One size doesn't fit all. That's why all kids should have an hour of reading, an hour of writing, and an hour of maths every day (which takes up like 70% of the learning time available).

[–] absGeekNZ 4 points 6 months ago (8 children)

I'm all for innovation in education, but surely there is plenty of international data to give just a little bit of information on the positives of charter schools.

I nice comparative analysis would go a long way, but no.

[–] Dave 3 points 6 months ago (7 children)

It's probably pretty difficult to measure the performance of charter schools vs public schools.

A charter school might specifically cater to underachieving kids, kids for whom the public system didn't work well. Then by selection the public schools will outperform the charter school.

Or alternatively, a charter school might outperform public school because the class sizes can be smaller and they don't have to stick to the government set rules for schools. If you set dumb rules (like three hours a day on the three Rs) then you can then point to the charter schools and say "look, they are doing better than the public schools so we should convert more schools to charter schools" when in reality it's just a sign the way you run public schools is wrong.

[–] BalpeenHammer 2 points 6 months ago

If the charter school can cherry pick which students it chooses and can expel difficult to teach students then I can't see how it could possibly do worse.

load more comments (6 replies)