Only in America

[Brian Peacock]

Statistically the risk to US children of a school shooting is relatively slight, but also relatively massive compared to the majority of the world. The incidents themselves are traumatising not only for the individuals and community, but also society at large, yet at this point it seems like the US's failure to address this and the other consequences of gun ownership is baking in a kind of generational trauma that's become self-perpetuating. I really don't know how you can come back from that. Do you think schools are more stressful places for children than when you were at school Sean, and if so how much does the threat of school shootings, and the policies, protocols, and drills around guns and shootings contribute to that? Or is it that US society in general is just more stressful for children than it used to be and I'm overplaying the role the gun has in that?

[Brian Peacock]

/aside

I've done a lot of reading around (particularly, but not exclusively) UK education in the last two years, and I'm beginning to think that what I'll call the financialisation of education has shifted the content of schooling--and thus young learners experiences of education--away from ideas and material that inspires joy and the exploration of young people's interests and towards systematic youth disempowerment and conformity. I'm still agnostic about whether this is an unintended consequence or by design but, somewhat ironically, this is often at odds with a lot of the rhetoric in, about, and around the education space.

The fetish for grading, used as a basis for allocating funding against relatively arbitrary measures of academic success, both individually and institutionally, seems to be the main culprit. It's a significant features of schooling organised along the lines of a manufacturing model, one that prioritises productivity and efficiencies, where grades are the product and schools compete against schools, teachers compete against teachers, and pupils compete against pupils to 'win' (or lose) at education - against a context where the rules for each become ever more detailed, prescriptive and controlling.

/aside

[pErvinalia]

Need to look at how Finland does it.

[Tero]

Small number of dead in St Louis. It's not slum, I've had dinners there, city science museum nearby. Mostly black school likely.
https://www.kmov.com/2022/10/24/police- ... utType=amp

[Tero]

It was a city wide performing arts school with both black snd white kids.
Shooter's gun jammed.

[Tero]

Seth is doing his part!

I knew New Mexico and Colorado were a bit odd.

I suspect Washington is due to homelessness.

[Sean Hayden]

I don’t know Brian. That’s a research project.

[Svartalf]

Missouri and Oklahoma being also in the topt 10, maybe we should beware the Tero...

[Scot Dutchy]

You cant trust the data. What are the parameters? States seldom use the same. Wet finger work.

[Svartalf]

Conan Doyle believed in fairies, , that's proof that fairy data is reliable enough that Sherlock Holmes himself would rely on it.

[Tero]

Crime rates
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... e-by-state

top 10
New Mexico
Louisiana
Colorado
South Carolina
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Washington
Tennessee
Oregon
Missouri

lowest crime
New York
West Virginia
Virginia
Rhode Island
Vermont
New Jersey
Idaho
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshir

[Scot Dutchy]

Well as I said if you believe those...

[Tero]

Yes I believe that ranking. Only idaho sticks out as unlikely.

[Scot Dutchy]

Remember your data is political. In Europe it tends to be less so well outside of the UK of course.

[Tero]

NYT morning newsletter

As is typical in political campaigns, nuance is getting lost. Critics of the reform efforts have distorted the picture; no statistical link exists between, for example, progressive prosecutors and crime. Yet many Democrats, wary of being labeled weak on the issue, have remained quiet or criticized even successful changes to the legal system.

And there have been achievements. Understanding them can give you a fuller grasp of crime in the U.S. right now than you might hear in debates or television ads in the run-up to next week’s elections.

I want to explain one such shift that has gotten little attention: Slowly, the American criminal justice system has become more equitable. The racial gap among inmates in state prisons has fallen 40 percent since 2000, fueled by a large decrease in Black imprisonment rates, according to a new report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank.

Finding the right balance between public safety and human dignity animated many of the criminal justice policies enacted in the U.S. over the past couple of decades. The decline in racial disparities is a remarkable reversal of policies now widely seen as unfairly punishing Black people. “It’s a tremendous drop,” said Thaddeus Johnson, one of the report’s authors.

Links to:
https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/ ... ffe108c63e