Schools, especially in the suburbs, are far too large. But taxes and championships are largely adult interests, not student interests. Sizer and others have long argued for schools of a size such that every student is needed. Too often in school ability is defined as intelligence that is abstract, conceptual, verbal. But a third or more of people have aptitudes that are spatial, tactile, visual.
College is expensive.
This cuts off still more low-income youth from formal education. It is heresy today to question the idea of education as the route to advancement. Yet the whole idea of an adolescence removed from adult responsibility and real life may have become a wrong-idea. A idea is not right simply because it is widely-held. Ted Kolderie is contributing editor of the Minnesota Journal, former executive director of the Citizens League and co-founder of Charter Friends National Network, in his capacity as senior fellow of the Network's sponsor, the Center for Policy Studies.