I was so close to doing this for 2 of my kids this year—we were to the point of signing the papers. Our neighborhood was in the region of the worst- performing school in the district (not even the closest, either). My mom owns a house 3 blocks from a great school and we were going to use that address. My mom wasn't comfortable with it so we opted for private school.

</comment><comment><USER36> Only in the US will you find people that go to prison for arranging better education for their children.

Utterly ridiculous. The best way to ensure that people do not do stuff like this is to make sure that all schools are held to the same _high_ standards.

<comment><USER16> I agree with you that it's ridiculous they'd go to prison over it. However, "holding all schools to the same high standard" is impractical with the way the system is now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> _used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood. After spending nine days behind bars charged with grand theft, the single mother was convicted of two felony counts_

Slightly insane, eh, what?

I can think of a few people roaming around foot-loose and fancy-free, and even pocketing scores of millions of dollars, who should be doing _that_.

</comment><comment><USER38> Don't try to send them to a 'good' school, certainly not an 'academically good' school. Bluntly, the K-12 teachers don't know anything worth much serious study or effort.

The best can hope for from a K-12 school is that it will do no harm.

Find a school that has a nice 'social atmosphere' and otherwise is RELAXED, e.g., with as little homework as possible.

Then for the real learning, have your children do that at home -- evenings, weekends, summers, and/or school study hall.

What materials? Sure, academically by far the crown jewel is just math. So, get them through math to the college sophomore level ASAP. The next best subject is physics. So, get them through freshman physics based on calculus ASAP. How? Get the best texts (good used copies are FINE, especially for the math) and work through them. If need some help, ask some friends who know the material well and/or find an appropriate, helpful college prof. Or have one parent enroll in, say, a community college course and there learn enough to guide their children and be able to ask the prof questions.

After math and physics, emphasize writing, say, letters, notes, blogs, whatever.

Sure, get 'computer literacy' and also learn the basics of programming.

Then emphasize geography, history, and art history. For English literature, at least learn about the basics of 'drama' and 'formula fiction' and touch on the more famous works. For as many of the works as can, start by watching a movie of the work. For more in drama, understand how movie and TV dramas work.

Somewhere get some basic coverage of 'people and personality', especially about human emotions. E.g., lacking anything else, read E. Fromm, 'The Art of Loving'.

For more, have the child take some community college courses, e.g., biochemistry and biology.

For more, look at the International Baccalaureate program and pick and choose from that or, maybe, just go through the whole thing.

During the last 2-3 years of the 'high school' time, review what else, if anything, is required to do well on the SAT tests.

For more? Maybe learn piano?

Likely could study accounting and take the CPA exam. A CPA would be nice to have.

For more? Jump into college material at the junior level and keep going. Get through college ASAP and then go for graduate or professional school.

For K-12? Don't ask for much and mostly just circumvent it.

<comment><USER39> I think these parents are trying to get their kids out of schools that can't even enforce basic discipline in the classroom. There's a big difference between an environment where teachers don't know anything worth much serious study or effort and an environment where teachers spend almost all of their time trying prevent a riot from breaking out in the classroom and thus spend almost no time actually instructing students.

Also, it can be very hard to support real learning at home if you are a single parent working two or three jobs to make ends meet.

<comment><USER38> What you wrote with:

"almost all of their time trying prevent a riot from breaking out"

is quite similar to what I wrote with:

"The best can hope for from a K-12 school is that it will do no harm.

"Find a school that has a nice 'social atmosphere' and otherwise is RELAXED, e.g., with as little homework as possible."

So we are at least partly agreeing.

What to do about a school with knife fights in the classrooms, drug deals in the halls, and pimping at lunch time is to get the hell out: Such a school fails on "do no harm" and "a nice 'social atmosphere'".

If just have to leave and can't afford a wealthy neighborhood, then pick a small town in a rural, farming area in one of the more northern states; there essentially any school will do no harm.

Also good, pick a college town. Even if sweep floors, flip burgers, wash pots, and act as a security guard, will be able to do a terrific job getting children ready for college and life.

My good news is that don't have to move to some neighborhood with all millionaires. Instead, quite sufficient is JUST "do no harm" and a 'social atmosphere'. Academically relaxed is also good.

This is a radical recommendation: For good work in actually learning for college and life, mostly don't depend on the school. Don't mostly depend on the school even if in one of the best school districts in the country or even are sending children to one of the best private schools.

