Comment by vel0city

In the other 127 schools, what percentage of students were proficient in math? How about other schools given the same test? It's hard to draw conclusions without context as to what an average or above average school scores in these tests.

Not saying they are useless but standardized tests only work for kids who take them seriously.

I recall taking these as a kid, and there were kids who would just fill in the bubbles. They would not even read the questions. They thought it was funny.

I'm not an expert in this area at all. But I was under the impression that for some of these schools, that is the case. My understanding is that some (many?/most?) Muslims believe that the Quran was a direct revelation from Allah in Arabic, and so translations are somewhat suspect, risking incorrect interpretations from humans.

Do they at least give a translation of the verses?

> You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them?

Spending a second of logic on it and thinking critically, there won't. Why would a school empowered to be choosy and subject to profit motivations choose the pricier students to specialize that reduce their rankings?

And why do you think a flood of schools arguing germ theory is a lie be a public good?

I went to religious private school and too had teachers who taught some bullshit things. Dinosaurs were fakes buried in the soil by the devil to test believers. Evolution is a lie by the government. And yet by personal experience I'm more learned than the average public school peer I know. I'm a somewhat special person though; I know many in my class that still believe without question. It's not a good thing for society overall to have such "knowledge".

As for why kids wouldn't be able to leave the public schools, some schools will be required to provide transportation. Others won't. Some will be able to be choosy, some won't. You see where this goes? Those schools which are choosey and don't provide transportation will end up selecting the most well off while those unable to be choosy and/or forced to provide transportation will be forced to shoulder those who aren't good performers who don't get into the choosy schools with a transit scholarship.

You are ignoring the externalities. We end up with an ignorant society that ultimately harms all of us. I hate to use a movie trope here, but we're barely a step above Idiocracy when it comes to the ability of the average American to function and make decisions. This ultimately becomes self destructive.

I went to a young earth creationist Christian school and it messed me up. Most of us had a hard time adjusting to life outside the Evangelical Christian bubble. It's really hard to connect to others when your identity is tied up in believing a lot of outlandish things and it's hard to love yourself because you're given a long list of crazy rules to follow. I was told that kissing someone before I was married would taint my soul and whoever I married would be disgusted by me if I did so. Most people I've kept in touch with regret going to that school and every queer person I know has been absolutely traumatized by the experience. I'm happy, and by your criteria, a good member of society but that was despite my school. It took a lot of therapy, personal growth, and finding a community of people who actually care about me to be happy.

The thing is - the average school is terrible. NAEP scores show less than 25% reach "basic" proficiency in math, and reading is even worse.

I can't find any comparable stats on just religious schools, but I strongly suspect they are, on average, performing substantially better than non-religious schools. The reasons for that are more to do with the students than the schools, but the exact reason is inconsequential - the point is that people are targeting them because of the religious aspect and not the quality of education.

The typical claim of evolution is illogical. Even if a religious school solely and exclusively taught creationism while not even paying lip service to the controversy (which few to none do), it's not at all like a child's education would be permanently crippled. As the most important things learned in basic education are not facts, but skills - reading, writing, and arithmetic in particular.

For one, you mean local government.

Two, then you wouldn’t be opposed to eliminating the dept of education then, right? I hope Trump follows through on his promise you seem to agree with.

This isn't pure statistics though. This dataset is massively biased. And out performed on what, that 2+2=4 or that 2+2=Who know what except that God gives us our provision despite what our eyes see and logic tells us

That’s a meaningless statistic. What matters is how each group respectively would do in the other format versus what they do in their present format.