Posted on 11/24/2023 6:44:18 AM PST by MtnClimber
A university-affiliated Florida school district offers exceptional education in science, technology, engineering, and math while sidestepping political controversy.
Americans are questioning the purpose of education, the content of curricula, and the right way for schools to admit students. While social-justice advocates challenge the notion of meritocracy, arguing that such concepts as achievement and empiricism are unjust or racist, defenders of traditional merit counter that these notions, when applied effectively, constitute the fairest system of evaluation and form the basis of the public benefits flowing from educational institutions. These debates can get especially heated with respect to selective high schools, which focus on high-level science and mathematics and adhere to rigorous admissions standards.
One group of schools, the FAU Lab School District, in Boca Raton, Florida, has managed to deliver impressive results while evading controversy. The district features two innovative public schools operating on the campus of Florida Atlantic University: A. D. Henderson University School, the nation’s third-ranked elementary school, and FAU High School, which boasts locations in Boca Raton and Jupiter and partners with the Max Planck neuroscience research institute.
These schools show that two crucial goals are not incompatible: offering accelerated learning and increased opportunity for underserved kids, while also helping fill the country’s need for graduates in the STEM fields. In fact, FAU High School is the only early-college model in America that offers students the ability simultaneously to earn their high school diploma and a cost-free bachelor’s degree, graduating college without debt. Both schools are built on the premise of access and affordability, aiming to break the cycle of poverty through extraordinary outcomes. They remind us that admission and education are interdependent—and that what a school does with its students, once it has them, is just as important as how it admits them.
In 1968, A. D. Henderson University School opened its doors as a developmental research school in partnership with the education program at the then-relatively new Florida Atlantic University. Though publicly funded, the school was built with generous philanthropic support from Lucy Henderson, widow of a businessman and philanthropic and political leader in Broward County.
Today, these two public schools inhabit a special lab-school district established by the Florida education department. (Other public universities in the Sunshine State also have lab schools on campus, each in their own special districts and with their own unique approaches.) Teachers are unionized, but represented by the professors’ union, not those associated with public school districts. The schools receive advisory support from FAU and a board composed of businessmen, university staff, parents, teachers, and students. The state legislature sets the schools’ annual funding in accordance with the state’s per-pupil requirements. The schools have no geographic zoning for admissions, and do not supply transportation; parents and students are willing to travel far to get there.
The schools have managed to sidestep political debates by implementing commonsense steps. They have adopted a parental bill of rights that, among other things, grants parents the right to review state assessment results, know the nature and purpose of clubs and activities at the school, inspect instructional materials, exempt their children from immunization, and opt their children out of instruction involving sexuality.
The FAU schools employ two vastly different admissions programs. Entrance to kindergarten is carried out by a lottery of applicants, though the schools must admit students from a mix of genders, races, family income, and student ability, as determined by state law. Entrance to ninth grade, meantime, is highly competitive, designed to attract students who demonstrate “outstanding academic ability, a high degree of motivation and maturity, concern for others, and have the goal of acceleration to the university academic environment while in high school.” High school admissions decisions are based on a review of students’ middle school grades, courses, and standardized test scores; a special admissions test; and an interview. Graduation from the A. D. Henderson school does not qualify a student for admission to FAU High School; administrators report that about 20 percent of graduates from Henderson continue at FAU.
Despite this selectivity, the two schools boast vibrant and diverse student bodies. On average, over the last few years, 30 percent of the students at Henderson and FAU High School met the federal definition of “economically disadvantaged” (any student from a family with income below the poverty level). In the most recent year, 1,325 students were enrolled in grades K-12 at A. D. Henderson school.
The quality of education is high. The FAU lab schools outperform Florida state averages across the board. On the 2022 state exams in math, science, and English, the proficiency rates for economically disadvantaged students were more than twice that for similar students statewide. In social science, FAU lab schools’ students were 96 percent proficient, compared with 59 percent for similar students statewide. Non-economically disadvantaged students outperform their peers statewide by 30 or more points in math, science, and English. In social studies, the lab school’s non-economically disadvantaged students are 100 percent proficient, compared with 76 percent statewide. Ninety students at FAU High School have earned bachelor’s degrees from FAU in the same semester that they earned their high school diploma: per school officials, the average FAU High School student graduates high school with around 100 undergraduate credits toward their degree. Twenty percent of the students will decide to finish their degree elsewhere, while 80 percent stay at FAU and graduate with a free college degree....
Sounds like most of this is just common sense.
The so-called “public” school system needs to be dismantled from top to bottom. Permanently.
The left, AINOs and other assorted woke imbeciles cannot, and will not, let this continue, especially if publicly funded.
They’ll force their moronic BS on em via of the accreditation process. In order to maintain or become an accredited institution, they’ll insist on having a certain amount of social justice warrior classes to be completed.
They’ve used this method to force their BS on other publicly-funded STEM programs at universities across the nation.
The bassturds are just pure evil, and in a sane world, would be dealt with accordingly.
One of my kids went to a small, private engineering school. Academics was all they offered. No DEI garbage, no sports garbage, just school. He had classes in his major as a Freshman, not as a junior.
The school had diversity in students but they didn’t make a big deal about it.
They did school. That’s all.
Most students end up working at NSA or NASA. A professor recommended my son to NASA for his college job.
“common sense is usually a mutally exclusive term and in the end is neither” L.Star
Some very bright students have poor grades; but this is sometimes the result of their being extremely bored, and having “tuned out” of the stifling “Ding-Dong School” grinding atmosphere.
I would hope the admissions process for these accelerated schools make provision for this, and don’t rule out the occasional maverick or misfit kid with poor grades and a less than stellar “fit” to Standards; but with a Truly Brilliant Mind and the capacity for excellence — given a Real Challenge, and a clear field for effectiveness.
Many of history’s greatest thinkers were poor students by the convenional measures of the day. It would be a shame to lose them to credentialism.
The basic goal should be to allow ANY student to learn as much as he/she is capable of learning, at the time that is best for the student; and, if that results in some students or groups learning more than others, that’s not a problem. Everyone would benefit from this, and people nowadays are not prone to look down on slow learners. This is far from what we have now.
This is easy to fix. Just make the woke courses non-essential in pursuit of a degreed major, and lower the value of certain departments to an associate degree.
A few more thoughts:
1. There should be lots of alternatives, and no shame, for the slow learners.
2. Focus on motivation. Reject any approach that presumes that learning is something is poured into an unmotivated student’s head by the big spenders, rather that grabbed-onto by the motivated student.
The mistake is arguing with the barbarians at all. Just continue to educate based on merit and tell the SJWs to FO.
“They have adopted a parental bill of rights that, among other things, grants parents the right to review state assessment results, know the nature and purpose of clubs and activities at the school, inspect instructional materials, exempt their children from immunization, and opt their children out of instruction involving sexuality.”
Sounds like parents are very involved. You have to have parents who value education, also.
Sounds good.......but, I don’t know, all the pictures were of obviously privileged racist white kids....won’t fly for long under the Commies radar.
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