Why? Again, yet again, to repeat, bluntly the K-12 teachers don't know enough to teach much of anything to be taken very seriously. The K-12 years are some of the very best years for learning, and it is a grand disaster that those years are turned over to the K-12 system and, thus, largely wasted.

Also implied but not stated was, get the heck into college level material ASAP. In the US, the good academic material starts in college and continues into graduate and professional school. K-12 is wildly different and, academically, is a really bad joke -- mostly can just skip it. For most parents who want good education for their children, this is radical but good advice.

With my advice, careful parents, and a one-room school house in a serious, rural farming community will totally knock the socks off ANYTHING in formal K-12 education.

For your:

"Also, it can be very hard to support real learning at home if you are a single parent working two or three jobs to make ends meet."

True.

So: (1) Young people, listen up: Work however hard is necessary to form stable marriages and, really, stable, larger families. Marriages and families are IMPORTANT. Again, listen up.

(2) Unless you want a series of disasters for the rest of your life, delay having children until you can form a stable marriage.

(3) In the home, set up a 'culture' of learning instead of TV, cars, fashion frocks, popularity competitions, cell phone gossip, pop culture, fast food, sports, wild parties, etc.

Then, get the children started and going on learning, largely independently, ASAP. Then the children can learn on their own time with minimal time from parents, so little that there still is a chance for a single parent.

But this matter of a 'culture' of learning is just CRUCIAL. If there is any doubt about the culture in your home, then disconnect the TV. Keep children away from 'pop culture'. Emphasize LEARNING and, then, curiosity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In general, "Better school" means a school with more whites and or Asians. "Bad schools" means a school with more black and Hispanic students.

<comment><USER40> Not sure by your statement if you have children or not. But I just finished enrolling my children in a private school instead of the local public school. I really don't care if they are black or white I want my children to go to a school where the parents value education as much as I do.

<comment><USER8> I have mixed race children and do whatever it takes to make sure that they are in schools that made up of mostly white, Asian, or Indian (India) students. Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the schools usually plagued with violence. I'm not alone in this thinking; every single Asian family I know does the same.

<comment><USER16> >Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the schools usually plagued with violence.

 _ALL_ of them? Almost certainly not. You're just being plain, old fashioned racist. You also sound ignorant and naive to claim to have _never_ met a black or Hispanic student who shows a single sign of valuing education.

Do you live in the Bay Area? If so, take a trip over to San Jose and visit some of the high schools schools there with predominantly white & asian students (there are only a few). They're not garden parties. They're rough schools with gangs and drugs.

<comment><USER41> It doesn't have to be all of them. Just a few are enough to disturb the learning environment.

<comment><USER16> Just a few what? Black students? Disruptive students? Disruptive black students?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I am not sure this is the whole story. The Wall Steet Journal lately seems to be on a mission to discredit any form of government. Of course it's different when they wear a uniform, do things in secret and tell us they are there to protect us...

</comment><comment><USER43> Forty years ago, I remember hearing from a neighbor that the Arizona school district she had worked for took some pains to see that the snowbirds didn't just drop their kids off for instruction. Her oldest child was probably born in 1951 or 1952, which suggests a terminus ad quem for her teaching days of about 60 years ago.

Now and again the New York Times will write about the efforts New Jersey districts will take to investigate suspicious enrollments. I've never read of such investigations resulting in more than a kid shipped from one school to another.

And it strikes me as utterly disingenuous for the WSJ to be going on about this.

<comment><USER44> How is it disingenuous for the WSJ to talk about this issue?</comment></comment>


Show HN: MindMapIt, a simple webapp to create mind maps - <AUTHOR> http://josetomastocino.github.io/mindmapit/ <comment><USER2> Thank you using YAML!

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, I've just added multiline support and... dropped YAML lol. I found the YAML syntax for multilines quite weird. I just wrote my own parser so the users can keep writing in the next line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Winner!</comment>


Show HN: Embed a Search-box that converts plain English to SQL in your app - <AUTHOR> http://kueri.me/download <comment><USER2> This was pretty cool!

It figured out: how many employees do you have that are male, from Asia, older than 20, and with last names starting with "W"

Awesome demo. Have you tested this with many non-technical users? I feel like I might be predisposed to write sentences that map easily to SQL because I know SQL.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey mipmap04,

I'm glad you liked it! Kueri was built for non-technical users.

Our parser is able to understand different variations of the same sentence. Here is another one:

"show male employees that their age is over 20 , last name beginning with w, asia"

<comment><USER2> Very cool - I've played with a bit more. How does Kueri know that the word "paid" maps to "salary"? Do you define these synonyms on a per column basis or does Kueri have some sort synonym detection? If so, how many languages does this support?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Kueri has synonyms per column. We provide an authoring tool for this.

