Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
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Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#2Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#3[flagged]
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#4If that's the case then we really are up the creek as a nation.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#5clickbait headline, the real answer is in the article:
> For starters, families have access to housing and health care through the military, and at least one parent has a job.
>"Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the scene for learning to occur,” said Jessica Thorne, the principal at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350 students
Providing a stable home environment with access to at least one parent, proper nutrition, and safety - all commonly missing in the worst performing school districts.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#6What's unfortunate about the article is that it is so light on data, and heavy on assumptions. So whatever your agenda is, there is something to latch onto, but ultimately nothing to support it.
e.g. Prefer more rigour? "Defense officials attribute recent growth in test scores partly to the overhaul, which was meant to raise the level of rigor expected of students."
Prefer more money? "the Defense Department estimates that it spends about $25,000 per student, on par with the highest-spending states"
For all we can tell from the article, it is just self selection.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#7The article suggests several causes:
1. Bias in population - these students all have families where at least one parent has a stable job, which isn't true elsewhere. There could also be other factors, for instance maybe people who enter the military are more motivated on average and that genetically or through parenting is passed on to their kids.
2. Better funding
3. Frequent feedback to teachers and more methodical planning
4. Excellent racial & socioeconomic integration
Is there a way to tease out the contribution in each area through controlling for variables. I suspect #1 is the largest by far, but I think this could be statistically controlled for partially by looking at children of parents who attend non-military schools. Curious for thoughts from HN.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#8I think this can be misleading in the same way some charter school results are. The easiest way to improve a school's results isn't to improve the education provided, it's to get rid of the worst performing kids.
Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is stay at home and can pick the kid up.
The same type of thing is in play in military schools. There will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the kids will be well fed and groomed and socialized. Is the education better, or have they just selected better performing kids? The article touches on this. But I don't think takes it nearly seriously enough.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#9https://archive.ph/PHFQ1
https://web.archive.org/web/20231010091419/https://www.nytim...
This one worked better for me.
Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
#10If your kid is absent at a DoD school your CO will hound you. This makes a difference. There's also the slight difference that the military has socialized health care. When your kid is sick you take them to the doctor and that's that, while in civilian life small medical and especially dental issues go untreated and snowball into chronic absenteeism. Base life is really civilized in so many various ways. People violating the speed limit (20 MPH in housing areas) will be apprehended by armed MPs, so your kid can walk to school. Housing is often provided, even if it sucks, or subsidized, even if the allowance is below local market prices, so homelessness among active-duty families with children is practically nonexistent.