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Why is it assumed that to educate everyone to the best of their ability that the traditional public school system, where everyone is thrown together based on wh

Why is it assumed that to educate everyone to the best of their ability that the traditional public school system, where everyone is thrown together based on where they live, is the best to achieve that goal and anything else leads to marginalization? I used to work at educating blind children. Most of those I worked with also had other disabilities as well. The school I worked at was a boarding school and first rate. It concentrated experts into one place and offered continuity of instruction beyond anything a public district could provide. Student progress was, on the whole, amazing compared to their progress at a public school. This is an extreme example, granted, but why wouldn't a similar approach work with other kids who need extra help and attention? Why not have behavior specialists at one charter school working with disruptive kids and engineers teaching kids that are interested in STEM?

MacsHeadroom 12y ago
> Why is it assumed that to educate everyone to the best of their ability Nobody assumes that. That's not what public school is meant to do. Public school is meant to give the minimum level of education to the largest amount of students possible. "Best of their ability" is too costly- that's what private schools are for.
scott_s 12y ago
We already have that kind of a model in public schools. The difference between the two is money. Public schools have special education teachers, and sometimes have entire sub-schools within existing schools just for special education kids. (My mother was a special education teacher.) Since your school was a boarding school, I imagine it also cost significantly more per-child than we currently spend in public school. A lot of the gain from your experience, I think, was probably from having good instructors trained in how to teach students with those particular disabilities, and probably a good teacher-to-student ratio. If we were willing to pay public teachers more, public schools could attract the same experts, and if we were willing to employ more public teachers in total, we could achieve a similar ratio. We could then achieve the same thing in public schools as in the boarding school.
- clavalle 12y ago
  >We could then achieve the same thing in public schools as in the boarding school. No we couldn't. There are only so many experts to spread around.

MacsHeadroom 12y ago

> Why is it assumed that to educate everyone to the best of their ability Nobody assumes that. That's not what public school is meant to do. Public school is meant to give the minimum level of education to the largest amount of students possible. "Best of their ability" is too costly- that's what private schools are for.

scott_s 12y ago

We already have that kind of a model in public schools. The difference between the two is money. Public schools have special education teachers, and sometimes have entire sub-schools within existing schools just for special education kids. (My mother was a special education teacher.) Since your school was a boarding school, I imagine it also cost significantly more per-child than we currently spend in public school. A lot of the gain from your experience, I think, was probably from having good instructors trained in how to teach students with those particular disabilities, and probably a good teacher-to-student ratio. If we were willing to pay public teachers more, public schools could attract the same experts, and if we were willing to employ more public teachers in total, we could achieve a similar ratio. We could then achieve the same thing in public schools as in the boarding school.

clavalle 12y ago
>We could then achieve the same thing in public schools as in the boarding school. No we couldn't. There are only so many experts to spread around.