re: #220 researchok

Competency exams are extremely difficult to fairly administrate. I have no problem with simply subject-based ones, but they can get extremely difficult, extremely quickly if you go beyond the simplest test. And the ability to pass a test does not in any way judge the competence of someone to teach that subject.

It is difficult to remove bad teachers. It is also difficult to remove good teachers. That aspect never seems to get mentioned.

The bottom line is clear- if we were producing good students, parents would not be interested in vouchers ore having their kids attend private schools.

We produce a lot of very good students, in many excellent public school districts. There are many districts with huge, systemic problems. Given that, it should be rather obvious that public education in and of itself is not the problem.

The main issue with private schools is that they can be selective in who attends them. When you are measuring the relative success of private schools to public schools, you are measuring the success of institutions that can select membership against ones that can’t.

There are public schools that can select for population; magnet schools and the like. Unsurprisingly, these schools are far more effective than standard private schools. For example:

capitalprep.org