SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Putting the foxes in charge of the henhouses

Have you ever noticed school boards’ tendency to shut down their most successful schools? I tell the story of two such schools in my book, How to get the right education for your child. I’m guessing that the reason behind this tendency may be that the exceptional schools make the rest look bad.

In this vein, I offer a story from Georgia, where the school board is trying to shut down its award-winning Fulton Science Academy Middle School. The details are complicated - they always are - but the bottom line is that the Fulton County District is trying very hard to find reasons to close Fulton Science Academy, as opposed to finding reasons to keep it open and, for that matter, creating more schools like it. 

The bottom line is - there are not enough incentives for the Fulton County District to keep its good schools open and too many incentives for it to close its good schools. This doesn’t make any sense. 

Unfortunately, the same sort of upside-down incentive structure exists in Ontario. It doesn’t make any sense here either.