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The author would have a much stronger point if they could point to some failure in these experiments. Historically all non-White children (and many, many poor c

The author would have a much stronger point if they could point to some failure in these experiments. Historically all non-White children (and many, many poor children regardless of race) were simply barred from great public schools. It took radical experiments like desegregation to open up those doors (admittedly, as a Black man, I’m on the fence about those policies because they led to a massive reduction of the Black teacher workforce). I applaud her taking a stance, but when your best evidence requires you to characterize 8 dropouts as academically-unprepared, despite having zero knowledge on those students situation, then it just comes off as fear. The author suggests as much in the very last sentence. Sadly, fear of what’s potentially lost has always and will continue to keep us from establishing any significant parity in our public education system.

zozbot234 5y ago
Desegregation was not an 'experiment', it was a simple legally-mandated fix for a broken situation. These days we have basically re-segregated our schools along income lines by forbidding school choice and enforcing the educational monopoly of the school district. And when people try to fix this by starting better-run charter and/or magnet schools, these efforts are basically sabotaged by the public education establishment as seen in this very article.
- drekk 5y ago
  Charter schools were used to get out of legally mandated de-segregation. If we want a better education system there's no shortcut. You need a well funded, equitable public education system. We're the outliers in the industrial world here. Look at school lunches as just a baseline comparison of what fuel we give our children and then imagine all of the lacking supplies we force teachers and parents to purchase. The issue is we determine funding for them based on zip code. Poor schools get less funding. Isn't that ass-backwards? All the elites get to enjoy wonderful districts or private options they can afford and the public gets stuck with textbooks from the 50s.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    U.S. are outliers in the industrial world for spending on K12 education, and negative outliers for outcomes. Putting even more money in the existing system cannot be the answer - institutional arrangements around public education must be reformed from the ground up, and charter/magnet schools are part of the solution.
- thelock85 5y ago
  Semantics. My point is that they tried something that had never been done before, but needed to be done because cultural and economic effects were subverting students' constitutionally-guaranteed rights to a basic education. And just because socioeconomics/class warfare undid the effects thereof, that doesn't mean these latest approaches should be deemed DOA. Instead they should be debated, hypothesized, and rigorously evaluated... something that is much harder than lobbing cherry-picked data and anecdotes at one another (not what I think we are doing in this exchange, but how I would characterize the intersection of ed reform, parental advocacy, and privilege). > And when people try to fix this by starting better-run charter and/or magnet schools, these efforts are basically sabotaged by the public education establishment as seen in this very article. Another opinion... though I respect it. I don't really think there is a difference based on my 12 years of working with and being in proximity to education reform efforts across the U.S. Nonetheless, we can trade sources all day proving[0] or disproving whether or not charters (I can't speak to magnets) are better run or more academically effective or being sabotaged by the establishment. Either way, any conclusion is as anecdotal as this very article, since both systems operate in a distributed manner, and are designed to produce data that protects their political self-interests rather than improving the quality of public education in their respective locales. [0] https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/charter-schools-research-and-report.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/charter-schools-rese...

zozbot234 5y ago

Desegregation was not an 'experiment', it was a simple legally-mandated fix for a broken situation. These days we have basically re-segregated our schools along income lines by forbidding school choice and enforcing the educational monopoly of the school district. And when people try to fix this by starting better-run charter and/or magnet schools, these efforts are basically sabotaged by the public education establishment as seen in this very article.

drekk 5y ago
Charter schools were used to get out of legally mandated de-segregation. If we want a better education system there's no shortcut. You need a well funded, equitable public education system. We're the outliers in the industrial world here. Look at school lunches as just a baseline comparison of what fuel we give our children and then imagine all of the lacking supplies we force teachers and parents to purchase. The issue is we determine funding for them based on zip code. Poor schools get less funding. Isn't that ass-backwards? All the elites get to enjoy wonderful districts or private options they can afford and the public gets stuck with textbooks from the 50s.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  U.S. are outliers in the industrial world for spending on K12 education, and negative outliers for outcomes. Putting even more money in the existing system cannot be the answer - institutional arrangements around public education must be reformed from the ground up, and charter/magnet schools are part of the solution.
thelock85 5y ago
Semantics. My point is that they tried something that had never been done before, but needed to be done because cultural and economic effects were subverting students' constitutionally-guaranteed rights to a basic education. And just because socioeconomics/class warfare undid the effects thereof, that doesn't mean these latest approaches should be deemed DOA. Instead they should be debated, hypothesized, and rigorously evaluated... something that is much harder than lobbing cherry-picked data and anecdotes at one another (not what I think we are doing in this exchange, but how I would characterize the intersection of ed reform, parental advocacy, and privilege). > And when people try to fix this by starting better-run charter and/or magnet schools, these efforts are basically sabotaged by the public education establishment as seen in this very article. Another opinion... though I respect it. I don't really think there is a difference based on my 12 years of working with and being in proximity to education reform efforts across the U.S. Nonetheless, we can trade sources all day proving[0] or disproving whether or not charters (I can't speak to magnets) are better run or more academically effective or being sabotaged by the establishment. Either way, any conclusion is as anecdotal as this very article, since both systems operate in a distributed manner, and are designed to produce data that protects their political self-interests rather than improving the quality of public education in their respective locales. [0] https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/charter-schools-research-and-report.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/charter-schools-rese...