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Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

nytimes.com

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Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#11

Post by aynyc »

joshhart wrote: post #7

The 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…

No. #1 is your CO will chew your ass out in front of everyone (which is a big no-no in leadership, yet it's accepted regarding your children). I saw first hand my E6 got called to battalion CO to answer why his son was bullying other kids (I think some civilians from DoD). I still remember CO said, if you don't fix this, I march the whole damn battalion to your house and make you do push ups while your son watch.

When your parents care, you will do.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#12

Post by jowea »

Afforess wrote: post #5

clickbait 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 o…

That may be a bit simplistic since the article does mentions other possible explanations for the better results beyond the fact that essentially all students are above an economic floor.

And I didn't get it from the article, but are those schools better than the schools in wealthy districts?

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#13

Post by eYrKEC2 »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #8

I 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 pic…

Another factor is that the military parents have cleared a bar of pre-enlistment testing (ASVAB?) that has strong correlations with IQ testing.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#14

Post by Scubabear68 »

It's not a high bar to beat, at least here in New Jersey. Nearly all of our school boards are non-professional, non-compensated elected officials, and a large percentage of Superintendents started their career as gym teachers.

The net result is schools that hire hoards of consultants to try to meet professional standards, but fail anyway, while spending vast sums of tax payer dollars. Covid funds earmarked towards bridging the learning gap from closed schools during the pandemic are spent on fancy laptops, new athletic facilities, sound systems for auditoriums. Absenteeism is skyrocketing, and teachers are not only not encouraged to enforce discipline, they're actively told to let out of control students slide. Social promotion is on the rise, and standardized test scores are tanking.

We finally gave up in my local district and ended up paying a fortune to send both our kids to private schools. After an initial many-months-long struggle to catch up with their new private school classmates (because of the public school deficits), they are both doing much better. Money well spent, but I still send taxes to an ineffective district that spends money like water, and where educational value is dead last in their priorities.

They even introduced a course in Graphic Novels at the high school this year, while 75% of kids fail standardized science testing, and 60% fail in math.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#15

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

My feeling is that school performance is denominated by the students and parents.

If for example, you took the best performing school district and the worst performing school district and swapped just the parents and students keeping the school staff, administration, and facilities the same, the previously best school district would end up near the bottom and the previously worst school district would end up near the top.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#16

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

eYrKEC2 wrote: post #13
Spinnaker_ wrote: post #8

I 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 pic…

Another factor is that the military parents have cleared a bar of pre-enlistment testing (ASVAB?) that has strong correlations with IQ testing.

[dead]

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#17

Post by HDThoreaun »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #8

I 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 pic…

Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true for prestigious universities but it's just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.

My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It's not like they're only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they're doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district than the public school system, which forces all the poor students into the same schools with literal murderers attending. Allowing poor students from families that value education to go to schools with like minded students is an unequivocally good thing compared to what the public schools currently do.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#18

Post by dragonwriter »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #8

I 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 pic…

> 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

This would be a more effective filtering technique if inconvenient minimum days weren't common in regular public schools.

The most effective filtering technique used by charter schools is... being a charter school.

Because it isn't the default option public school based on residency and requires an active choice, it automatically filters for active parents.

And because for most of the potential student base its farther from their default public school, it selects for logistical flexibility (loosely correlating to wealth and/or having a parent at home) as well.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#19

Post by Kon-Peki »

jeffbee wrote: post #10

If 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 viola…

> 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

Reminds me of a past vacation. Had a friend that was a pediatrician in the Army, based in Hawaii. We were all hanging out at the beach, and a kid cuts his hand on something. The friend walks over, says he's a doctor, asks if he can help out. The kid has a very apprehensive look on his face, so the friend smiles and says "I know, you're not sure I'm a doctor because I haven't asked your parents for their insurance"

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#20

Post by OrvalWintermute »

> “The military isn’t perfect — there is still racism in the military,” said Leslie Hinkson, a former Georgetown University sociologist who studied integration in Defense Department schools. But what is distinctive, she said, “is this access to resources in a way that isn’t racialized.”

Racism in the military is a career ender for officers and enlisted kind of like getting a DUI but worse. What is more in the system is a "good ole buddy system", where high performers often do favors for each other across racial, preference, and gender lines.

My parents both taught in California and I've been friends with many from DoDEA and here is a TLDR;

Please hold the downvoting for political reasons

-Engaged parents, most are NCOs, officers and civil servants

-Well Funded, like, $1M+ housing area school districts

-Low ratios of teachers to students

-All students are US citizens or foreign nationals from partner nations

-Great teachers, some overseas location have insane competition for teacher slots, some professors jump to DoDEA slots

-bilingual students that are smart seems the norm

-no problems with illegal aliens, or ESL brand new to English swamping 20% of the class particularly at higher grades like what happens in some parts of CA

-Some locations have DoDEA are the very choicest in the US military, so they attract the creme de la creme of overachievers competing for very limited slots

I'd describe the DoDEA schools as similar to the very best public schools in the US, but you can find other government schools that run similar programs to DoDEA

You can find eligibility for DoDEA at https://dodea.widen.net/content/rlhgfasqfx/original/ai-1344-...

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