Robert Chung wrote:
> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>
> > If I sound like a big fan of charter schools, it's because I am.
> > If their only purpose is to self-select for parents who actively
> > want their kids to get a better-than-average education, that
> > might be enough.
>
> Not if those schools did a poorer job.
> http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP111.pdf
Thanks for putting that up. Our youngest son is going to be part of
the ongoing math study when he starts at the Performing Arts Charter
school his sister is at. They use a two track approach to teaching
math. One traditional, and one built around applied math and problem
solving. This seems to work well for them, but they are putting out
very few hard science/math types. They put about 90% of their kids in
college and I'd guess that 80% of those are in BA programs not BS
courses. Needless to say that the Verbal/language scores are a lot
higher than the math, but that's because that's what these kids are
into and it's emphasised.
They also have a 2 hour longer school day so they can work in all the
Performance and Arts courses, along with having to work shows and
events outside typical school hours during the year also.
Gives a lot of kids who would do poorly in a normal HS environment a
place to really thrive. If they want to do the Arts stuff they have to
do the academics and it works. They make kids redo work until they
understand it. Not just pass a test but they have to demonstrate
understanding of the lesson to pass. This works because older students
are required to do monitored mentoring and tutoring etc, to graduate,
along with staff being incredibly committed to the kids. Seems to work
really well overall.
Bill C