Quote:
Originally Posted by SEC_Chick
Charter schools are very popular with Rs, and are generally vehemently opposed by Democrats and teacher's unions. Most every voucher program I can recall has been geared towards low-income communities with failing schools. Remind me who it was that wanted to withhold funding from the DC voucher program that significantly increased high school graduation rates?
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We have charter schools here in deep-blue Massachusetts. It just took some intelligent negotiation with the teachers union instead of political point-scoring to get them.
We have also experimented with schools run by universities (BU ran the city of Chelsea's schools for over a decade), and various programs that use private schools (this is particularly heavily used for kids with disabilities). None of these things are panaceas.
What almost none of these programs really address is that the single biggest determinant of educational success is class size (once you are under 18, above 18 it doesn't matter as much) and second is quality of teaching (and the teachers colleges for the most part really suck in this country).
We have good schools by national standards here, even in low income areas. Very good schools.
IMHO, they still suck.
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