Focus on Middle Schools

NYC's schools are not the easiest to administer, and with the multiplicity of ethnic and language backgrounds, not the easiest to achieve uniform performance.

So, some time ago in an effort to reduce drop out rates, Mayor Bloomberg promoted the establishment of smaller high schools.  My cousin's daughter attended one of these and did fine and the overall program has had success.  So now the Mayor wants to do this with Middle Schools. This is a great idea because if you lose a kid in middle school, it is almost impossible to get them back in high school.  You also need good elementary schools if a kid is to perform well in middle school.  And you need parents who care.  The last one is probably the most important one in forming a good base for a kid's effort.  (Thank you RSL for teaching me that over the last 29 years.)

Last week the Economist focused on what type of school organization produces the best results around the world.  Beyond parental involvement, and teacher preparedness, one key takeaway was availability of schools in proximation to youth. Smaller, multiple schools.  and they pointed out that a such a structure stills supports the employment of teachers, it is just that they have to held accountable for their success or failure.

There is no greater problem in these times than our mass of undereducated young workers, who are only qualified to do construction and we don't have much need for more of that.  So, I applaud Mayor Bloomberg for this focus and want to say that I think school vouchers with family choice of schools is a good idea.  It will take a while for that to have improvement and the states will have to come up with a way of making sure the schools actually are doing there job or else we will have a bunch of Rick Perry's out there who think evolution is a theory and the million year old skeleton of Lucy an oddity that has no relevance to understanding science.