Here in central Louisiana, a state historically in the bottom 3 in education, they’ve now opened an “ag only high school”, obstensably to teach trade school and “farming” skills. When I was in high school ag classes were offered where they basically taught welding. At least that’s all I ever heard anyone talk about, oh and maybe some husbandry, but not with actual livestock.
The gist of it though, is now all of those kids who were in the non-college ag or business track can now take just ag classes, and it’s in a completely separate campus about 7 miles from my old high school. They don’t commute from another high school and I can’t imagine they have much more than a basic English and Math curriculum, if that. And a not insignificant portion of them will upon graduation go work for their families.
There’s also a “magnet” school (pardon the excessive quotes, it’s Louisiana and nothing is ever as it seems) in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids… which might be good, except I suspect this is being facilitated by Louisianas take on the Republican school-voucher programs. Which if you didn’t know is a way to drain funding from “under performing”, i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.
So that can’t be helping any national reading or math scores.
There’s also a “magnet” school […] in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids.
It has been shown that there are benefits to the smart kids to separate them into a different curriculum. Grade skipping has problems as it pushes kids into social situations they meet not be equipped to handle. By creating different tracks, you can have some students take more rigours courses which actually challenge them and so kids can learn the soft skills they wouldn’t learn with an easier curriculum. I’ve seen some high schools where you can basically graduate with a year’s worth of college credits.
Which if you didn’t know is a way to drain funding from “under performing”, i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.
And I would agree that is part of the problem as expressed in the article. Most states are preserving or increasing the teaching quality for high performing students while absolutely collapsing funding for under performing students.
But like I said with the excessive quotes, I’m not sure it’s a real magnet school given how the parish has dealt with all of their other schools and the excessive Republican influence in the state.
And it just gets worse. Pardon me while I rant.
Here in central Louisiana, a state historically in the bottom 3 in education, they’ve now opened an “ag only high school”, obstensably to teach trade school and “farming” skills. When I was in high school ag classes were offered where they basically taught welding. At least that’s all I ever heard anyone talk about, oh and maybe some husbandry, but not with actual livestock.
The gist of it though, is now all of those kids who were in the non-college ag or business track can now take just ag classes, and it’s in a completely separate campus about 7 miles from my old high school. They don’t commute from another high school and I can’t imagine they have much more than a basic English and Math curriculum, if that. And a not insignificant portion of them will upon graduation go work for their families.
There’s also a “magnet” school (pardon the excessive quotes, it’s Louisiana and nothing is ever as it seems) in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids… which might be good, except I suspect this is being facilitated by Louisianas take on the Republican school-voucher programs. Which if you didn’t know is a way to drain funding from “under performing”, i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.
So that can’t be helping any national reading or math scores.
Can’t edit my original response for some reason, but I just recalled that “magnet” school is a private charter school.
It has been shown that there are benefits to the smart kids to separate them into a different curriculum. Grade skipping has problems as it pushes kids into social situations they meet not be equipped to handle. By creating different tracks, you can have some students take more rigours courses which actually challenge them and so kids can learn the soft skills they wouldn’t learn with an easier curriculum. I’ve seen some high schools where you can basically graduate with a year’s worth of college credits.
And I would agree that is part of the problem as expressed in the article. Most states are preserving or increasing the teaching quality for high performing students while absolutely collapsing funding for under performing students.
Can’t edit my original response for some reason, but I just recalled that “magnet” school is a private charter school.
Oh for a typical magnet school, yes, I know.
But like I said with the excessive quotes, I’m not sure it’s a real magnet school given how the parish has dealt with all of their other schools and the excessive Republican influence in the state.
It depends on how many Republican donors send their kids to public school.
Here in Louisiana, that would be as close to zero as they can make it.