Re: [Phys-L] Private schools

[ron mcdermott <rmcder@gmail.com>]

Imo, we have to start by understanding that the problem, fundamentally,
isn't with public schools or the way kids are being taught there.  Private
schools succeed, by and large, because their population consists of the
kind of kids who will succeed in ANY instructional program and does not
include the disinterested, the hostile, the troublemakers, and, for the
most part, the kids that are just plain hard to educate for one reason or
another.

Public schools, even those that appear to be 'poor', continue to produce
kids who somehow managed to learn.  It isn't by accident that Jewish, and
now Asian, kids seem to do better in public schools than other kids.  It
isn't accidental that kids with better home backgrounds were all I saw in
my chemistry and physics classes.

As I mentioned early on, my home district would appear to be 'poor' by most
standards (high dropout rate, high at-risk population, high ESL population,
high SE designations, low graduation rate, etc), and yet produces lots of
kids who go to every prestigious college one could name.  Our program
offerrings are second to none.  The opportunities provided are second to
none.  So is our district 'succeeding' or 'failing'?  Why can't we do
better?

Well... There are at least ten gangs in the city, a number of which have
connection to major gangs nationwide (bloods, crips, latin kings, la eme).
Our city is 60 miles from NYC, and part of a drug distribution network.
You climb on a bus and hand-deliver the stuff.  Poverty levels are way up
there.  We often head the state cities in per-capita homicides.  Lots of
single-parent 'homes', teenaged mothers and no fathers, a high latin
population which seems to expect the girls to leave school as soon as they
can and get married, girls whose sole focus is to get pregant so they can
prove they are women or to secure their own housing apart from their
mothers, and on and on.  Schools simply can't overcome those obstacles no
matter WHAT they do.  It's an economic, societal, and/or cultural problem,
not an educatinoal one.

You and I have mentioned lotteries before.  Somehow you seem to think that
the lottery that my district has used for 40 years isn't the same as what
you're suggesting, so let me spell it out...  You choose three elementary
schools (1-3 in preference) from the (last I heard) twelve that exist.
Your name gets put into the hat for your first choice.  If you get it,
fine; if not we move on to your second choice.  Very few parents have to go
to a third choice.  Adjustments are made to equalize the demographics of
the schools, and preference is given to siblings so parents' schedules are
not seriously impacted.  Two middle schools, 2 choices; pick one.  I think
that's as fair as you can make it.
How can we get urban schools to succeed?  Legally?  I'm not sure you
can.  Ignoring the built-in problems, the only way to get real improvement
is to only educate the kids who want to be educated and forget about the
others.  I'm not sure, however, that constitutes 'success'.  My opinion,
and I admit it is only that, is that if you pick any private school staff
and program, drop it into an inner-city, and require it to take on ALL kids
and obey all the rules that public schools are forced to obey, it, too,
will 'fail'.  Only by somehow LEGALLY controlling the demographics of the
student population (and/or cultural, personal, and societal values) can you
'succeed' in a truly urban environment.
On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 7:50 AM, LaMontagne, Bob <RLAMONT@providence.edu>wrote:

> OK - Many of us have found
>
> 1) Urban public schools are not working - in some cities they are
> catastrophes.
>
> 2) Charter schools will drain the resources of our public schools
>
> 3) Vouchers will drain the resources of our public schools
>
> 4) Lotteries are manipulated
>
> 5) Whatever..............
>
> Therefore the question becomes:   If you were to start from scratch (after
> the coming Armageddon) how would you construct a system of "public"
> education?
>
> Bob at PC
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