A New Slant on 'Military Schools'

The military often relies on an applied-learning approach, making the curriculum more relevant to young people. * Establish quasi-military public high schools, with the "appropriate attributes" of the military model made standard within and across school districts. * Establish quasi-military public boarding schools for young people who need to be insulated from nonschool influences that are destructive to their ambitions. * Set up residential programs with the focus, discipline, and other attributes of the military model for incarcerated juvenile offenders who genuinely want another chance. If wealthy parents can turn to boarding schools, what's wrong with offering poor kids a similar opportunity? I thought about this kind of model for education while reading a series in the Washington Post on a smart youngster trying to finish his senior year at a city high school that had once been a middle-class standout but was now one of the worst-performing schools in the system.