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April 27, 2010
Snodfart Education Experts Create One of California's Worst Schools
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at April 27, 2010 3:12 AM
The elite educrats of Stanford University created a charter school in a disadvantaged area of Palo Alto, California. They used the school as a laboratory for all the trendy educational concepts designed by leading experts.
Stanford New Schools hires well-trained teachers who use state-of-the-art progressive teaching methods; Stanford's student teachers provide extra help. With an extra $3,000 per student raised privately, students enjoy small classes, mentoring, counseling and tutoring, technology access, field trips, summer enrichment, health van visits, community college classes on campus, and community service opportunities. The goal is to send graduates to college as critical thinkers, lifelong learners, and "global citizens."
How well did this Progressive Utopian School District do? About as well as all progressive utopia experiments. It was incredibly expensive, and it finished in the bottom 5% of California schools. (And when you consider California schools as a whole tend to rest at the bottom of all US states in achievement, that's kind of like… wow.)
But, of course, it's not the educrats fault the school failed. It's never the elites fault when their utopias fail. It's those stupid disadvantaged students who didn't appreciate everything the elites were doing to for them.
Ms. Darling-Hammond — who told the board that the school "takes all kids" and changes their "trajectory" — was angered by the state's categorization of the charter as a persistently worst-performing school. "It is not the most accurate measure of student achievement," she said, "particularly if you have new English language learners."
Never mind that other Charter Schools drawing from the same student pool — but which focused on academics and not on the whole personhood of the students — performed much better.
Hat Tip: Scott
