"Many private schools succeed because the don't have to deal with the same types of children as do public schools."
Or with the same types of parents. A private school can always tell parents to take their tuition dollars and go somewhere else, if the trouble they are causing exceeds the value of the tuition they are paying.
Agreed with the question of scaling. It is easy to poach all of the best teachers and put them into one school, and you should get good results. But is this a solution to raising the level of education nation wide, or even in one city?
> It is easy to poach all of the best teachers and put them into one school, and you should get good results. But is this a solution to raising the level of education nation wide, or even in one city?
It's so much better to let the trouble-kids make sure that no one gets an education....
We can't save them all. However, we can lose them all, and that's what we're doing by keeping good kids in bad situations.
If you really think that the presence of good kids helps the bad ones, shouldn't you be paying the good ones for that help? After all, being with the bad kids costs the good kids.
I don't think that these special schools are sorting.
However, their opponents do. They argue that letting kids out of crappy schools makes things worse for the kids who are left by denying them role models or somesuch. This is a curious argument because the kids left behind don't do worse when left behind.
I think that the opponents are wrong. (I'll even go so far as to say that almost all of the kids in the crappy schools would do better in these special schools but when you say that, the opponents figure out that you're accusing them of defending crappy schools.) However, my point is that if they're correct, they owe the "good kids" something for the sacrifice that they're asking them to make.
Or with the same types of parents. A private school can always tell parents to take their tuition dollars and go somewhere else, if the trouble they are causing exceeds the value of the tuition they are paying.
Agreed with the question of scaling. It is easy to poach all of the best teachers and put them into one school, and you should get good results. But is this a solution to raising the level of education nation wide, or even in one city?