Herman Rubin wrote:
time and resources. Even the "ordinary" students should get much more, but this would make the curriculum too difficult for a fair-sized portion of the students; this seems to be the case already. At least 20% of the students should enter college in their early teens with the equivalent of the current "honors" high school program.
As I have said elsewhere, enrichment is a total waste of
In short - schools that are prepared to admit to the existence of gifted children had better learn to recognize
then by more valid criteria than IQ tests. -Robert Dawson
The easiest way to get this started is to disestablish the
public schools, and to make alternatives affordable. Also,
requiring teachers to understand subject matter as determined
by subject matter scholars, not educatists, who would not be
required or expected to pass the majority of the current
teachers or applicants.
I am not sure why you believe the solution is dissolution of the public school system. Do you really think that non-public alternatives would really do better under the same conditions?
The fact is, our public schools struggle in part as a *result* of school choice--not school choice via vouchers, rather school choice as a result of parents with the financial resources sending their children to private schools or moving to those public school districts that are more successful (and more expensive). This is pervasive. This is the market system of education at work. The failure of public schools is partially a result of the disinvestment of parents with means in public education. Of course, everyone cannot move away from schools they do not like or send their children to private schools. This is not only because of lack of resources on the part of the family (though this is certainly important) but also lack of capacity on the part of the schools.
Part of the success of private schools and even public schools in wealthy schools districts is their exclusionary nature. One of the most consistent relationships in education is that between parents education and academic success of children. To the degree that parents are poor and undereducated in high proportions, schools will perform poorly. There is nothing intrinsic to private or charter schools that suggests they should have greater success than public schools. They serve a different population. Where public school alternatives do not serve a different population, e.g. where charter schools have operated alongside large public school districts and serve the same students, they have no greater success.
Further, will vouchers automagically solve the teacher standards problem that you point out? No, of course not. This is not an issue for the schools. Instead, this is a problem for the system of higher education that certifies teachers. School vouchers will not change what teachers know. Private, charter, and public schools districts that serve families with education and money will naturally attract better qualified teachers. However, vouchers will not change the unequal distribution of this scarce resource (qualified teachers) and some schools will continue to be exclusionary and attract these teachers. Some schools will succeed, some will fail and this success or failure can be predicted with considerable accuracy by the educational and economic characteristics of the families served by the school.
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