Quote:
Originally posted by Munchkin03
Why can't the public schools in poor neighborhoods be fixed? Some cities have had a good experience in turning some inner-city schools into magnets.
Also, students at all public schools are not "suffering." If that was true, my high school's graduation rate from college would not be what it was. That might be true for some NYC schools. There are also some private schools that I would not send my child to at all.
Some people will choose to go to the school that's closer than their homes, or where their parents went--regardless of educational quality.
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We now have decades of hundreds (if not thousands) of dysfunctional school districts. As time has gone by, more money has been spent on these districts. The track record of turning these around is poor. Can these schools be turned around? In theory, yes. In reality, you probably have less than a 1% chance of being able to do this, and sustain the success for at least 5 years.
I don't count changing a dysfunctional school into a successful magnet school as part of the solution. This is just replacing everything, including the student body. What happens to the students that used to go to that magnet school? They're just shifted to someplace else.
The issue with successful public schools is somewhat specious because they reflect choice. These are schools where the parents have the means to choose where to live.
School choice is often, demagogically, painted as a way to transfer money to people who don't need it. It is an issue about empowering parents who have no choice. This is about parents and children who can't pick up and move to a quality public school when the need to do so is clear. Its about tearing down bueracracies and making the primary and secondary schools allocate their funds responsibly.
In NYC, public schools spend about $12,000 per child per year. Less than half of that makes its way to the classroom. This is a disgrace. The solution is not to spend more money. $12,000 is a lot. The solution is to replace a Soviet style command-and-control educational system with an American style market based system.
For the sake of those parents and children who are completely disempowered, I hope that this happens soon.