Reply To: Can we have an adult conversation about education?

What I meant was that the parents, in general do not want to hear that decisions are made by an administrator. They choose a school because of the torah philosophy that they follow (this excludes out-of-town, where there is one community school).I choose the school that I send my children to based on the fact that I respect the hanhala
ah of that school. If not, I shouldn’t send there. This includes in a chassidic community. My school was considering a major change in its program. When consulted, I told the hanhallah that it is their school, and they can do what they want. But understand that the type of boys that come will change. A school is a business. Its profits are successful students, and it markets education. The difficult part of running a school is finding the balance between what the parents want and your educational/torah philosophy.
In response to your second point, in theory standardized testing would be a good metric. However, as in most things, theory does not come out in practice. The regents are a good example. They should show how a child is doing, but if the scores are low, the state just changes the curve. All that standardized testing gives you is comparative information
; how your child is doing relative to the other students in the state. The issue is that I cannot figure out the inherent value of a secular education. The mark of a successful school should be based on where the students are 10 years later. If I am happy with the results, it was a success. I know parents that thought that their child was a failure because he became a doctor and not a lawyer. (this is a true story.) In the public school system there are specialty schools. A child has to be above average to get into those schools. There are always issues as to which students can get ahead by going to those schools. I don’t understand the issue, just mandate all schools to be on that level. Obviously not all parents want such a level, and not all students can maintain such levels. The point is, when choosing a school for your child, look at the results of the schools in question and use that as a starting point. Like a restaurant, if you don’t like the food, don’t go there. It is ridiculous to think that you should start demonstrations outside the store to force change.