Talk:Alternative school

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[edit] recent edit

Regarding the last edit: first, that should not have been tagged as a minor edit by any means. The entire content of this page has been altered! Second, this merge and change seems precipitous and questionable. The rationale seems to be that the article on alternative education will take over the content that this article used to contain, while this article will now treat "alternative school" as though it meant "special-needs" school. I'd like to hear a little justification for this drastic change. What evidence is there that "special-needs school" is a more common meaning of the term than "school practicing alternative education"? Why should Wikipedia treat "alternative schools" as a phrase with a completely different meaning from "alternative education"? This seems a little euphemistic to me. I'd rather be precise in meaning, moving this content to "special-needs school" and restoring the old content here, unless there is overwhelming evidence that the common usage of the term means the opposite. At a minimum I think this is confusing enough that it needs to be put into a disambiguation header. -- Rbellin|Talk 15:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

First things first, my apology on the "minor edit" tag. It was a simple oversight on my part to uncheck the box. I realized it immediately, but WP provides no means to correct this simple yet seemingly world-moving error. As for the move/change—I do/did intend to post the rationale on the discussion page, but got called away from my desk. I am a participant in the WikiProject Alternative education which, by the way, your are invited to join. We are tackling the task to inventory, assess, and develop the content of articles in the new Category:Alternative education.
The dilemna: The term Alternative school and the article Alternative school do not refer to the same thing. The article describes Alternative education (while mixing it with the meaning of Independent school), while the term refers to schools for students with special needs, i.e., "at-risk" students, potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, returning students.
A solution: I proposed in project discussion that the content of the current Alt. school article be split and appropriately merged with the Alt. ed. and Ind. school articles, so that Alt. school can be used for the article about alternative or special-needs schools.
There is little-to-no information regarding which term, alternative or special needs, is more common—it appears to be fairly equal, although alternative appears to be replacing the other, mainly because the word special has come to be used pejoritavely. However, the term alternative education is well established as the most common term used to describe all forms of non-traditional education, which alt/special needs school is a type of. If special needs school has negative connotations, and alternative education has effectively covered the subject of educational alternatives, then it makes sense to use alternative school to cover the subject of special needs school. I'm sure that the appropriate use of redirects will sufficiently dispell any confusion about any of these subjects.
As to your question: "What evidence is there that 'special-needs school' is a more common meaning of the term than 'school practicing alternative education'?", there is no good answer. That kind of information is not tracked statistically. There is evidence, however, that a 'school practicing alternative education' cannot be adequately defined by a single type of school, alternative school or otherwise.
This was discussed. Only one other editor contributed to the discussion, with support. There were no objections. I proceeded. There was nothing illicit intended. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 17:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reasonable and prompt response. (And good work on the article on alternative education, which I hadn't seen until recently; it is shaping up very nicely and is a great contribution.) In general, I think it would be better to leave a proposed merge/rewrite like this open to comment for a while before doing it, but perhaps your discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative education has already reached most of the interested editors. I don't think you're correct, at least not generally, that the primary meaning of "the term [alternative school] refers to schools for students with special needs". Its meaning may vary depending on the context and the specific speaker (though this is obviously insufficient evidence, "special-needs school" is not what I mean when I say "alternative school"). In the absence of evidence to the contrary about the phrase's usage, I'd suggest that both meanings of the phrase -- "school practicing alternative education" and "school for special-needs students" -- need to be covered, and disambiguated with prominent notices at the top of the articles. One good potential way to accomplish this might be to make "alternative school" into a pure disambiguation page, pointing to the article on alternative education and another article on special-needs schools, where the content you placed here would (in my opinion) fit better. But perhaps we should wait a few days before completing the change, just in case other editors want to comment on this issue. -- Rbellin|Talk 22:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the "good work" on the Alternative education article. As a focus article in the new Category:Alternative education, the WikiProject Alternative education participants have been pouring over it pretty thoroughly. I'm glad you like it. Although I do not agree entirely with your position on this, I would be okay with using Alternative school as a disambiguation page. I am a little concerned with people confusing special-needs with special education, but if special education is actually a component of special needs, along with students with other kinds of obstacles (i.e., pregnancy), then maybe there is nothing to fret. Is this what you understand to relationship between the two to be? If so, I think we can make this work. I will direct the other project editors to this discussion for some additional input before we move on it. In the meantime, if you feel up to it, visit the Project page and give us some elbow grease. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm generally with Master Scott on this one. Special-needs school would be just as confusing, especially since many "alternative schools" are really for incorrigible discipline problems. We shouldn't have a dab page for only two meanings, but Rbellin is right that whatever we do we should have prominent dab notices at the top. If we can think of a better name for the alternative-schools article I'm open to change. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
These articles will no doubt be affected by whatever our final decision: Alternative education, Alternative school, Special education, Special school. If we add Special needs school, that's five. How many are needed for a dab? Special needs has already been redirected to Special education. Is this accurate? The biggest problem that I am seeing is that we are lumping kids with developmental difficulties with kids with other obstacles (truancy, pregnancy, rehab from illness, etc.) together. I have never heard of putting them together in the same classes. Is it done this way? I can't imagine how that would work. I can see them being put in the same administrative category of Alternative education, but not the same physical classroom, i.e., Alternative school. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 14:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we've gotten all the input that we can hope to get. Most of the current content of this article has been covered--more accurately, and in more detail--in other existing articles. The information here is redundant, and not entirely accurate. Remember, there is no alternative education dictionary. Much of the vocabulary used is less than twenty years old and has not "settled" into easily discernible patterns. Alternative education itself is "headless", so there is no authority to turn to for a standard regarding terminology. Based on this and some further digging I've done, my recommendation would be to change this article to one about schools that cater to roughly three groups: Special education, Special-needs education (or, "high-risk"), and Gifted education. The latter is generally covered by Charter schools, Magnet schools, and the like, but in some circumstances--like states without such programs--alternative schools serve them as well. Most of the info under Types of alternative schools actually describes Independent schools, and components of School choice, and can be integrated into those articles. Thanks, Master Scott | Talk 00:03, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
While I'm basically okay with whatever other editors want to do with this article (as long as a prominent disambig notice points to Alternative education), I would still like to caution against the linguistically prescriptive and narrow stance implicit in this last message. Remember, not everyone uses the phrase "alternative school" to mean the same thing you do. The current "Types of alternative school" section describes one valid and relatively common use of the phrase -- as I said above, it means "school practicing alternative education" -- and I see no evidence that this is, as you claim, the same meaning as independent school. I think the best alternative for this page may be to turn it into a pure disambiguation page rather than trying to cover some ad-hoc mixture of all the possible meanings of the phrase. -- Rbellin|Talk 03:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I understand your concerns completely. Prescription is not my intent, just clarity. Making the task more difficult is the fact that in popular use, the phrase "alternative school" and the term alternative school have been attached to different things. The phrase "alternative school" is a noun with a descriptive adjective. It describes a school which teaches using alternative education. It could be phrased alternately as "school teaching alternatively", but this is awkward and inefficient grammar, so most choose the former, more susinct version. On the other hand, the term alternative school is a noun phrase which is used to describe a specific kind of school. A noun phrase is treated as a unit, or a single noun. Similarly, and perhaps more obviously, the phrase "big apple", or "apple which is big", and the noun phrase term Big Apple, or New York City, are completely different. My point is this: An article, as it stands now, is using "alternative school" as a phrase. Most, if not all, of the things that make up this article are already covered elsewhere, and under more specific and appropriate terms. The info here is, in effect, "sqatting". And, since the disambiguation police have deemed a dab page with only two meanings inappropriate, then we are left with a homeless article about the term "alternative school". While I do recognize that you've already given your okay on this action, It sounded very begrudging. I have gone to detail here, in part, to ease your mind, at least a little, about my intentions. I am not trying to be a bully here, that is not my nature. I have no problem putting a dab statement at the top, but I'm not sure where it would point, as most of the content here is actually part of several other articles. Pointing it to Alternative education is okay, but that term will be used in the opening paragraph of the article and, possibly, a couple more times in the body, as alternative school is a type thereof. Thanks, Master Scott | Talk 14:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright and citation issues

