Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general
Linus is now seeing firsthand that opportunity is not equal in the United States. You typically need to have attended a good university to get a good job and to get into a good university you need to have graduated from a good secondary school - which you need to have paid for either through tuition or taxes. The goal is to keep the wealth concentrated in the already wealthy. That's how it works here in the United States.<p>I'll assume for the moment that Oregon's intentions are noble, and they're attempting to right this wrong. How ironic that it will achieve the exact opposite result. The old law of unintended consequences and all. Those of us who were in school in the 70s during mandatory desegregation will recall that too had the opposite effect of what was intended: instead of providing better learning opportunities for black students the white families left for the suburbs leaving the black students behind in worse schools than what they had started out with. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it I suppose.<p>So what is the answer? I think we really need to understand the problem: public schools are locally funded and operated and small locales can use real estate to become exclusive. The solution then is to realize that exclusivity can't be had on a large scale. You need to expand the scope of 'local' in the local school system. A good start would be to expand 'local' to the county level. While certainly there are some counties richer and more exclusive than others, they are much more homogenous than individual communities. At least it would be a step in the right direction that would better serve everyone.