"Why can't we try a system that is obviously working with a 97% graduation rate in our schools."

grrrrr… my last word.

DoDEA schools are not any different. There is no system. The results are entirely a result of the students and their parents.

I agree with you John. Public schools are a different animal than Charters, Catholic, and Military schools. Not that lessons can't be learned, but I also think that many charter/catholic/other schools could learn lessons from the best of the public schools.

Its one thing to look to DoD, or Catholic Schools or charters or whatever to seek answers. Its another thing to use those apples to oranges comparisons to attack public schools.

John, sorry if I missed the thrust of your first comment… though I am not sure about the school culture bit, since the school culture in DoD schools is more a reflection of the culture of the parents than something that the school consciously or actively tried to develop.

I actually love DoD schools because of their diversity, safety, and the usually great parent/school relations that they develop, I am just not naive enough to think that it's the schools that deserve the credit, at least not nearly as much as the selective parent population.

In DoD schools you rarely see things like the "black table" at lunch.

Robert Balfanz's recent study of middle school in Philly adds more evidence to support the trust of this thread. When students enter high school with 7th and 8th grade skills, many of the rofrm efforts of recent years have shown results. When, as in so many neighborhood high schools and my high school, students enter with 5th and 6th grade skills, we don't know how to turnaround those schools.

Only the top graduates from my high school could meet the entrance qualifications of the military.

I am in the Air Force and my kids were raised in DoD schools overseas.

First of all the schools have no relation to the military at all except that they serve us.

They are exactly like every other school in America, maybe even a little bit more relaxed. The teachers are probably a bit better than average, but not spectacularly.

To prove it, just look at the test scores for the three local schools that serve Elmendorf AFB here in Alaska. They are Anchorage school districts with Anchorage school district curriculum's, rules, and teachers, yet the African American and Hispanic students do much better than their civilian counterparts. (the schools are located on base and only serve the on-base population)

http://www.asdk12.org/depts/as.....Aurora.pdf

http://www.asdk12.org/depts/as.....tSpurr.pdf

http://www.asdk12.org/depts/as...../Orion.pdf

All you are going to learn from DoD schools is that excluding the kids of poor minorities improves performance… then again you just have to got to any suburban town in America to learn that.

If you really want to see success try a school district like Gehring School District in Nebraska.

While I strongly agree with the emphasis on behavior, we have to admit that the military has a lot of advantages that neighborhood schools don't have in dealing with parents and not having to deal with the worst critical masses of kids acting out their pain.

But I wouldn't go overboard on the standardization of curricula. Standardization within the diversity of schools tends to degenerate into skin-deep test prep, which does no good when you more from one school to another.

But if you can read for comprehension (and if you can control your behavior and make responsible choices) you can always bring those abilities with you throughout school and life.

MacInnes also compares the military to Catholic schools. That's another reminder of the importance of school cultures. That should be our goal, creating a learning culture where all kids can read for comprehension and meet behavioral standards. Accomplish that and secondary issues like curricula and standardization (not to mention accountability) will find their own levels within our diverse system