Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department.

October 26, 2023 12:40 PM

Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department. (Sarah Mervosh, New York Times, Oct. 10, 2023; archive.org version)
posted by Gerald Bostock (33 comments total)

No doubt, a law will be passed in Texas preventing the bussing of children living off-base to such schools and Tommy Tuberville will filibuster their funding.
posted by y2karl at 12:48 PM on October 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

This was a really interesting read. I think the most surprising element was this:

At Faith Middle School, she cannot supplement curriculum and must work off an approved list.

Which, read alone, sounds really bad. Like, this is the kind of bullshit you expect from racist backwards school boards that don't trust their teachers not to accidentally say progressive things in the classroom.

But it's in the context of this:

At Faith Middle School, she cannot supplement curriculum and must work off an approved list. She receives detailed feedback from coaches and administrators who observe her class. Collaboration with other teachers is required and built into her weekly schedule.

The approach is meant to guard against what Dr. Dilmar, the school’s principal, calls “pockets of excellence” — a teacher who helps students soar in one classroom, while an instructor down the hall struggles.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:55 PM on October 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

I have a couple of friends who are products of the Defense Department's schools (overseas, in Korea and Italy).

They spoke of an excellent school system, with (in retrospect) an unusually LGBT school staff.

And they still had to do the goddamn pointless Presidential fitness tests that we did back in the states.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:05 PM on October 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

well that was a very interesting read. it is both inspiring of hope (yes, we can figure out educational programs that give all children a chance to thrive) and deeply frustrating (that we don't).

like, the irony that its the military, right?

we spent TRILLIONS trillions!!! of dollars overseas killing people and destroying their worlds, for nothing. we could be spending that money providing all US people with homes, food, medical care, and yes a seriously quality education for ALL kids!!! it seems so simple but I guess its a pipe dream. at least those children of the servicepeople are getting a good start on life.
posted by supermedusa at 1:07 PM on October 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

like, the irony that its the military, right?

That’s not irony, it’s just numbers. The US military is the only comprehensive subsidized education and full employment program that both parties support.
posted by mhoye at 1:20 PM on October 26, 2023 [60 favorites]

I attended two different DoD schools, eight different US public schools, and one Christian private school. The DoD schools were the best. The overseas base I lived on had a few thousand people, and the school I attended there was undoubtedly better than what you would have found in a similar sized town in the States.

As the article portrays, it wasn't because of anything extravagant. It was just a solid education. Though, one of my DoD teachers implemented some Montessori style education in her classroom. I'm fairly sure that's just because she had the freedom and desire to do that.
posted by betaray at 1:38 PM on October 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

I have not looked at TFA, though this seems to be one of those things that gets rediscovered every few decades.

One thing that the DoD schools have going for them, is that every student there has at least one parent whose shit is together enough that they can be a member of the US Armed Forces. This means that these schools do not have to deal with the kind of students who come from families that do not have their shit together so very well. It limits the usefulness of these schools as a point of comparison to the wider society.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 1:43 PM on October 26, 2023 [31 favorites]

Yes, that's covered in TFA.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:48 PM on October 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

The article goes into detail about the advantages that the military schools have, beginning "...there are key differences. For starters, families have access to housing and health care through the military, and at least one parent has a job."

But that has always been the case, and still over the past decade this system has improved substantially while others have stagnated or declined.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:50 PM on October 26, 2023 [20 favorites]

It's definitely a thing to see the difference between the Title I schools and non-Title I schools my wife has taught at. It's very clear how much systemic poverty and an inability for parents to be provide structure, care and a concern for their kids learning (often because they're scrambling to keep a roof and food) impacts a student population. Many of the kids she taught couldn't envision a life that wasn't hoping between two jobs or busting their ass working construction because that's all they saw day to day.

The non-Title I schools the parents are nearly obnoxious with their involvement, but the end result is a student body that's more focused on school for schooling's sake.

So the fact that DoD schools start with a student body with a level of housing and food security is a big damn advantage.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:09 PM on October 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

How interesting! I have always had a very good impression of the US school system after I went to an American school in Germany. It was excellent in every imaginable way, and very progressive for the time. Now I learn that it is not a universal American thing but a DoD thing?! Wow.

(One thing, though, and I think that is an American thing, I skipped several grade and became very lonely in that class filled with preteens while I was 8. I still got to see others my age at music and sports stuff, but there were hours of just feeling weird every day).
posted by mumimor at 2:12 PM on October 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

One of my experiences paints the socioeconomic picture rather starkly. I thought about including this little story, but now it seems just too relevant to skip.

In first grade I went to an off-base school in Biloxi, MS. For context my father was an airman, and my mother was a waitress. Even with both incomes we still qualified for WIC assistance. The other kids I knew were in similar circumstances.

At school if we didn't use a full sheet of paper for the assignment, we'd fold it in half and do the trick where you lick the paper and tear it into two pieces. This was all I knew. When I went overseas the following year, I somehow convinced my DoD classmates to also engage in this kind of frugality. One day, the teacher addressed the class, telling us that it was OK to turn in the whole sheet of paper; we had plenty.