Here is a video demonstrating basic configuration. [http://docs.kueri.me/configuring-a-data- source](http://docs.kueri.me/configuring-a-data-source)

We support English only.

You can download the Lite version and use it to analyze Excels or a database over a single table.

We are here for anymore question you might have :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We would love to get your feedback and thoughts.

<comment><USER3> Looks very promising, sadly I cant get past configuring a new SQL Server data source (which does say Beta).

Points of contention- First load using edge DataSources was not visible at the bottom right, had to access from User drop down menu and nothing happened

No error returned when trying to connect to a SQL Server type connection, just said Invalid database address with no further information about why. (default database wasn't accessible was the problem).

After getting past the connection screen, tables are arranged in a nonsensical fashion, not a huge issue but I would have thought alphabetical option at minimum.

Some tables don't preview, haven't dug into this further.

Once I selected a table it could preview, clicking NEXT did nothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey arejaytee,

We have just released a new version of Kueri we would like you to try out.

Is there any way we can contact you?

<comment><USER3> Hi David, downloading the latest version now. Also submitting a design partner program application now through the contact form.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The YIMBYs lost in California but they're just getting started - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/where-yimbys-can-win/559001/ <comment><USER2> SF needs more multifamily homes (apartment buildings). Now, I can see how SB827 could have scared lots of people, like in SF.

If SB827 had passed, I am sure some SF neighborhoods and cities in the Bay, would have either defund existing or stop any new public transit projects, to avoid up zoning.

I think the City should just create a plan like Haussmann did in Paris. The City should start by preempting all the lots that are underused (parking lots, gas stations, car wash, single story commercial buildings, etc.) and build to the limit for the area. We could even keep the single story business at ground level (car wash, some parking, etc.). That should bring lots of units to the market.

Cities in the Bay should build more too. It is a bit crazy to have Apple or Google, creating those giant campuses for 10's of thousands employees, in cities that do not build anything close to accommodate the families of those employees. Cupertino and Mountain View welcome taxes from Apple or Google, but do not do much to house those employees and their families. Maybe every city should provide at least the same number of units as they have employees.

<comment><USER3> There are only about 20 gas stations in San Francisco. You can't have a city without gas stations; they're just as essential as housing.

<comment><USER4> > You can't have a city without gas stations

Manhattan has ~1 gas station per 42,000 residents, and it seems to be doing just fine. Back of the envelop calculation puts the San Francisco ratio to ~1 gas station per 43,000 residents, so it is about on par with other dense areas of the US.

<comment><USER5> Manhattan has a very robust public transportation system though. It's easier to get around the city and to friends, attractions and jobs without a car. San Francisco, definitely not the case. A lot of people live there but work in Palo Alto or Sunnyvale

<comment><USER6> Right, but the assertion was "You can't have a city without gas stations, they're just as essential as housing", which is a very, shall we say, suburban view of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Japan solves the problem by forcing permissive zoning at a national level so that localities can't pull their blocking policies. Localities will always overpower those trying to movie in, forcing people to live further out or move to a different city, but if it's a national problem a national law is due.

<comment><USER8> Japan solves this problem by having home values that drop to just about nothing over time, such that everything outside of commercial property investment is unattractive to Global Capital.

Zoning is a problem, but without additional stopgaps to prevent this kind of financialized speculation in the housing market, you can't resolve the affordability crisis.

<comment><USER7> Part of home values dropping is also their culture of preferring new constructions over old buildings. But then again I think objectively, all things being equal, everyone prefers a new house, but Americans are more tolerant of old buildings.

<comment><USER9> All the real estate ads in Japan include the year it was built, have never seen that anywhere else, quite sure my landlord in Australia wouldn't know if I asked.

<comment><USER10> You could look it up in the Land Registry in the UK if you wanted to, although it's often fairly easy to guess roughly when a house was built here from the style.

<comment><USER9> Fair call, I just rarely see it in my country and it's not used as a marketing tool. There's some very well built old houses, places are judged on merit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rather than trying to fight NIMBYism directly since development imposes large costs on the current residents and home owners in an area, fight it by using a reverse dutch auction process [0].

Developers can bid what they are willing to pay a community for development approval of what they want to build and the communities can compete against each other to win the development. The amount the developer is willing to pay rises each month and the first community to say yes gets the development.

This way rather than all the surplus going to the developer and all the costs to the community, both sides benefit. Win-win.

