You could, you know, find “smarter” students from a neighboring school and import them.
The board did agree, over the objections of some parents, to move about 100 gifted and talented students from Glen Oaks Park to Merrydale Elementary this fall to try to increase that latter school’s test scores.
The proposal to move 100 gifted and talented students this fall from Glen Oaks Park Elementary, a C-rated school, to nearby Merrydale Elementary, an F-rated school, generated some heat Thursday.
In seriousness though, the solution bares some thought. Albert Shanker suggested that if you really want to improve performance in public schools, make sure you don’t have high concentrations of poverty in one school – sort of a desegregation based on economic means.
Put another way, if you see your peers performing at a certain (higher) level (or valuing education in a certain way), your more likely to rise to that level of performance and internalize those values..
