Students certainly benefit from interaction with slightly stronger students, regardless of absolute academic strength. The most able student in any class is unlikely to actually learn much, but let's stipulate that we don't care about her needs. I still don't agree that any student benefits from sharing a class with others who are far more advanced. It's not like they're somehow going to catch up (rare exceptions exist, but clearly the system isn't about rare exceptions). Not everyone should be groomed to go $10k in debt for 1.5 years of college, or worse, $50k in debt for a degree that will never pay for itself. We need alternatives to this path for those who are never going to write a convincing essay or calculate a derivative (here we shouldn't just criticize the education establishment; the business community should be creating better opportunities as well).
Public schools benefit much less from economies of scale than their administrators, architects, and accountants (who do so benefit) would have us believe. This is why one of the most effective public-only reforms is to break up large schools into smaller ones. The principals don't have any army of vice-principals behind whom to hide, and there is some accountability for what happens in class. Very few charter, private, or parochial schools ever become the behemoths that public schools are, and few of the parents and students who choose them would want them to.
I agree that students with special challenges should have commensurately larger vouchers they can take with them to whatever school their parents judge to be the best for them. It's hard to imagine that alternative schools would do worse for those with IEPs than most public schools do.
Public schools benefit much less from economies of scale than their administrators, architects, and accountants (who do so benefit) would have us believe. This is why one of the most effective public-only reforms is to break up large schools into smaller ones. The principals don't have any army of vice-principals behind whom to hide, and there is some accountability for what happens in class. Very few charter, private, or parochial schools ever become the behemoths that public schools are, and few of the parents and students who choose them would want them to.
I agree that students with special challenges should have commensurately larger vouchers they can take with them to whatever school their parents judge to be the best for them. It's hard to imagine that alternative schools would do worse for those with IEPs than most public schools do.