This seems to provide only ambiguous evidence for school choice. 1. If school quality depends on the other pupils, as much as on teaching, then school choice may not improve teaching much, but just lead all the good pupils to cluster in one school. 2. The low-calorie intellectual content suggests that schools are competing to satisfy pupils’ short-term preferences, more than their long-term needs.
1) If one bad apple spoils the bunch, removing the one bad apple has a multiplicative positive affect.
2) Diversity itself may be bad. Kids of very different cognitive ability can't be working on th same tasks effectively.
3) I would kill for school to satisfy more short term needs (just let the kids have more damn recess). I'm not convinced what they are doing in school in the name of long term needs actually helps the kids long term.
A specific school’s teaching may be bad, but the general principle that schools are there to give kids what they need, not what they want, seems like a basic one.
My kids NEED time to play outside and be physically active and learn social skills just have a joyful childhood.
School administrators WANT them to sit at desks doing rote learning for hours on end because its easier to control them and maybe there is some slight chance it raises their scores a bit on the state exam they (the administrators) are evaluated on (and if it doesn't, its the kids who pay the price anyway, not the administrator).
I don't think there is such a dichotomy between student needs and wants. Sure, don't feed them ice cream all day (though school lunches are barely better), but if we get beyond "don't cave into the kids most childish desires" there is less of a gap between wants and needs. My kids want to learn to read, etc. So long as it hasn't been force on them all day long.
P.S. This dichotomy was taken to the extreme during COVID, when in the name of giving kids what they "need", safety, they took away what they actually needed, "school, breathing the air freely."
That’s the approach taken by Montessori schools, but I don’t think it works for many important skills and values which young people need but are in no position to appreciate.
Please give me a voucher equiviliant to my schools k-12 spending so that I can exercise my beliefs about what would be best for my child.
I don’t find your explanation that you know better what my kids need compelling enough to deny me this. If you insist that your superior knowledge of what my kids “need” justifies denying me school choice, then I will no longer accept that it’s “fine if you believe that.” I suppose we will need to have a knock down drag out fight and only one of us can get the school run the way we want.
So, they have a choice of 3 or so schools? Still a far cry from, say, voucher schools.
Y'all might also be interested in school choice in Canada, hwhich I have some insight about. At least for Ontario and Québec.
One important thing to note, as it is totally relevant to this discussion: Canada doesn't constitutionally require separation of Church and State, unlike the USA. We have freedom of religion, but not an "establishment clause".
In Québec, in my early childhood, we didn't even have "public" schools, per se. You had the choice of Protestant or Catholic schools, both were government funded. Protestant schools were mostly English. I have never heard of a French protestant schools. However, only Anglophone parents could send their kids to English schools. In order to qualify as Anglophone, you needed to do most of your Elementary schooling in English. Anglophone parents could send their kids to French schools, if they want. (At the risk of not being able to send their own kids to English school, anymore.) So, essentially, Anglophone parents like mine had the choice of English Protestant, English Catholic or French Catholic public schools. I tried all three. I think I preferred English Catholic the best. Catholic schools included Catholic religious education, as part of the curriculum. But parents could "opt out" their kids and have them sent to "Moral" class instead. A minority of kids at St. Mark's did.
I guess French parents could really only send their kids to French Catholic schools. So, oddly enough, they had less school choice in Québec than English kids.
hWhen I was a lil older, Québec tried to get more secular and instead just separated school boards along linguistic lines: French and English. They still taught religion (by, generally, very liberal Catholics) but you could choose between Catholic, Protestant or Moral class. I went to French public secondary school and took Catholic religion class. Very few students at that school took protestant class. But there were a few! Later on, Québec changed its curriculum so that all students (regardless of their parents' religion) took an Ethics and Religious Culture class. This was after my time. But, as I understand it, it sounds like a mix of World Religions + Woke Ethics.
Québec also partially subsidized certain private schools. They had to conform in certain ways like following the standard provincial curriculum, but this allowed many "discount" private schools. Including many private Catholic schools. But, even these were generally Catholic In Name Only.
One private Catholic School, Loyola High School, tried to slightly modify the Ethics and Religious Culture curriculum, so that, although they would teach students about other religions, they would teach that Catholicism is the right religion and its doctrines were right. The Québec government didn't let them do so. Loyola sued. All the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And won.
There are also private private schools, which don't take government money and don't have to teach the government's curriculum. But, obviously, they're more expensive.