Edit. Since it has come up a few times in the comments you can cover the location issue via the developer's bid requirement documentation. For example, they could say they need conditions x, y, & z for any site and only communities with sites that meet those conditions can bid. The developer can make the conditions as narrow or broad as they like (all the way from only one site in state meeting the conditions to thousands of sites). It will be in the interest of the developer to keep the conditions broad since the more flexible they can be the more communities will compete for the development and the lower the cost to them.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_auction)

<comment><USER12> Also, hold those developers responsible for fulfilling their obligations.

I am, perhaps, a bit of NIMBY. I'm willing to accept that some of my concerns are not in the public interest. I don't want an apartment building in my neighborhood because of the impacts on street parking, traffic, noise, etc. All of those things negatively affect me, and so I take a lot of convincing.

But another issue is that developers have a history of claiming they will ameliorate these issues by improving infrastructure, such as adding underground parking, upgrading sewers, building sound barriers, etc and then do not. Or they exploit loopholes to avoid their obligations. An example where I live is that new developments are required to have sidewalks. Developers simply tell homeowners they are required to build the sidewalk within 2 years which, of course, doesn't happen. 5 years later, the city goes in an builds them and applies specials to the home and everyone is unhappy except the developer, who walked away from the project long ago.

Sometimes its seems that cities are so beholden to developers that they can get away with anything.

<comment><USER13> It's the government's job to ensure adequate infrastructure. The people that buy from the developer will be paying for their proportionate share of that new infrastructure with taxes. Forcing the developer to cover the costs of infrastructure is just a sneaky way to shift the tax burden from existing residents to new residents.

<comment><USER14> Isn't this the crux of the issue? Why would current tax payers volunteer to pay more so that more people can come into their neighborhood, devaluing their property by increasing noise, light and chemical pollution?

It's curious to me that so many people complain about gentrification in terms of destroying the nature of an existing community, but then we also have so many complaints about zoning laws that are designed to protect the visible characteristics of communities.

<comment><USER15> > Why would current tax payers volunteer to pay more so that more people can > come into their neighborhood, devaluing their property by increasing noise, > light and chemical pollution?

Rayiner's point is that current tax payers _won 't_ pay more, because new residents result in a higher tax base in the first place.

In California with Prop 13 and widespread rent control, this is especially true.

<comment><USER16> In California with Prop 13, the current tax payers' property tax rates are well below those of newcomers regardless. So they have no incentive to change things, since their taxes stay at the same low rate either way, whereas in a normal state, I have an incentive to get as much new development in my town as possible to add to the tax base, especially if that new development is stuff that doesn't require lots of expensive infrastructure or tax subsidies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If only the young people voted. The average age in most states is ~40, so the governments should not be completely ignoring the young.

<comment><USER18> The GOP makes it difficult to vote for anyone who isn't a landowning white person under the guise of protecting us from "voter fraud". They do this in a number of ways, including (but not limited to) under-staffing or eliminating polling locations in non-white areas and onerous address/residency restrictions (to exclude students, other young people just getting started, and migrant families).

Many young people want to vote, but are discouraged or prevented from doing so.

<comment><USER19> It got much worse after SCOTUS invalidated portions of the VRA. States which previously needed federal approval to change voting procedures closed polling places on college campuses and drastically reduced early voting windows to make it more difficult for college students to vote. Some states (I know Texas and N.C. off the top of my head) don't allow student IDs to be used at the polls, either.

Other states targeted minorities with similar tactics. Alabama (which needed federal sign-off on changes under the VRA) passed a voter ID law then closed 30-something DMVs across the state, almost exclusively in areas with huge black populations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not many people can build a home these days. So I'm not against developers. BUT: if there's any public money involved, then a -good- law will protect the future of those homes from becoming exploitation centers. And a -great- law will recognize that most people will never be rich, and will still need affordable housing ... and will be designed to bake that -directly- into the system.

So we never again wind up with the tragic situation we're faced with today.

</comment><comment><USER21> _> ...local regulations used by homeowners to block new development._

If the YIMBYs want to win they need to realize their opponents are not just homeowners. Low-income renters have issues with them too. YIMBYs are generally in some form of denial about that.

They like to believe that they are fighting the progressive fight against rich, old homeowners. They like to proclaim they are fighting for "poorer, younger, and (frequently) non-white people" (Stripe).[1] But when it comes to explaining why poorer and non-white renters aren't always on their side, YIMBYs are caught flat-footed. If they're not careful they end up sounding condescending. Like, _Didn 't you guys take economics? Supply and demand, bro!_

That's probably why the bill failed. There were significant amendments added to address the concerns of low-income housing advocates, who see a greater need for BMR units among other things. But these were added only after substantial protest.