It wasn't until much later that I realized that the teacher in Mississippi was doing that because there were probably kids whose parents couldn't or wouldn't buy them basic school supplies.
posted by betaray at 2:23 PM on October 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

So the fact that DoD schools start with a student body with a level of housing and food security is a big damn advantage.

Housing yes, food security no. Approximately 25% of military personnel experience food insecurity - that's almost double the general population.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 2:29 PM on October 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

One thing that the DoD schools have going for them, is that every student there has at least one parent whose shit is together enough that they can be a member of the US Armed Forces.

One of the least interesting possible topics of conversation about education. This is some neoliberal (at best) trash about how parents need to somehow arrange their poop into a group. There are capital 'R' Reasons why people struggle. If you want to talk about that, great. Otherwise, let's not engage in some utter horseshit about how individual parents are ruining education because they aren't trying hard enough. The most boring fucking topic I can think of. This is structural, and no individual-minded, bad-apple seeking rationalization can erase the real issues facing our schools, our kids, our families.

DoD pays top dollar for schools that are integrated, and they work collaboratively instead of siloing students into race and class divisions, and siloing educators with no resources and even less pay into their own classrooms.

Do parents have an impact of their child's education? Of course. Can we lay the failures of our system at their feet? No fucking way.
posted by kaelynski at 2:34 PM on October 26, 2023 [13 favorites]

One of the least interesting possible topics of conversation about education

It’s an unnecessarily derogatory language choice, but instead of getting hung up on that it seems more productive to me to reframe it in terms of the real systemic issues it touches on, which are one of the most important topics in education. A lot of variation in student success is outside the control of schools. A lot of variation in “school performance” is manufactured by implicit or explicit selection of students - i.e. exclusion of those who are disadvantaged and more likely to struggle. Forgetting that tends to serve the interests of those who would attempt to lay the blame for the failures of the system at the feet of teachers.
posted by atoxyl at 3:11 PM on October 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

I mean, if it was good enough for Jack Reacher...
posted by box at 3:20 PM on October 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

I know the article addresses that and I expect most people here understand it. I’m just trying to say that there are pretty key systemic confounding variables one ought to have in mind any time schools are compared so I don’t think it’s bad for those kind of points to come up even if they could be presented more charitably.
posted by atoxyl at 3:20 PM on October 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

As I was reminiscing, one other element that came to mind that wasn't in the article: parent accountability. Teachers could call their parent's boss or their boss's boss, and that boss could order the parent to handle classroom issues. It never happened to me directly, but I do remember my father talking about it happening to someone that he knew. So, the threat of that happening was something that the enlisted folks were thinking about.
posted by betaray at 3:24 PM on October 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

In a Metafilter discussion of an article about education in the US it's probably helpful to distinguish between two very different meanings of the acronym TFA. (meaning one and meaning two)
posted by feckless at 5:09 PM on October 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

That’s not irony, it’s just numbers. The US military is the only comprehensive subsidized education and full employment program that both parties support.

The US military is probably the greatest socialist organization ever created. The productive output is unfortunate though.
posted by srboisvert at 6:10 PM on October 26, 2023 [19 favorites]

I mean, look at those classroom photos. We don't know if the Times was selectively given access, but if those are representative, I don't think there's any state that has classrooms consistently that well-stocked, well-maintained, and cheerful.

And as the article mentions, the teachers make a good living, which means they're less stressed about money, feeling more appreciated, not tired from working side jobs, and more likely to stay and make it a career. And decent pay and career teachers are something the military has in common with the top ranked states in the chart in the article, like New Jersey and Massachusetts.
posted by smelendez at 7:17 PM on October 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

My main takeaways from TFA are that the kids are middle-class-equivalent (stable housing and healthcare etc) and that the teachers are paid well.

The whole concept of "good schools" is a red herring. Again and again, the data show that kids who do well are those who have stable and supportive home settings. "Good schools" largely correlate with these settings rather than produce any causative effect.

It's not to say that good teachers, resources for disabled students, small ratios, and compassion for Black boys don't have an effect. They absolutely do.

But the "good school" rat race that ambitious fuck-you-got-mine parents engage in is utterly useless for themselves and ultimately harmful for society, and this mindset also plays out politically in favoring private and charter schools out of some sense that public schools serving disadvantaged populations are to blame for these populations being disadvantaged.
posted by splitpeasoup at 7:52 PM on October 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see anything about DoD-run schools having to deal with students who move constantly. The first time I spent the whole year in the same school was eighth grade. I honestly don’t know how much of a burden this is on the system, but it’s certainly a difference.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 8:46 PM on October 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

The article didn't dwell on moving much, since moving around a lot is what military families do.

Military families move frequently and, at times, face economic instability.

So the system is built around that, at least starting from that Common Core-like reform mentioned:

Global coordination, so a fifth grader at Fort Moore learns similar material as a fifth grader in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

posted by squelch at 9:16 PM on October 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

The whole concept of "good schools" is a red herring. Again and again, the data show that kids who do well are those who have stable and supportive home settings. "Good schools" largely correlate with these settings rather than produce any causative effect.

