Education "reform"
I just read yet another editorial in the LA Times about the need for education reform. And yet again they, like so many other opinion writers out there, are extolling the virtues of charter schools, magnet schools, private schools, etc, etc. Now I'm not against any of these concepts, and I'm sure some of those schools are doing exciting, innovative things in educational practice. However, what so many people consistently fail to notice is the common factor which ties them together and which, it seems to me, explains above all why these schools tend to do better than others. All of these schools have student populations which are self-selected for achievement. The majority of their students (or the students' parents) had to go through some sort of effort to get in, which means that either the students are highly motivated to succeed at school or come from families which support that goal -- a factor which is overwhelmingly predictive of educational success.
I know I'm not the first person to notice this, but I'm just tired of seeing people ignore the fact that all of the charter/magnet/private schools could be using exactly the same methods as the regular public schools and they'd still get better results. Meanwhile the regular public schools become the dumping grounds for all of the unmotivated students who not only don't want to learn but (as
colleenky has pointed out to me in the past) often create an environment which prevents other people from learning.
What it comes down to is that 90% of the education "reform" going on today involves simply segregating the good students from the bad ones. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Call me elitist, but I grew up in the age of "tracking" and am thankful for it. I was always in honors classes, and the few times I was in courses which weren't tracked I can honestly say I learned next to nothing. I don't blame the teachers for this -- they had to teach toward the class median, if not the lower end. Now it seems that our educational system is doing the same thing but on the level of whole schools. It isn't real reform, just using a well-known method while refusing to acknowledge it, thus encouraging people to blame the public schools for their low test results, whereas no one would blame a remedial class teacher if his students got scores lower than those in the college-prep class across the hall.
I guess I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with the whole "no child left behind" concept, which is based on the blatantly fallacious belief that every student can be average or better. And obviously this wouldn't piss me off quite so much if I weren't dating one of those teachers who's expected to perform the impossible. Sigh, end rant.
I know I'm not the first person to notice this, but I'm just tired of seeing people ignore the fact that all of the charter/magnet/private schools could be using exactly the same methods as the regular public schools and they'd still get better results. Meanwhile the regular public schools become the dumping grounds for all of the unmotivated students who not only don't want to learn but (as
colleenky has pointed out to me in the past) often create an environment which prevents other people from learning.
What it comes down to is that 90% of the education "reform" going on today involves simply segregating the good students from the bad ones. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Call me elitist, but I grew up in the age of "tracking" and am thankful for it. I was always in honors classes, and the few times I was in courses which weren't tracked I can honestly say I learned next to nothing. I don't blame the teachers for this -- they had to teach toward the class median, if not the lower end. Now it seems that our educational system is doing the same thing but on the level of whole schools. It isn't real reform, just using a well-known method while refusing to acknowledge it, thus encouraging people to blame the public schools for their low test results, whereas no one would blame a remedial class teacher if his students got scores lower than those in the college-prep class across the hall.
I guess I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with the whole "no child left behind" concept, which is based on the blatantly fallacious belief that every student can be average or better. And obviously this wouldn't piss me off quite so much if I weren't dating one of those teachers who's expected to perform the impossible. Sigh, end rant.