One low-income housing activist said it best: "The YIMBY movement has a white privilege problem."[2] They are kind of in denial about the effect of development-stimulated gentrification on rents in affordable neighborhoods. They like to think that young tech workers are in the same boat as minimum wage earners, all in need of "affordable" housing. They really don't like to think about things like induced demand, where adding capacity can actually create more demand.

In the long run even the tech industry needs affordable housing for service industry workers to support its continued growth. It's not just about economic justice or turning back gentrification. Quite simply, if cooks and teachers and artists can't afford to work here it's not going to be as desirable a place to live. If the market alone can't solve that -- and many low-income housing advocates believe it can't -- then we need to fight for BMR and other strategies to create and protect truly affordable housing.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988398)

[2] [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill- failu...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure- equity-groups-20180502-story.html)

<comment><USER15> Induced demand in housing is a myth. Research confirms that building more housing reduces displacement.

UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project study covers this quite well: [http://www.urbandisplacement.org/research#section-84](http://www.urbandisplacement.org/research#section-84)

Key summary: "What we find largely supports the argument that building more housing, both market-rate and subsidized, will reduce displacement. However, we find that subsidized housing will have a much greater impact on reducing displacement than market-rate housing. We agree that market-rate development is important for many reasons, including reducing housing pressures at the regional scale and housing large segments of the population. However, our analysis strongly suggests that subsidized housing production is even more important when it comes to reducing displacement of low-income households."

<comment><USER21> You misinterpreted the summary. Reading the actual study, it confirms induced demand:

"At the local, neighborhood scale, however, new luxury buildings could change the perception of a neighborhood and send signals to the market that such neighborhoods are desirable and safer for wealthier residents, resulting in new demand. Given the unmet demand for real estate in certain neighborhoods, new construction could simply induce more in-moving."

"...What we find largely confirms this regional versus local argument;... This suggests that indeed in San Francisco, and by extension similar strong markets, the unmet need for housing is so severe that production alone cannot solve the displacement problem." (p7)

Note that the summary concerns the _regional_ effect of new housing construction -- with a strong emphasis on subsidized housing. Exactly what low-income housing advocates are campaigning for.

<comment><USER15> You quoted the hypothesis and not the results. The study says that there is no clear correlation between building in a given neighborhood and displacement. In one area with new development, significant displacement occurred. In the other, no significant displacement occurred.

The study concludes that housing should be built. It can't be made to suggest otherwise.

<comment><USER21> _> You quoted the hypothesis and not the results._

You're simply wrong. As cited, "What we find largely confirms this regional versus local argument". And again, the study emphasizes the need for _subsidized_ housing and "investing in the preservation of housing affordability and stabilizing vulnerable communities." That's exactly why low- income housing activists fought against the original YIMBY-supported bill.

<comment><USER15> The paper doesn't say that market rate development has a negative effect on displacement at the local level. It says it has no effect on displacement. There is no support for the idea that building more market-rate housing _causes_ displacement. Only anti-development ideologues like Tim Redmond claim that.

Tenants activists in the Bay Area are actually making the problem worse, contributing to displacement, and driving out the very vulnerable populations they claim to protect. It is unfortunate that these groups are putting anti- development ideology over real solutions.

<comment><USER21> _> The paper doesn't say that market rate development has a negative effect on displacement at the local level._

Again, simply incorrect and a miscomprehension of the study:

"These two block groups illustrate the complex relationships between housing development and demographic change. While both neighborhoods have witnessed dramatic development in one of the fastest growing parts of San Francisco, and have similarly seen significant growth in housing prices, _one may be classified as experiencing displacement of low-income households_ , while the other does not." [emphasis mine]

(The one that didn't maintains "high rates of crime and concentrated poverty which may be dampening the attractiveness of the neighborhood" and the majority of units are rent controlled.)

<comment><USER22> Your parenthetical seems to prove the other posters original point. It wasn't the development that caused the displacement, it was the relative appeal of the neighborhood.

<comment><USER21> It doesn't. Poster was saying study doesn't show local displacement due to development. That's flat out wrong.

It shows one neighborhood with displacement where development "contributed to the ongoing transformation of the neighborhood." The other that resisted displacement not only maintained high crime, it also had a higher proportion of rent controlled units (which you didn't mention).

