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thenewgreen  ·  3973 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Avoiding Ivy League Preschool Syndrome

    I've disagreed with basically all of hubski on this issue before, that most knowledge can be self-taught to the extent that "bad" public schools versus "good" ones, especially at certain ages, is an unimportant distinction.
I'll call bullshit. You can be the biggest go-getter, self starter in the world but take these two examples and tell me there would be an "unimportant distinction"

School A

  Has only a few computers for entire student population. Runs on dial-up still
  Has teachers that are underpaid and have to work second jobs on nights and weekends
  Has no extracurricular activities
  Has antiquated text-books
School B

  Has computers in every classroom with high speed Internet
  Has teachers that are well compensated and dedicated to their profession alone
  Has debate club, science club, young astronauts, a baseball team, recreational equipment, a physics lab, a drama dept with a theater, a school band etc etc etc
  Has up to date textbooks and curriculum 
These things matter. A lot.