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

nytimes.com

71–80 of 290 posts

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

#71

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…

Related, USAA was originally formed to offer insurance and later banking to military officers and their families. (They since expanded some offerings to enlisted and to civilians.)

It turns out that selecting for military officers has a beneficial impact on auto losses, putting USAA in a good position to offer competitive rates and outstanding service.

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students. > and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will…

I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing. Maybe the public school system is failing its students. However, it always seemed unfair to trap parents who would otherwise have other options in a failing system. Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation…

> I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing.

I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of course. But...personal optimization != societal optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society, things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income inequality).

> Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation to their children?

Again, those kids left behind...they are going to be expensive in terms of prisons, homeless services, lost productivity, etc...You can see this happening already, it is just going to be much worse when our kids are adults. And really, this is the only time we (or society) will have much influence on these kids. It is much easier to set a kid straight than try to fix an adult.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplistic arguments like this are one of the more annoying parts of the rhetoric of charter school advocates. It assumes that all charter schools are of high quality and that making education yet another thing that is economically stratified in the US is good. It’s ok to say that things that sound nice like choice in education can have knock on effects that are bad for society. Very few things in this world are pure…

If public schools weren't awful, there would be no need for charter schools. The public school experiment has failed.

Tell me you only follow policy in the US without telling me: exhibit one.

The public school “experiment” has been purposefully sabotaged is more like it.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing. Maybe the public school system is failing its students. However, it always seemed unfair to trap parents who would otherwise have other options in a failing system. Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation…

I don't think anyone is going to say "offering parents more choices is bad." But the political reality is not simply "offering more choices." The political reality typically entails using funds set aside for public schools for charter schools. In reality, what happens all too often is that funding and resources are stripped away from the already resource poor schools and given to charter schools. And that's probably…

> entails using funds set aside for public schools

That’s one framing.

Another framing is “using funds set aside to educate the children of the district”.

If you frame the funding as being for the schools rather than for the children’s education, you naturally object to it being spent elsewhere.

Are we trying to run public schools or trying to educate children in the district?

(My kids attended public schools.)

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

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplistic arguments like this are one of the more annoying parts of the rhetoric of charter school advocates. It assumes that all charter schools are of high quality and that making education yet another thing that is economically stratified in the US is good. It’s ok to say that things that sound nice like choice in education can have knock on effects that are bad for society. Very few things in this world are pure…

It seems like a charter school that develops a reputation for low quality is a self-solving problem in a way that a public school which develops the same reputation is (currently) not. One goes out of business; the other goes along indefinitely, with perhaps the wealthiest parents nearby withdrawing their kids, but most families and children are forced to endure it or move away.

[deleted]

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

#76
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very important question. I don't have the answer. What I do know is that forcing underprivileged students to attend schools that cause them to fear for their safety or even life is inhumane. Charter schools are solving that in my district.

Based on your previous comment, the remaining 3/4 of students are all murderers, criminals, deviants, disabled, or with parents who aren’t concerned with their education; or some of those 3/4 of students are somewhere in the middle but had their educations diminished by the removal of the better behaved students.

Well no, most of them are in the wealthier areas and don't have to worry about the violence the poor schools experience. There certainly still are deserving students stuck in failing schools and I think that's a tragedy. I don't see why that means we should undo a program that has been helping though.

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If public schools weren't awful, there would be no need for charter schools. The public school experiment has failed.

Tell me you only follow policy in the US without telling me: exhibit one. The public school “experiment” has been purposefully sabotaged is more like it.

The article is about US schools.... so?

How can one sabotage a house of cards? Failure was inevitable.

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

#79

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…

> 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.

I grew up near a military base, and that describes very very few people.

> no kids of poor single moms

I'd suggest taking a look at what the military pays before you make the claim no poor. As for single moms it turns out that divorce is a big problem and if your dad is stationed overseas for months at a time it's a lot like being a single parent, except with the constant wondering if you are going to get a letter saying your spouse has died.

> All the kids will be well fed

I'll give you that can be the case, if the MLM and the 30% interest on the new Dodge Charger didn't take all the money.

> groomed and socialized

It turns out that sending parents out of a child's life for long periods of time can cause lots of behavior issues, beyond often times people that make their way to the military come with a lot of baggage usually and although the military can be good at reforming people's lives into productive members of society it doesn't always translate to being a great parent.

It sounds like the kind of thing postulated by someone who didn't spend a lot of time around the military culture.

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

#80
Most very unfortunately, I have to reluctantly agree, but for reasons that are completely hidden: My CS program design teacher, would do three things: He would write the subjects he would cover on the board, and then cover them, and secondly he would check them off. When ever a question would come up from a past lecture, he would ask if someone else had the notes to answer the question, well. Guess who kept the best notes? I also ran the study hall after class. Aced all classes. I finally got up the nerve to ask him directly: "Where did you learn those three things?" "Oh! The Military." Turns out that those three exact things are used to 1) Write English essays, 2) Critique plays, 3) and organize client therapeutic meetings. etc. etc. etc. 4) organize code walk throughs and 5) multi team debugging sessions.

Yes, Jeff Withe. Diablo Valley College.

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