The process for selecting the students who get to attend High Technology High results in a segregated school environment, one which Federal law prohibits for public schools (unless the school is a charter).
So perhaps the most important "habit" of these kids is hanging out with privileged white kids.
If these kids were still in the regular high school mix then other students would have their behavior as a model. Removing the highly successful kids from comprehensive high schools increases the numbers of less successful kids in those classrooms.
So, under the guise of choice we are re-segregating the public school system, of course the choice one has to make, for this system to to work for them or their children, is to belong to a privileged socioeconomic class.
I have no argument with the idea that student's habits and attitudes largely dictate their success. But if what we discover, when looking at student success, is that a family's socioeconomic success is tied to their children's success in school then we should not adopt school policies that will work to extend the privilege of the few at the expense of the many.
The gap between the rich and everybody else in this country is shameful. It is not a surprise that as families struggle to survive their children struggle in school.
Fix the income gap and much of the school success gap will disappear.
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