Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Everyone's mileage may vary. One of my kids is only taking French because they have to, the other one is up to sixth year French and is hoping for a job that will use their French language skill. My bass player is not going to forget how to play bass.

And yes, my bass player possibly could have learned via YouTube and did learn via a private teacher for a while, but again, the large ensemble experience is similar in nature to foreign language immersion.

But simply conversing in another language does not necessarily guarantee any fluency either, at least not beyond the bare essentials. Witness difficulties faced by ESOL kids even after several years of immersion. Not the same as explicit instruction which still has shortcomings.

I think it's a bit extraordinary to think kids taught directly in a group of 5 by a PhD student or professor are doomed to become useless in comparison to anyone with a public K-12 education, especially given Bloom's 2 sigma problem and other related research. Worth testing, no?

That's a big jump from "tutor" to "PhD/professor." And no "uselessness" was being implied on my part. You know what my kid's miss the most? Being with others, in real space/time. A tutor can't replicate that. Even homeschooling can't always (co-ops are a start).

Also worth pointing out that that $100K tutor can only be hired by families with means. Best way to exacerbate achievement gap. Unless that's meant to be a feature, not a bug.

The point of the comparison was that taxpayers are already paying more than $100k/year for every 5 children in public school. There are plenty of experienced teachers, PhD students, associate & retired professors who would consider an offer like that.

Yes, but we're also paying for education of kids w/special needs, ESOL, who may be coming to school w/trauma. Until we address those issues, that's how it's going to be. Some children cost more to educate publicly, some parents have the means to make up the difference themselves.