In Ontario, there are 4 school boards: English Public, English Catholic, French Catholic and French Public. Theoretically, Catholic schools can insist on students being baptized Catholic and French schools can insist on students or their parents being Francophone. But, as I understand it, these schools are rarely overcrowded so they tend to be more flexible. Indeed, in Ontario Catholic Schools, there are many Muslim students. hWhy would Muslim parents send their kids to Catholic schools? Cause they're better. Higher ranked than the public schools. That's hwhy. I don't actually know how hard it is for an Anglophone, Atheist or Muslim parent to get their kids into, say, a French Catholic school. (I heard it's a little less flexible at the Elementary level. But I really don't know.) I'm also not sure if non-Catholic parents who send their kids to a Catholic school can opt them out of Catholic religion class, in Ontario. But, I don't think they can.
We also have magnet schools: i.e. Certain schools, especially Secondary Schools, have special programs, like special Arts programs. If your kid qualifies for one of these special programs through a somewhat competitive admissions process, they can go to one of these schools, even if it's not the closest. But I believe y'all have that in the US, too. So, it's not that different.
Anyway, that's about it. It's still a far cry from voucher schools. But you still get SOME choice.
I have no issue with school choice among public schools, and the idea of zoning a home for multiple schools makes sense to me. I do have an objection to school vouchers that allow people to take taxpayer money to private schools.
Would this not apply to any urban area? Teaching in NYC has the same element of school competition and choice. Better ranked schools (whether in academics/sports/etc.) attract stronger pupils which yield better results. In NYC you can send a kid to any middle/high school in the city provided they apply and get into it. Maybe this is novel in suburbs/rural areas but this has been the case for the last century in most cities.
In the 7+ years I lived in Houston, I was under the impression that the many charter schools were open to any Houston residents, albeit many were lottery-based. I thought this was consistent with most of Texas as well.
Now that I have young school-aged kids, and thus many of my social circles also have similarly-aged children, I have noticed that most of them mostly look for "vibes", safety, bullying policies, woke/anti-woke, and extra-curricular features, versus test scores, graduation rates, etc... I think there's a general decline in academic interest in schools across parents of most developed countries, including myself.
When I look at schools, I consider "would I want to have these parents over for dinner?" test the most. I think this is the best and simplest criteria!
"we have almost 4k students and 500 are international." Might as well just say the name of the school I'm pretty sure this only applies to one school in New Zealand lol.
This seems to provide only ambiguous evidence for school choice. 1. If school quality depends on the other pupils, as much as on teaching, then school choice may not improve teaching much, but just lead all the good pupils to cluster in one school. 2. The low-calorie intellectual content suggests that schools are competing to satisfy pupils’ short-term preferences, more than their long-term needs.
1) If one bad apple spoils the bunch, removing the one bad apple has a multiplicative positive affect.
2) Diversity itself may be bad. Kids of very different cognitive ability can't be working on th same tasks effectively.
3) I would kill for school to satisfy more short term needs (just let the kids have more damn recess). I'm not convinced what they are doing in school in the name of long term needs actually helps the kids long term.
A specific school’s teaching may be bad, but the general principle that schools are there to give kids what they need, not what they want, seems like a basic one.
Let me phrase is differently.
My kids NEED time to play outside and be physically active and learn social skills just have a joyful childhood.
School administrators WANT them to sit at desks doing rote learning for hours on end because its easier to control them and maybe there is some slight chance it raises their scores a bit on the state exam they (the administrators) are evaluated on (and if it doesn't, its the kids who pay the price anyway, not the administrator).
I don't think there is such a dichotomy between student needs and wants. Sure, don't feed them ice cream all day (though school lunches are barely better), but if we get beyond "don't cave into the kids most childish desires" there is less of a gap between wants and needs. My kids want to learn to read, etc. So long as it hasn't been force on them all day long.
P.S. This dichotomy was taken to the extreme during COVID, when in the name of giving kids what they "need", safety, they took away what they actually needed, "school, breathing the air freely."
That’s the approach taken by Montessori schools, but I don’t think it works for many important skills and values which young people need but are in no position to appreciate.
That’s fine if you believe that.
Please give me a voucher equiviliant to my schools k-12 spending so that I can exercise my beliefs about what would be best for my child.
I don’t find your explanation that you know better what my kids need compelling enough to deny me this. If you insist that your superior knowledge of what my kids “need” justifies denying me school choice, then I will no longer accept that it’s “fine if you believe that.” I suppose we will need to have a knock down drag out fight and only one of us can get the school run the way we want.
So, they have a choice of 3 or so schools? Still a far cry from, say, voucher schools.
Y'all might also be interested in school choice in Canada, hwhich I have some insight about. At least for Ontario and Québec.
