Reply to Are public schools everywhere in the US getting bad post-pandemic?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m going to get flamed for this, but we need to stop allocating a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and resources to the 5% of students who 1) are constantly disruptive to the learning environment, often due to past trauma or a severe lack of emotional regulation and/or 2) are so far behind that they will never, ever catch up in a general education setting. Time and bandwidth are not infinite resources; I’m going to focus on the 95% who I actually may be able to help.

I think we need intensive, remedial schools for kids who are far behind, and structured, therapeutic schools for violent, chronically disruptive, or sociopathic students. Pretending that college is for everyone is just ridiculous.

I’m 100% a progressive Democrat and supporter of public schools, but also an experienced educator and pragmatist. [/quote]

I agree with you but this is very counter to the last 15 or so years of education policy so it's an uphill battle. And it's unlikely to get better anytime soon because we have made schools the battle line for correcting racial inequality. And they can't do it. But we don't want to admit this because it raises the question of what *can* do it. No one wants to have that conversation.

So instead we persist with the lie that every child is capable of getting a college degree. Kids don't even want this -- if you actually talk to kids, many of them will tell you they resent the pressure to attend college and be academic. There are kids of all races who would prefer the "educational inequality" of 50 years ago that would enable someone to get a perfectly good job with a high school degree (or less), over the present situation where even being a grocery store manager requires a bachelors degree.

An education system that truly met the needs of all kids and provided them with what they need to be successful in the careers or lives to which they are best suited would be highly inequitable. Including along racial lines because socioeconomics in this country break down along racial lines.

We want education to fix that for us and it hasn't so instead we pretend that all kids are inherently capable and that doesn't work but we are very, very committed to that fiction.[/quote]

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