A Tale of Two Students | Hacker News Reader

A Tale of Two Students

online.wsj.com

53 pointsrobg15 comments

This article seems to be implying that Laura is somehow less of a success than Ivan, but is that true?

Laura has, without support, involved herself in organizing volunteer activities, successfully sought out a scholarship and leveraged her connections to do it, showing great initiative.

She also seems to be committed to working to support herself as needed, and she still made an effort with school.

Is there any reason to think that she'll be less of a success in life than Ivan? Is college really the only end game for success?

In fact; is she not already more of a success.

This is a WSJ "Saturday Essay."

It is descriptive, a case study (of two cases).

There is no way of assessing what significantly differing factors (besides their high schools) were unmentioned/unknown yet influencial for these two teens.

It establishes no causation.

Only value of article is to demonstrate some of the strategies/opportunities that a charter school _may be_ at liberty to exploit. Oh, how severely education suffers from lack of capable research.

The vast majority of social research doesn't establish causation either. It's an extremely difficult task for large, complex, disorganized systems (e.g. social systems, economies).

>Santa Fe South, whose teachers are on a one-year renewable contract, can remove incompetent instructors more easily than Capitol Hill, where teachers are unionized.

It seems to me that this is probably the most important distinction (though not the only one, of course). There were some unbelievably bad teachers in the town I grew up in, and my town was ranked #14 in NJ in 2006 (I left that school system in 2002, but from my younger siblings I know it can't have improved much). Teacher quality makes or breaks an education.

Great article, but it completely misunderstands the point of charter schools. Charter schools are suppose to be a testing ground for new methods in public school administration. If a charter school is successful, it's methods are suppose to be implemented on a wider range of public schools.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the tone of the article but it seemed to be suggesting that charter schools in themselves were a viable replacement for normal public schools.

And why not?

Maybe I just wasn't being clear, I'll try and elaborate. Both public schools and charter schools are publicly funded. Usually the difference in the two is that charter schools get less funding per pupil in exchange for not having to adhere to the same administrative and academic standards.

My only point was that the article seemed to be suggesting that charter schools are good and public schools are bad (which doesn't make any sense since they are both public schools) and that in a perfect world charter schools would replace public schools (which doesn't make any sense because then, by definition, they wouldn't be charter schools.)

Remember, charter schools are given more freedoms so that they can experiment and see what practices work. The original idea was that the successful experiments would be used in normal public schools. There are lots of truly superb charter schools and some pretty bad charter schools.

I'm all for charter schools and I'm all for implementing successful practices in public schools. However, in my experience the people who want to "replace public schools with charter schools" either don't understand what charter schools are, or just want to cut the budgets of public schools.

There are plenty of people who advocate more funding for charter schools, and I am one of them. But in the public school reform movement there is almost no one who advocates expansion of charter schools instead of wider implementation of the successful practices of charter schools.

Thanks.

Perhaps those people use different definitions of "charter schools", because they do not know about the legal definition?

I for one, would like to see schools in general given more autonomy to experiment and responsibility. Of course pupils should be free to choose their school then, too.

One of the biggest obstacles is that most parents assume college is out of reach

The school is fighting an uphill battle to change an ingrained "mentality among lower socio-economic [students] who believe they cannot make it

Whether it's education, economics, politics, work, and yes, even start-up culture, this is a recurring theme that can't be ingored:

The first step in achieving anything is believing that you can.

Nice story. Thank you, robg.

I agree with you. With college admissions, a good second step for students is to understand that they actually can afford to go. From a financial standpoint, those in poverty simply don't have to pay to go to the top private colleges in the US, and they can often get enough need-based aid at the public institutions to make attendance possible, too.

"The school is fighting an uphill battle to change an ingrained 'mentality among lower socio-economic [students] who believe they cannot make it,' he says."

There is indeed a set of barriers faced by high-ability, low-income students that is not faced by low-ability, high-income students.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_...

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-affacti...

http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveragi...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012

http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240

http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap....

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123910.html

It's very commendable for school principals to encourage students from poor families to keep pushing at those barriers. Meanwhile, principals of high schools in higher-income areas don't need to do the same kind of encouraging for academic preparation, because families in those areas know that their children can get into college even if they are very poorly academically prepared for college.

I find the following interesting:

Charter School:

Able to kick out students at will for things like possession of drugs, or violence. So you immediately know, no shit or you are out.

1-year renewable contract with teachers, so only good ones stay.

Ability to keep school student size relatively small.

Sounds like a real business. Maximize your efficiency. Get the best workers, ensure they are the best, and ensure the best results given your merchandise. Ok not quite 1:1 but close.

Now how to do this on a national level to ensure the best everywhere!!??! I guess the moral of this story that I got is that once the students were properly motivated the flourished, until then nothing good was happening. It is not just teaching, but sparking a curiosity of why they should want to learn.

People who want to be Politicians disgust me.

Good politicians don't want to be Politicians, they want to be because they know that they're the best one for the job, making things better for themselves and for others.

The problem is that this guy is in the majority, the high majority of people who become Politicians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus

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