Much of the content on this page is plagarized from the following websites:

These sites may also be copying content from another source. If the content is to remain in the article, a knowledgeable editor should rephrase the material in their own words and provide proper citations. (The article in general needs to cite its sources. For more information see WP:CITE). Nposs 04:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative school and Alternative high school should be merged.

I put a merger up because alternative school and alternative high school is basically the same thing. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I disagree. The articles need to be worked on a little more, but an alternative school and an alternative high school are a larger, more general topic about the schools generally and more specific topic about the high schools. MrMacMan 23:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
It would make for a better sub-topic on a general Alternative school article than a separate article. Nposs 23:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Alright so 3 people participated in a discussion about a possible merger and then the article gets redirected? I think it was a bit premature so I changed it back. I tend to agree they overlap a pretty significant degree, but lets see if that is a common perception before 'merging' it. (didn't sign post ) MrMacMan 22:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
What would be the argument for keeping two separate articles? Wouldn't it make more sense to merge them and if it turns out that the high school section becomes highly differentiated - then make it a separate article. Seems like it should never have been a separate article in the first place. Nposs 22:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm just saying that so far 3 people have weighted on this decision... and it was made in less then 2 days. I just want to make sure someone else can have their opinion heard. MrMacMan 22:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

So are we ever going to merge these two articles? (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I agree with 209.177.21.6. And since March, there has been no discussion, or improvement of this page to warrent two articles. The two articles are basically copies of each other. They should be merged. Epson291 00:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] images

I think there should also be an image of a special school. After all special schools are alternative schools too..This is an article about alternative schools...they should have all types of it. They should also include magnet schools too. (Jessica - talk)

You have yet to provide a reference that describes Special Schools as Alternative Schools. 4 days. --Brideshead 20:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dictionary definitions

We should not begin encyclopedia articles with dictionary definitions. Can we revert this back to a proper lead section? Rhobite 04:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do. If you have any sources, they'd be greatly appreciated. Nposs 04:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Requested move

Alternative high school → Alternative school — As it was previously mentioned, alternative schools are the more neutral term. It includes alternative schools at the elementary school level. Alternative high schools are only for high schools. --Yasdnil 17:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

This has been removed from the page as it is a proposed merger not a requested move. Dahliarose 08:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Support - This seems to be a merger actually. Nonetheless, I support. --Тhε Rαnδom Eδιτor 21:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - see my entry above Epson291 00:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Any additional comments: