RB W wrote:
[1] I know that statistics show that class size per se isn't the be all and end all of better schools but for the parent that has a kid in need of a lower teacher to student ratio in their particular class at this particular time the statistical reality over the whole for thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of students is worth less than nothing. Take for example the parent in the DPS that has a kid in that class with 60 kids... In that case the parent sure as shootin' can do a better job than the system even though the "average" class size over the whole system may not be that bad...
Actually, I thought we had data that said exactly the reverse. The students who most need to get out of the system also manage to have the worst choices they could run to.
I believe that this was in the context of Missouri vouchers, IIRC. Even with vouchers, the private schools available to the poorest in the cities (within reasonable distance, within affordability, etc.) looked almost exactly like the schools they were leaving. You basically had to bus the student to the suburbs to get around it.
Of course, the only part that is surprising to me is that the private schools weren't at least a small amount better. With profit incentive, I would have expected the private schools in that case to be just enough better to attract students but not sufficiently to require significant monetary outlay.
-a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
