It's not "to reduce variance in outcomes." It's "to increase the fraction of students who meet a minimum state standards bar," which is what the school districts and thus the schools are evaluated on. If the schools were evaluated on a metric that rewarded shifting the whole distribution instead of just getting the bottom performers up, we would see different educational priorities, and indeed, we see some of that already in school districts that don't have that many students that struggle to meet the minimum standards.

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bijowo1676 3 hours ago | parent [-]

the truth is America has given up on "shifting the distribution" to the right.

Its impossible to do so at the lower end, without massive redistribution.

So the next possible action is to paper over the giant hole in the wall with plaster and pain and pretend that "everything is ok, according to standards"

	▲	lern_too_spel 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the truth is America has given up on "shifting the distribution" to the right. The truth is that most voters don't care about education. People who run for school boards don't do so with policy recommendations backed by research. They do so solely on backgrounds as mediators between teachers, parents, and administrators. Yes, people skills are needed for the job, but people skills are needed for any job. Making people happy is not the same as getting things done, and you need someone who can do both in any job you are hiring for. > Its impossible to do so at the lower end, without massive redistribution. Korea and China have shown that it is possible with the political will. Jaime Escalante has shown that even instilling only student will is sufficient.