Yes and no. For students coming from advantaged backgrounds, with supportive and engaged parents, the school environment doesn’t make as much of a difference. And yes, students from disadvantaged backgrounds face certain challenges no matter what. But the school environment can make a huge difference for such students. Some research indicates that it is in fact not the student’s individual family background that makes a difference so much as the predominant socioeconomic status among all students in a school population, which sets general expectations for achievement among all students. Given sufficient resourcing, a school with students predominantly from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds could achieve similar effects. But given the local property tax funding structure for schools in the US, the funding issue is a major factor that may not be fully accounted for in all studies that tie student outcomes to family socioeconomic status.

In my personal experience of having attended eight schools in six different school districts (not counting the two months of home school the one year I also attended three different schools), there can be a giant difference in the type of education provided in different schools. School in the more working class communities I lived in was more focused on memorization, testing, and behavior - skills one would need to be good cog who wouldn’t cause friction by questioning stuff too much. Schools I attended in the upper middle class communities I lived in were more focused on creativity, self-actualization, understanding (in addition to a reasonable amount of memorization - just that the memorization was seen as being in service to the understanding, not the end in itself), and becoming good democratic citizens or future leaders. As a kid from a working class family, that I had the opportunity to attend several of the latter sort of schools has had a huge impact on my educational and career trajectory.
posted by eviemath at 8:11 AM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

The point of my description of my personal experience is that societal classism is also an issue impacting expectations and even type of education available to students from different socioeconomic backgrounds in the US - and given the fairly sharp socioeconomic segregation within the US, is also hard to separate out from other factors influencing student educational outcomes.
posted by eviemath at 8:15 AM on October 27, 2023

@kaelynski:

> This is some neoliberal (at best) trash about how parents need to somehow arrange their poop into a group.

Absolutely not fucking guilty. Consider trying to be more conscious of your own reactivity.

True, I did not read TFA before commenting. Also true: the headline observation is a perennial one, with a periodicity of how long it takes the modal legacy media editor to forget that it's common knowledge. Also true too: a huge reason for the success of DoD schools relative to the wider American society is in fact the fact that DoD schools exclude the most challenging students.

The point is absolutely not "It's on those families to get their shit together" (though to be Scrupulously Fair I can see how that choice of phrase might have set you off), it is "stop holding up DoD schools as a model that could possibly produce similar results with the broader population of students."

This is a perennial trick of the legacy media also, to find some exemplary educational system in a niche someplace, and hold it up as a model of how education can work, while ignoring that the niche the system sits in ensures that it does not have to deal with students from households that are dangling precariously at the bottom of the food chain.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:05 AM on October 27, 2023

the kids are middle-class-equivalent

Not the kids of the lower-ranks enlisted, no. But I think it's fair to say that their families don't drop below a level of economic stability which many families in poorer U.S. communities can't reach.
posted by praemunire at 9:40 AM on October 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't know Aardvark, the schools are way better funded, the classes are racially and economically integrated and the teachers are paid well and more invested in their roles because of it. I think that if we properly funded all public schools, paid teachers appropriately, even the schools with the "most challenging students" included. their challenges would be met with resources and staffing and special programs instead of just warehousing them.
posted by supermedusa at 10:20 AM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

a huge reason for the success of DoD schools relative to the wider American society is in fact the fact that DoD schools exclude the most challenging students

Citation needed. Not being snarky: I’ve seen some of the research on what impacts student educational outcomes, and it’s a lot messier than this. “A reason” sure (though even so, I’m not sure about the degree to which the claim that DoD school exclude the most challenging students is true? Evidence would be helpful there as well), but “a huge reason” is unlikely to be true based on the research I’m aware of.
posted by eviemath at 10:35 AM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

What praenumire suggested above. Most military families have way more economic stability than many. Which, prevents more bad outcomes than children living in less stable economic households. And then, there are still federal laws that are adhered to, regardless of the agendas that red state governments want to impose.

It gives me some hope that our military seems to be on the good team for a change.
posted by Windopaene at 10:58 AM on October 27, 2023

But teasing out the actual effects requires quantifying that, and quantifying how it compares to the socioeconomic make-up of the non-DoD schools within the US to which the DoD schools are being compared. For example, if you compare state-wide results, counting DoD schools as effectively an additional state, you’ll be averaging out a lot of socioeconomic variation within each state.
posted by eviemath at 11:23 AM on October 27, 2023

But the "good school" rat race that ambitious fuck-you-got-mine parents engage in is utterly useless for themselves and ultimately harmful for society,

I obviously don't think about it as "fuck-you-got-mine," but I'm definitely one of the parents you are describing: We live in a district where there's a huge economic disparity, and the default is to go to schools where there are a huge portion of poor kids and a correspondingly low level of academic achievement. We send our kids to a school where there are way fewer poor kids (though still more than in many rich school districts), and the academic achievement is correspondingly high. You're welcome to criticize parents like me, but do it accurately: "useless for themselves" is totally false. It's completely useful for us to send our kids to their school. If you want to call us evil, ok, but we're not stupid.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:16 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]