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Re: creationism wars



I have refrained from entering the creationism wars, because the folks involved spend most of their time talking past one another. However, I do follow education issues closely.

There are exceptions, of course, but one of the remarkable results of recent research by the Rand organization (and others) is that on average there is no significant difference between the performance (as measured by standardized tests) of students in regular public schools, those in charter schools, and those in private schools that accept voucher students.

Parents who send their kids to charter and private schools tend to be happy with their choice, and tend to support these schools better than regular public schools. However, the bottom line is that the charter and private schools that are not highly selective in their admissions policies don't perform much differently than the regular public schools.

Dr. Mark H. Shapiro
http://irascibleprofessor.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel S. Price [mailto:dprice@JEFFCO.K12.CO.US]
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 1:47 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: creationism wars


As for attacks on public schools,
there needs to be many MORE attacks on public education/educational
establishment for their contributions to the failure of public education
today (and yes I know there are public schools doing a great job many
places, but for every good one, there's probably 2 bad ones.

In Colorado, attacks on public education are by-and-large led by those who
assume that students private (particularly religious) institutions will
perform better than they did in public schools, simply because they are no
longer in public schools. In more concise terms, the belief is that private
education is inherently superior to public education.

If this is not what you believe, understand that the conservatives in
control of much of the Colorado government do believe this; the governor's
initiatives to replace "poor-performing" public schools with charter
schools, and his continuous push toward public funding of private (including
religious) education, are clear indicators.

Also of note is that private and religious schools are not subject to the
same evaluation criteria as public schools (teachers need have no
certification; students in non-public schools need not meet state
educational standards in their classes, nor are their schools' performance
measured by the test which is used to target "failing" public schools). As
such, they can claim to be better than, yet need provide no proof that they
are even as good as, public schools. I would submit, Mr. Mackey, that for
every private/religious school doing a great job, there are probably two bad
ones.