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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

#271

Post by 2devnull »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17
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…

“ 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.”

But it is sort of what schools currently do. The filter public schools use is housing. You have to buy a home in the school district. That is the reason real estate values are driven by school test scores. Because the opposite is also true: school test scores are a function of who own homes near the school. At the end of the day, maybe that operates better at sorting good apples from bad. I’m probably more in agreement with your line of thinking that making choice easier for poor folks could be best for society, but the selection effect is weaker if you loosen the filter.

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

#272

Post by r00fus »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17
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…

Removing special needs kids from your population is the quickest way to increase test scores and reduce budget. As a parent of a child with special needs, I've studied the financials of schools in my district to find out how special needs services are supported.

1) The federal government has never lived up to its promise of matching 40% of the special needs funding (in my state they cover a mere 8%).

2) Usually the shortfall ends up at the district level. Some districts get more funding from an increased special needs population while others don't (community funding model).

3) Often the district moves programs around so special needs child cohorts (and in some cases teachers) can remain intact while not focusing the lowered scores in one school.

4) Charter schools throw a wrench into this as they typically don't support special needs kids, but still get district funding. This causes other schools in the district to look "worse" because their test scores aren't as balanced as before.

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

#273

Post by dragonwriter »

r00fus wrote: post #272
HDThoreaun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Removing special needs kids from your population is the quickest way to increase test scores and reduce budget. As a parent of a child with special needs, I've studied the financials of schools in my district to find out how special needs services are supported. 1) The federal government has never lived up to its promise of matching 40% of the special needs funding (in my state they cover a mere 8%). 2) Usually the s…

> Charter schools throw a wrench into this as they typically don't support special needs kids, but still get district funding. This causes other schools in the district to look "worse" because their test scores aren't as balanced as before.

This is probably state-dependent, in California charters have the same obligations (with two different organizational ways of addressing them, either as if they were their own district or as part of the local district) as other public schools with regard to special education.

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

#274

Post by dragonwriter »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17
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…

> Education is mostly about your peers.

Nah, its mostly about your socio-economic status, home environment, and similar personal (not peer) factors.

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

#275

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sokoloff wrote: post #268
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Segregationists tried using that framing back in the 1960s/70s, but it the argument was ruled invalid by the Warren-led Supreme Court. Who knows what would happen these days, however.

“I don’t want my kids to go to school with people of a different race” makes you an asshole. “I don’t want my kids to go to a school that will fail to educate them” makes you exactly the opposite.

> “I don’t want my kids to go to a school that will fail to educate them” makes you exactly the opposite.

And if you just happen know that the second overlaps with the former, you can convince yourself that you aren't an asshole. The segregationists of the 60s were self convinced they weren't assholes.

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

#276

Post by HDThoreaun »

r00fus wrote: post #272
HDThoreaun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Removing special needs kids from your population is the quickest way to increase test scores and reduce budget. As a parent of a child with special needs, I've studied the financials of schools in my district to find out how special needs services are supported. 1) The federal government has never lived up to its promise of matching 40% of the special needs funding (in my state they cover a mere 8%). 2) Usually the s…

The charters in my district absolutely support special needs children. I even know a couple special needs teachers at the big charter network. I can't say how their program compares to the public school system's but there it's not empty so I figure it can't be that bad.

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

#277

Post by aeturnum »

jvanderbot wrote: post #199
aeturnum wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that all makes sense in a narrow way but I think you are sidestepping the actual challenge of education. As the root comment pointed out - we already know that you improve outcomes by excluding low performers. Schools that can be selective take advantage of that. If you are in a position to attend one of those restrictive schools it may improve your outcomes! However, the question of "how to do a good job edu…

Actually I disagree that a measure of success of an educational system is its breadth. If serving 95% achieved vastly better outcomes and 5% received no education (or an alternative one!) Would that necessarily and absolutely be worse? What about 99/1 or 99.9 etc

> If serving 95% achieved vastly better outcomes and 5% received no education

Good luck convincing the families of the 5%! I'm not arguing this approach wouldn't improve outcomes - just that it's not considered an acceptable solution to "the problem of education." So it doesn't seem like a good faith contribution to the conversation the article is addressing because I believe it's already been rejected as an option.

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

#278

Post by aeturnum »

rayiner wrote: post #248
aeturnum wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that all makes sense in a narrow way but I think you are sidestepping the actual challenge of education. As the root comment pointed out - we already know that you improve outcomes by excluding low performers. Schools that can be selective take advantage of that. If you are in a position to attend one of those restrictive schools it may improve your outcomes! However, the question of "how to do a good job edu…

> As the root comment pointed out - we already know that you improve outcomes by excluding low performers. That’s not quite the point. By excluding low performers, you can improve the outcomes of the other kids , beyond what would be possible by mixing everyone together. So you can achieve a net societal improvement that way.

> By excluding low performers, you can improve the outcomes of the other kids

Isn't this is what the root comment is saying? I did not summarize the entire thing but that was my understanding of its point.

> you can achieve a net societal improvement that way.

You can improve the outcomes of the non-low-performers, but it's hard to say it's a "net societal improvement" because the low performers are also part of society.

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

#279

Post by philwelch »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #270
shiroiuma wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Public schools are supposed to already be doing it. Either in the form of escalating detentions/suspensions followed by expulsion, or by moving the most problematic kids into emotional/behavioral disability classrooms/schools, or in the worst cases sending the children to hospitals and group homes. The problem is that public schools can't do those things, for various political and social reasons. So the charter scho…

Of course it's a political problem. There are people who have been scheming how to dismantle public education. The short term goal is to funnel tax payer money to private schooling. The longer term goal is to make sure the lower classes simply don't ever get an education. So, yeah, it is a political problem.

This is a conspiracy theory made up and spread by teachers unions for their own vested interests.
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