Response to Peter Morgan's 'How Challenging is Salem High’s Curriculum?'

As to the other schools selecting students and foisting the bad students on regular public schools, the facts in the better schools do not back up this claim.  The highest performing public Charter schools accept student by lottery.  In fact that is the case in the new Charter School in Salem.  The fact is most high performing schools seldom if ever expel students.   Peter’s prescription only applies to a handful of elite schools if at all.  Attrition rates in high performing schools are almost always pretty close to other schools in the same area. 

As far as class size and funding is concerned most high performing schools get less funding than do public schools.  Many have much higher class sizes.  Neither factor is related to student achievement except class size below fourth grade. 

As for the curriculum, studies such as Project Follow Through and Project STAR show enormous variation in outcomes for the same curriculum.  The differences are most often attributed to teacher quality. 

One great example of most of this is a small school in Canada that caters to students who fail in public schools, Calgary Academy.  The wildly successful Achievement First was originally modeled after Calgary Academy.

The fact is the most important factor by far is teacher quality.  And the quickest way to improve schools is to get rid of the bad teachers. 

Fee free to use this to reply to Peter's diatribe.