A couple of weeks ago, Airick West posted on the Kansas City Post about his decision to send his kid to KCMO public schools. Many criticized his decision as KCMO has statistically one of the worst school districts in the state.
Interestingly, the Freakanomics Blog also did a story on school choice and the overall affect that the actual school district has on a child's performance. The blog posting was based on a paper that studied school choice in Chicago.
Overall, based on their studies (and earlier studies by the folks at Freakanomics) they have determined that factors other than the school are involved in a child's success in learning. In fact, as Freakanomics puts it:
"Part of the answer is likely that the definition of “better” is based on outputs, like how high the test scores are at the school or what fraction of its students attend good colleges. That sort of metric ignores the fact that “better” schools tend to attract “better” kids. These are kids with strong families and good academic backgrounds. So even if the school is not at all good at adding value, it will still have the best outputs, because it had the best inputs. If the school does not have high value added, there is no reason to expect that a child who transfers there will do better than she did at her previous school."
In other words, kids with more aptitude, and parents who invest in their children's education, improve more in school. The unfortunate reality is that the "best schools" tend to draw more of these types of students....while poor schools tend to attract more kids who's parents don't invest in them.
This has certainly mirrored what I have witnessed in working with many inner-city kids in KCMO...the ones who's parents treat school as important do quite well. Unfortunately, many come from families that don't put an emphasis on school. So, more than anything, research shows that as KCMO has built a reputation of bad schools, many of KCMO school district's problems are a product of bad inputs (because good parents tend to try to get their kids out of the 'bad school'.
If more people would do what Mr. West is doing by caring about his child AND sending them to KCMO public schools, then the schools would instantly start performing better...which would have a building affect.
It just takes a few people to step up and make a stand...because the school is more of a product of its inputs and what people make of it. And really smart people who do real research agree with me.
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