Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I not only believe, but I know from 39 years of personal experience in the public schools, that one school can be dramatically better than another, and that even the same school can undergo dramatic changes for better and for worse over the course of the years, as administrators and faculty change, and as the demographics of the student population change. I have taught and worked as an administrator in a number of different schools. There is such a thing as the culture of a school, just as there is a culture in any organization or workplace. This consists of the unwritten collective attitudes of the people who make it up, from top to bottom, including their morale. In the case of schools, this includes parents. This culture is difficult but not impossible to change and it is more important than any concrete "objective" factor, including test scores, although a positive culture will have a positive impact on test scores.
Again, my opinion here is not just arm-chair theorizing, but is based on my experiences in the trenches. If anything, I have under-stated the case; I know of schools within a few miles of each other in the same school district that are so different it seems like they are on different planets.
Brilliant answer..... As someone who moved a lot as a child, I experienced this first hand. Personal productivity (whether you are 5 or 55) is always going to be influenced by your surroundings which include physical aspects, but also soft qualities such as the culture. I think, too, that unfortunately some schools just have better economic resources. However--even within a district of similar resources, two schools can be run and led in dramatically different manners.
This issue for many is not always the test scores. Often it is who their kid will be sitting next to at lunch. I am not throwing stones here. I love the school where I teach. It is a school with remarkable teachers, under fantastic leadership. As a result, we have respectable test scores and "statistics". But I wouldn't send my kid there. I teach 8th graders and right now I have 3 pregnant girls in my classes, have had four drug busts in my room, broken up four fights, given three statements to the police, and have helped put out a fire in the bathroom. This is only in my little corner of the school.
So, while I think the testable education is of the highest quality, I am not so sure about social education being offered.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