That demonstrates that development can cause local displacement, although there are many complex factors at play that can resist it. Like if you build right next to skid row, maybe your building is not enough to gentrify the neighborhood, plus rent control protects residents. Absent those, you'll get displacement.

<comment><USER15> "Ongoing transformation" being the key phrase. As in, gentrification was occurring regardless of the new development. It's not hard to see how this happens, either. Not building anything doesn't prevent wealthy people from moving in: it just reduces the number of units available in newly-desirable neighborhoods. If new buildings aren't available, buyers and landlords will just renovate old units and sell or rent them to wealthy newcomers. (Example: Casa de Dolores in the Mission, a rent controlled building that was Ellis'd, completely renovated into a TIC, and sold mostly to tech workers. Even Costa- Hawkins repeal wouldn't have done anything to prevent this! In fact, if it gets repealed and vacancy control is implemented, you can bet to see a whole lot more of this, something tenants' rights groups will never admit.)

You are cherry-picking phrases from the study to try to make it sound like it's stating the exact opposite of what it states. This is obviously a pointless game, similar to the one creationists play. If the authors of the study wanted to say "don't build anything", they would have said that in the conclusion. Instead, they said the opposite.

The solution is to build more everywhere. More market-rate housing, more subsidized housing. Subsidized housing is especially important, but both kinds help. That is precisely what SB 827 encouraged. That is why nonprofit housing developers supported it. Tenants' groups and the DSA were wrong to oppose it. It is frustrating to see tenants' rights groups refuse to admit responsibility for hurting the groups they claim to be helping.

<comment><USER21> > _"don 't build anything"_

Every one of your comments contains blatant misrepresentations and devolves into YIMBY talking points. I have clearly represented the study as supporting building. The issue is how much emphasis on BMR and how to protect vulnerable communities from local displacement. The study places strong emphasis on BMR, preserving housing affordability and protecting vulnerable communities — phrases "cherry picked" from its conclusion. Thus it supports the very issues that low income and minority activists have been fighting for against the original YIMBY-supported bill and the amendments that were added to better address their concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why the rush to increase the population in a water-poor, earthquake prone region? It seems crazy to me, and "money" seems an insufficient answer. California as a whole seems less than sustainable over the next 50 years, so maybe planning should aim in another direction? Instead of inducing people to live there, build competitors in less seismically unstable regions that have access to fresh water that isn't just about gone.

I appreciate that every place is subject to some kind of disaster, but massive, regular earthquakes liquefying soil is second only to massive floods for destructive capacity. It's also true that if for example you live near a Great Lake, you have water. In terms of risk to people and infrastructure, tornadoes are pretty minor compared to earthquakes and drought.

<comment><USER24> This occurred to me too. Why is anybody picking these California cities over Washington or the like to move to for their tech career? Is the money just that much better, even adjusted for COL, that it's worth it to put up with the traffic, density, less visually appealing landscape, noise, and likely not being able to afford anything resembling a nice living space?

<comment><USER25> I chose a company without really considering the city (SF) after college. A lot of my friends ended up in the area as well. Then my network grew and it's become harder to leave, even though I keep planning to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well the "progressive" people in CA (especially SF) are both xenophobic (only people from SF should be allowed to live there), and short sighted (if you don't build new housing their children won't have anywhere to live, even without people moving to the city)

For public servants, and other people whose salary is directly or indirectly tied to government salaries housing will only get less affordable as prop 13 guarantees that landlords can profit from true market value of their properties without paying taxes on that value. Prop 13 is literally a tax payer subsidy to businesses and nothing more.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wonder how many of the YIMBY's are actually YIYBY's (Yes is YOUR backyard)

<comment><USER28> Only NIMBYs are trying to control other people's backyards. YIMBYs can't do anything to your backyard, because you own it and can make any choices about your property for yourself. But you don't own your neighbor's backyard any more than some schmuck who lives hundreds of miles away does.

Perhaps you had the impression that your title and deed gave you property rights over your neighbor's yard merely because you live in the same neighborhood. If so, you were mistaken.</comment></comment>


Some Thoughts on Meanings of Words - <AUTHOR> http://personalphao.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/meaning-of-words/

<comment><USER2> "Inheritance", "Class", "Prototypal", "Prototypical", "Classical".</comment>


New PCL file on why_'s website - <AUTHOR> http://whytheluckystiff.net/SPOOL/BRICKS <comment><AUTHOR> What happens when you print to PDF:

<http://pastebin.com/jdjE5BVA></comment>