[msglenn]

Ideally we would help ALL students improve, but isn't it better that we give the kids with more involved parents a fighting chance by letting them opt into a more rigorous school?

Otherwise we create a situation that looks like this:

1. Parents who are involved fight a losing battle to help their kids succeed in a school that is simply not equipped to educate them.

2. Those students fail to achieve in traditional ways, reinforcing the idea that it's pointless to try.

3. Repeat until everyone suffers from an acute case of learned helplessness.

[dopamean]

> isn't it better that we give the kids with more involved parents a fighting chance by letting them opt into a more rigorous school?

Not if the funding for the more rigorous school is coming from the same pool of funds that could have gone to the public school.