Quote:
Originally Posted by mja
Also, there is no Penn Alexander model, per se. Teachers are drawn from the same pool as any other district school, curriculum is the same as any other district school. Penn pays to keep class size low and does fund a liaison / coordinator type position, but that's it really. It's not the model that's successful (well, smaller class size definitely helps), it's the Ivy League name that entices well-educated upper middle class families to send their kids there in large numbers that really drives the school's success. In other words, it's marketing.
|
I agree it is marketing to an extent and the self-perpetuating, stabilizing nature of having wealthy families, but you are understating how important the Penn subsidy is. I know a teacher at another, decent Philly elementary and her friend at Penn Alexander so here is my take. At other schools, teachers can be tremendously disadvantaged by the big class sizes relative to Penn Alexander. If you have 30 3rd graders rather than 20 in your class, it is like giving another worker in another industry a 50% workload increase (maybe the analogy isn't perfect but I'm guessing not that far off). Plus Penn Alexander teachers have better supplies and facilities. Teachers in other schools struggle for the basic things (ACs, white boards) unlike Penn Alexander.