Agreed. A same same but different thing happens in NYC: we've got 8 oversubscribed specialized high schools. Every year we're horrified by the severely lopsided racial demographics of the entering class and then proceed to wring our collective hands about standardized tests and gifted & talented programs and privilege and segregated schools and systemic racism & etc. & etc. An obvious answer is always staring us in our face, as you point out here: Just. Open. Another. Specialized. High. School. It's not as if there's some immutable law of physics that will open wide a black hole in the middle of the Central Park if we try to open another specialized high school.
However. There's also a matter of talent, right? There just are not enough talented teachers and administrators to teach our talented kids. I see this in Title I schools around the city that lack enough AP classes for their bright kids. Selective schools notwithstanding, you could walk into ~any~ school, no matter the neighborhood, no matter their graduation rate, no matter how "good" or poor it is and find that 20-25% of their students are bright, honors-grade kids you could spin gold from. I'm not even talking about exceptionally bright kids that College Board and hyper-selective colleges ~used~ to obsess about plucking from the "ghettos"-- no, I mean just your run-of-the-mill, hardworking bright kid who despite their circumstances could eke out a few respectable but trajectory-changing 3s or 4s on a few AP exams.
Yet they never get the opportunity to take an AP history or math course. I cannot be the only educator who despairs at this wasted resource.
So, yes, open up more schools for bright, hardworking kids. But we also need to make sure we have enough bright, hardworking staff.
This gets to a philosophical point about the point of schools and education. In the UK we know that grammar schools (selective exam secondary schools) don't improve outcomes for anyone. They select the best kids and that's why they get great results. Parents love them due to the peer group. If it doesn't benefit children, why pander to their parents? Where parental demand dovetails with good practice, like teaching phonics, great. But parents often want things that we shouldn't give them (like mobile phones in the classroom, or no sanctions, or no consequences for poor behaviour).
Perhaps this is the difference between the US and the UK - more individualist attitude to education!
By what mechanism would one be able to make the school another Thomas Jefferson? Obviously one can replicate the magnet eligibility but that doesn’t necessarily mean new school is as good. Also not entirely sure signal that successful magnets are oversubscribed means that magnets are overall good for the school system (one could see negative externalities if best teachers/students are no longer at their districted school)
The suburban CA school district I attended was long served by one high school, when they finally opened another one that is really only a few miles away they went to an open enrollment model and allowed the two schools to have different programming and schedules (the new one uses an accelerated four class-a-day block schedule). It seems to be serving the community pretty well as they have different options.
Agreed. A same same but different thing happens in NYC: we've got 8 oversubscribed specialized high schools. Every year we're horrified by the severely lopsided racial demographics of the entering class and then proceed to wring our collective hands about standardized tests and gifted & talented programs and privilege and segregated schools and systemic racism & etc. & etc. An obvious answer is always staring us in our face, as you point out here: Just. Open. Another. Specialized. High. School. It's not as if there's some immutable law of physics that will open wide a black hole in the middle of the Central Park if we try to open another specialized high school.
However. There's also a matter of talent, right? There just are not enough talented teachers and administrators to teach our talented kids. I see this in Title I schools around the city that lack enough AP classes for their bright kids. Selective schools notwithstanding, you could walk into ~any~ school, no matter the neighborhood, no matter their graduation rate, no matter how "good" or poor it is and find that 20-25% of their students are bright, honors-grade kids you could spin gold from. I'm not even talking about exceptionally bright kids that College Board and hyper-selective colleges ~used~ to obsess about plucking from the "ghettos"-- no, I mean just your run-of-the-mill, hardworking bright kid who despite their circumstances could eke out a few respectable but trajectory-changing 3s or 4s on a few AP exams.
Yet they never get the opportunity to take an AP history or math course. I cannot be the only educator who despairs at this wasted resource.
So, yes, open up more schools for bright, hardworking kids. But we also need to make sure we have enough bright, hardworking staff.
We have a similar magnet school in Denver Public Schools, also usually rejects most students. Your point has so much common sense.
This gets to a philosophical point about the point of schools and education. In the UK we know that grammar schools (selective exam secondary schools) don't improve outcomes for anyone. They select the best kids and that's why they get great results. Parents love them due to the peer group. If it doesn't benefit children, why pander to their parents? Where parental demand dovetails with good practice, like teaching phonics, great. But parents often want things that we shouldn't give them (like mobile phones in the classroom, or no sanctions, or no consequences for poor behaviour).
Perhaps this is the difference between the US and the UK - more individualist attitude to education!
By what mechanism would one be able to make the school another Thomas Jefferson? Obviously one can replicate the magnet eligibility but that doesn’t necessarily mean new school is as good. Also not entirely sure signal that successful magnets are oversubscribed means that magnets are overall good for the school system (one could see negative externalities if best teachers/students are no longer at their districted school)
The suburban CA school district I attended was long served by one high school, when they finally opened another one that is really only a few miles away they went to an open enrollment model and allowed the two schools to have different programming and schedules (the new one uses an accelerated four class-a-day block schedule). It seems to be serving the community pretty well as they have different options.