Letter to the Editor (Aug. 3): School selection
Determining a better school
The idea that a judge is qualified to identify “which school is best” (Sunday’s Eagle) for a local girl is naive and suggests that someone might have that capability, also naive.
As I have counseled parents who have posed this question for decades, the criteria to be considered are many and extremely complicated. First, consider how an ideal student-teacher match is assured when the child’s unique learning style, strengths, interests, school experiences, parental support, personality, and more are complementary to the classroom teacher’s competencies, tenure, professional preparation, ready resources and more. This fit, the student’s and the teacher’s greater profiles, is the best predictor of every student’s claim of the “best school” experience each academic year.
Think about how the middle school student’s assessment of “best school” is determined, by the even more complex matching with six or seven classroom teachers. Arbitrarily identifying a “best school” for any student may actually change each school year, as the ideal student-teacher connections will most accurately determine the claim.
For an arbiter outside the circumstance to assume being qualified to make this decision just does not make sense. Obviously, schools claim other education-related advantages. The argument here stands as most important — each student-teacher “team” is the critical powerful predictor.
John Wilson, Wichita
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This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 4:50 AM with the headline "Letter to the Editor (Aug. 3): School selection."