One important thing to note, as it is totally relevant to this discussion: Canada doesn't constitutionally require separation of Church and State, unlike the USA. We have freedom of religion, but not an "establishment clause".
In Québec, in my early childhood, we didn't even have "public" schools, per se. You had the choice of Protestant or Catholic schools, both were government funded. Protestant schools were mostly English. I have never heard of a French protestant schools. However, only Anglophone parents could send their kids to English schools. In order to qualify as Anglophone, you needed to do most of your Elementary schooling in English. Anglophone parents could send their kids to French schools, if they want. (At the risk of not being able to send their own kids to English school, anymore.) So, essentially, Anglophone parents like mine had the choice of English Protestant, English Catholic or French Catholic public schools. I tried all three. I think I preferred English Catholic the best. Catholic schools included Catholic religious education, as part of the curriculum. But parents could "opt out" their kids and have them sent to "Moral" class instead. A minority of kids at St. Mark's did.
I guess French parents could really only send their kids to French Catholic schools. So, oddly enough, they had less school choice in Québec than English kids.
hWhen I was a lil older, Québec tried to get more secular and instead just separated school boards along linguistic lines: French and English. They still taught religion (by, generally, very liberal Catholics) but you could choose between Catholic, Protestant or Moral class. I went to French public secondary school and took Catholic religion class. Very few students at that school took protestant class. But there were a few! Later on, Québec changed its curriculum so that all students (regardless of their parents' religion) took an Ethics and Religious Culture class. This was after my time. But, as I understand it, it sounds like a mix of World Religions + Woke Ethics.
Québec also partially subsidized certain private schools. They had to conform in certain ways like following the standard provincial curriculum, but this allowed many "discount" private schools. Including many private Catholic schools. But, even these were generally Catholic In Name Only.
One private Catholic School, Loyola High School, tried to slightly modify the Ethics and Religious Culture curriculum, so that, although they would teach students about other religions, they would teach that Catholicism is the right religion and its doctrines were right. The Québec government didn't let them do so. Loyola sued. All the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyola_High_School_v_Quebec_AG
There are also private private schools, which don't take government money and don't have to teach the government's curriculum. But, obviously, they're more expensive.
In Ontario, there are 4 school boards: English Public, English Catholic, French Catholic and French Public. Theoretically, Catholic schools can insist on students being baptized Catholic and French schools can insist on students or their parents being Francophone. But, as I understand it, these schools are rarely overcrowded so they tend to be more flexible. Indeed, in Ontario Catholic Schools, there are many Muslim students. hWhy would Muslim parents send their kids to Catholic schools? Cause they're better. Higher ranked than the public schools. That's hwhy. I don't actually know how hard it is for an Anglophone, Atheist or Muslim parent to get their kids into, say, a French Catholic school. (I heard it's a little less flexible at the Elementary level. But I really don't know.) I'm also not sure if non-Catholic parents who send their kids to a Catholic school can opt them out of Catholic religion class, in Ontario. But, I don't think they can.
We also have magnet schools: i.e. Certain schools, especially Secondary Schools, have special programs, like special Arts programs. If your kid qualifies for one of these special programs through a somewhat competitive admissions process, they can go to one of these schools, even if it's not the closest. But I believe y'all have that in the US, too. So, it's not that different.
Anyway, that's about it. It's still a far cry from voucher schools. But you still get SOME choice.
I have no issue with school choice among public schools, and the idea of zoning a home for multiple schools makes sense to me. I do have an objection to school vouchers that allow people to take taxpayer money to private schools.
Would this not apply to any urban area? Teaching in NYC has the same element of school competition and choice. Better ranked schools (whether in academics/sports/etc.) attract stronger pupils which yield better results. In NYC you can send a kid to any middle/high school in the city provided they apply and get into it. Maybe this is novel in suburbs/rural areas but this has been the case for the last century in most cities.
In the 7+ years I lived in Houston, I was under the impression that the many charter schools were open to any Houston residents, albeit many were lottery-based. I thought this was consistent with most of Texas as well.
Now that I have young school-aged kids, and thus many of my social circles also have similarly-aged children, I have noticed that most of them mostly look for "vibes", safety, bullying policies, woke/anti-woke, and extra-curricular features, versus test scores, graduation rates, etc... I think there's a general decline in academic interest in schools across parents of most developed countries, including myself.
When I look at schools, I consider "would I want to have these parents over for dinner?" test the most. I think this is the best and simplest criteria!
"we have almost 4k students and 500 are international." Might as well just say the name of the school I'm pretty sure this only applies to one school in New Zealand lol.