【英语生活】是否该让儿子转学?

Our son (aged 14) has been going to a local school and has made friends and settled in. But we are not happy. We think the school is poor, with a high teacher turnover, low expectations, poor exam grades and now a bad report from school inspectors. We're thinking of moving him to a different school but we don't want to disrupt his education. What should we do?

John and Julia, London

Dear John and Julia,

The economists Eric A. Hanushek, John Kain and Steven Rivkin have looked at data on Texas schools. They conclude that moving children repeatedly is disruptive both to the child and to his peers, but that a one-off move causes only temporary disruption to studies, especially if carried out at the end of an academic year. The researchers also found that in the cases where children were moved to better schools, they achieved a lasting improvement in academic performance.

A similar conclusion emerges from the research of another economist, Bruce Sacerdote, who looked into the aftermath of the Katrina disaster. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, about 200,000 Louisiana children had to switch schools. Unsurprisingly, test scores took a sharp turn for the worse. Yet Sacerdote finds that for those evacuees who left schools in urban New Orleans, which had a terrible reputation, test scores recovered within two years. College enrolment rates also improved. Three years after the disruption, children who began in bad schools ended up doing better than if Katrina had never struck.

My conclusion is that your son can thrive after a school move, but only if the new school really is superior. I am not sure what criteria you used to select the current one, but you might want to revise them before choosing the next. If I was your son, I'd be wondering why you think you will be second time lucky.

我们的儿子（14岁）一直在一所当地学校就读，在那里结交了朋友，适应了下来。但我们并不开心。我们觉得那所学校很差劲，教师流失率太高，前景堪忧，考试成绩很差，而如今学校督察人员给出的评估报告也很糟糕。我们正考虑给儿子转学，但又不希望扰乱他的学业。我们该怎么办？

约翰和朱莉娅，伦敦

亲爱的约翰和朱莉娅，

经济学家埃里克•哈努谢克(Eric A. Hanushek)、约翰•凯恩(John Kain)和史蒂夫•里夫金(Steve Rivkin)研究了德克萨斯州学校的数据。他们的结论是，频繁转学既会对孩子，也会对其朋友们造成影响，但一次性转学只会对学业造成暂时的影响——尤其是在学期末转学的话。研究人员还发现，如果子女被转至更好的学校，那么他们在学习成绩方面会取得持久的进步。

另一位经济学家布鲁斯•萨塞尔多特(Bruce Sacerdote)也得出了类似的结论。他研究了卡特丽娜(Katrina)飓风灾难所造成的后果。卡特丽娜和丽塔(Rita)飓风过后，路易斯安那州约20万名孩童不得不转学。不出意料，他们的考试成绩大幅下降。但萨塞尔多特发现，那些被疏散离开声名狼藉的新奥尔良城区学校的孩子们，成绩在两年内都恢复到了原有水平，大学录取率亦有所提升。在转校3年后，那些原先就读于差校的孩子们，最终出路要好于卡特丽娜从未来袭的情况。

我的结论是：你们的儿子在一次转学后能够良好发展，但前提必须是新学校真的更好。我不确定你们选择当前这所学校时依据的标准是什么，但在选择下一所学校前，你们可能要修正一下标准。如果我是你们的儿子，我可能会想知道，你们凭什么认为第二次（择校）就会成功？

译者/陈云飞