Having seen just how much damage a single disruptive student can do, I think there must be alternatives for those that need them — if only to stop disrupting everyone else.
Good luck convincing the families of the 5%! I'm not arguing this approach wouldn't improve outcomes - just that it's not considered an acceptable solution to "the problem of education." So it doesn't seem like a good faith contribution to the conversation the article is addressing because I believe it's already been rejected as an option.
Of course it's an option: this is why charter schools, private schools and home schools are increasingly popular!
Government education is the only meaningful way in which the majority of people are prohibited from meaningful choices for their kids because the government says "but what about the bottom 5%" -- so folks _opt out_ of government education entirely.
This is why "progressive" (i.e. leftist) politicians and activists are trying to make opting out as difficult as possible -- even though "marginalized minorities" disproportionately support opting out.
But despite the "progressive" (i.e. leftist) politicians and activists, the alternatives are increasingly popular. It's slow, but there is improvement on the alternatives.
That’s not quite the point. By excluding low performers, you can improve the outcomes of the other kids, beyond what would be possible by mixing everyone together. So you can achieve a net societal improvement that way.
So unless these charter schools have a side business selling Soylent Green made from disruptive pupils and those with learning disabilities, they're not actually improving overall results.
Isn't this is what the root comment is saying? I did not summarize the entire thing but that was my understanding of its point.
> you can achieve a net societal improvement that way.
You can improve the outcomes of the non-low-performers, but it's hard to say it's a "net societal improvement" because the low performers are also part of society.
That depends on the improvement vs loss -- IME, it is a net improvement.
With 100 students, 5 are disruptive, verbally abusive, maybe physically violent. How much does that 5% bring down the other 95%? If we remove that 5% from the other 95%, how much does the 5% lose versus the 95% gain?
IME, the gains in the 95% are miles ahead of the losses in the 5%, which makes it's net improvement.
As the root comment pointed out - we already know that you improve outcomes by excluding low performers. Schools that can be selective take advantage of that. If you are in a position to attend one of those restrictive schools it may improve your outcomes!
However, the question of "how to do a good job educating kids" on a national level must include everyone in the measure. It might be worth having schools for troubled kids! But you have to look across the results of the troubled kids and the more normate ones. I think the root comment's point is that...this seems to have copied the techniques that charter schools use to improve their educational outcomes...but that arguably those schools are not "solving" the same problem as public schools and comparing them does not reveal any insights.