<story><title>Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/us/schools-pandemic-defense-department.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seanmcdirmid</author><text>&amp;gt; Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn&amp;#x27;t some loophole, it&amp;#x27;s the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will be the best. It is a direct application of selection bias. Public schools will be left with whatever students are not accepted into charter schools...those &amp;quot;problematic students&amp;quot;, and will...again...due to selection bias have worse results.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not like they&amp;#x27;re only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they&amp;#x27;re doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district than the public school system&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s great for your district, but parent pointed out ending school at noon on Wednesday are going to apply selection bias. Perhaps your district does it better.</text></item><item><author>HDThoreaun</author><text>Education is mostly about your peers. It&amp;#x27;s obviously true for prestigious universities but it&amp;#x27;s just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn&amp;#x27;t some loophole, it&amp;#x27;s the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It&amp;#x27;s not like they&amp;#x27;re only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they&amp;#x27;re doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district than the public school system, which forces all the poor students into the same schools with literal murderers attending. Allowing poor students from families that value education to go to schools with like minded students is an unequivocally good thing compared to what the public schools currently do.</text></item><item><author>Spinnaker_</author><text>I think this can be misleading in the same way some charter school results are. The easiest way to improve a school&amp;#x27;s results isn&amp;#x27;t to improve the education provided, it&amp;#x27;s to get rid of the worst performing kids.&lt;p&gt;Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is stay at home and can pick the kid up.&lt;p&gt;The same type of thing is in play in military schools. There will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the kids will be well fed and groomed and socialized. Is the education better, or have they just selected better performing kids? The article touches on this. But I don&amp;#x27;t think takes it nearly seriously enough.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ecshafer</author><text>&amp;gt; If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the negative effects of having problematic students is enough that its a worthwhile endeavor? By Middle school or high school &amp;quot;problematic students&amp;quot; involves people that not only are noisy and disruptive in class, but people that deal drugs, rob people, steal, join gangs, bring weapons to school. Just calling them problematic is really underselling the situation. And the effects of a student that routinely swears at a teacher and causes fights disrupts a large number of students preventing them from learning things.</text></comment>
<story><title>Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/us/schools-pandemic-defense-department.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seanmcdirmid</author><text>&amp;gt; Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn&amp;#x27;t some loophole, it&amp;#x27;s the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will be the best. It is a direct application of selection bias. Public schools will be left with whatever students are not accepted into charter schools...those &amp;quot;problematic students&amp;quot;, and will...again...due to selection bias have worse results.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not like they&amp;#x27;re only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they&amp;#x27;re doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district than the public school system&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s great for your district, but parent pointed out ending school at noon on Wednesday are going to apply selection bias. Perhaps your district does it better.</text></item><item><author>HDThoreaun</author><text>Education is mostly about your peers. It&amp;#x27;s obviously true for prestigious universities but it&amp;#x27;s just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn&amp;#x27;t some loophole, it&amp;#x27;s the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain.&lt;p&gt;My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It&amp;#x27;s not like they&amp;#x27;re only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they&amp;#x27;re doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district than the public school system, which forces all the poor students into the same schools with literal murderers attending. Allowing poor students from families that value education to go to schools with like minded students is an unequivocally good thing compared to what the public schools currently do.</text></item><item><author>Spinnaker_</author><text>I think this can be misleading in the same way some charter school results are. The easiest way to improve a school&amp;#x27;s results isn&amp;#x27;t to improve the education provided, it&amp;#x27;s to get rid of the worst performing kids.&lt;p&gt;Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is stay at home and can pick the kid up.&lt;p&gt;The same type of thing is in play in military schools. There will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the kids will be well fed and groomed and socialized. Is the education better, or have they just selected better performing kids? The article touches on this. But I don&amp;#x27;t think takes it nearly seriously enough.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wnoise</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s partially selection bias, yes.&lt;p&gt;But that&amp;#x27;s not the entire story.  It&amp;#x27;s also the fact that not having to deal with the terrible kids helps the remaining kids.  Fewer class disruptions.  Less slowing down the class to pretend to let the slowest and least motivated keep up.  Etc.&lt;p&gt;This comes at the cost of concentrating the troublemakers in other places, making them far worse for normal kids stuck there.</text></comment>