Re: [Phys-l] How Much Value is Added at Elite Institutions - Response to Haim #2

[Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net>]

On Jan 27, 2011, at 4:19 PM, William Robertson wrote:

> Just jumping in here. What, exactly, is wrong with kicking out  
> students who are unruly or will not do the work? ("Cannot" do the work  
> is a different matter--I would guess that most schools and teachers  
> are willing to work with those who are also willing to work but have  
> deficient backgrounds.)  Instead of calling this a dirty little secret  
> of charter and private schools, why not let public schools do the  
> same?

We must jump through hoops to do that... mostly, such "students"  (I use the word loosely) get suspended for a week then get readmitted on their word to do better, which usually lasts a week or so before they get into a fight with another student or hit a teacher or (gasp!) an administrator.  Even then, they are sent to a disciplinary school for a few months and are back in the neighborhood school to repeat the behavior ad infinitum.  If we are lucky, they move or drop out before the year is out.  

You see, charter schools only take the ones who had the parents and the proper attitude to get on the lottery list, and they know if they act up there, they will be back in the old neighborhood school so fast their heads would spin!  So, naturally, the charter schools can brag that few of their students ever leave.   But, the bigger the movement grows, the more kids they take in, the better the odds that this will change, too, and they will be no better off than the inner city schools they *replace*.  (Read the story I told in this forum about what happened last week in the subway station in Philly.)  

> Disruptive students aren't learning anything anyway, and they  
> are interfering with the learning of the rest of the students. Many of  
> us have seen videos of the chaotic atmosphere in some inner-city  
> schools. I'm sure the teachers in those classrooms would love to get  
> rid of the troublemakers and improve that atmosphere.

Try living the life for real !  I must admit that the first 20 of my 31 years were not that bad... it was always a blue collar school, but with few really bad kids.  The last 10 or so years were like being in a war zone.  Thank GOD I taught physics... as a previous post said, those kids had survived and knew what they needed to do to get out of the city.   It was the 9th grade science teachers who had it bad!  
> Bill
>
>
> On Jan 27, 2011, at 10:57 AM, Marty Weiss wrote:
>
> > The dirty little secret of charters and private schools is that they  
> > can, and do, kick out students who are unruly or cannot (or will  
> > not) do the work.
>
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