Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
hechingerreport.org
Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
1–10 of 389 posts
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#2> after San Francisco Unified de-tracked math, the proportion of students failing algebra fell from 40 percent to 8 percent and the proportion of students taking advanced classes rose to a third, the highest percentage in district history. Until 10th grade, students take the same mathematics classes. From 11th grade on, students can choose different pathways.
That doesn't seem like much time to choose different math pathways. For example, the "math kids" I grew up with took several classes post-calculus in high school. How can you do that if you're only taking calculus as a junior or possibly senior (depending on what the common coursework was up through sophomore year)?
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#3When I was in elementary school we had this program called GATE and basically it was like once a month you go to a different school with other GATE students from the other schools in the district. There would be special classes like oceanography, robotics, etc. I don't think it added any value into my life ever except variety of experience. I also think it made other students who weren't in it feel kind of bad because they didn't get to go do anything. They should have just done it for everyone IMO.
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#4> after San Francisco Unified de-tracked math, the proportion of students failing algebra fell from 40 percent to 8 percent and the proportion of students taking advanced classes rose to a third, the highest percentage in district history. Until 10th grade, students take the same mathematics classes. From 11th grade on, students can choose different pathways. That doesn't seem like much time to choose different math…
My high school education (Canada) worked like that. Calculus was taught in grade 12, so there wasn't any time to specialize more than that in the curriculum. My experience (granted, not in math, but in an abnormally math-intensive engineering program) was that colleges assumed you knew nothing more than basic Calculus, and built everything up from there. Even if you had gone to an advanced program (AP, TEALS, etc...) it really only bought you a semester head start at most.
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#5The author is a professor at Stanford. If separating gifted children has no benefits, why doesn't Stanford admit students at random?
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#6Bogus headline.
"Separating gifted from non-gifted children hasn't led to better overall achievement of both groups combined."
It says nothing about whether the streamed gifted children do better than if they are not streamed it says much about those not deemed gifted doing worse.
(Just quietly, I'd suspect that given the choice of having your child streamed as gifted or not the best thing to do is to put them with the best teacher(s) - who will handle whatever psychological downsides there are of whatever that is).
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#7From the article, it sounds like the measure of 'better achievement' is baseline scores across all students.
I was always of the opinion that separating based on ability level was not about improving the baseline, but about allowing those able to learn greater depth to do so.
Not every student is going to earn a Fields Medal or develop new medical procedures, and frankly, that's ok.
But we do need some who will push the boundaries.
The only issue I have is that the selection process itself has not been entirely merit-based, frequently showing preference for students from certain backgrounds at the expense of gifted children of color or from less wealthy backgrounds (and at the expense of society as a whole, who has lost out on the benefits those children could have provided, given the opportunity).
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#8Here's the opposite perspective: https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs-xpm-2012-02-06-bs-ed...
> But as the facts now show, smart kids don't always stay smart, and when they are bored or bullied or ridiculed or neglected, some turn off and some drop out. Thirty-plus years of experience and research into how these students learn has taught us that the academically able can and must be challenged and engaged, inspired and encouraged in order to cultivate their creativity, spirit of innovation, and passion for learning.
Here's IMHO a better perspective on how to "close the excellence gap" in NYC schools, in particular, by changing the way talent is identified and by using local norms. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-11-what-can-we...
Finally, here's a twist: Eliminating gifted programs disproportionally hurts poor parents since rich parents will just pay for any available opportunity to get their kid ahead.
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#9I was fourth picked for g&t. First and second pick ended up being quite successful, as did the third picked. One has a high up, prestigious position at Amazon and the other retired from Microsoft wealthy.
Me, I smoke weed and that’s about the only thing I’ve really done consistently since high school.. more consistently than music, and programming, even.
Frankly, I wish I had been better separated from the other kids. I would have been far happier in middle school just hanging around other nice, smart people. (With a few exceptions, the smart kids tended to be kind). The mixture with the “gen pop” led to bullying, repeated physical abuse and harassment by other kids from ages 10-12. This was decades ago when physical abuse amongst minors was often ignored, even by police.
By freshman year of high school, I was worn down and switched back to some non-honors classes mid-term. This unfortunately led to dysfunctional friendships with the “cool” kids (same bully crowd), introduction to drugs and a low achievement life. There was some form of Florence nightingale syndrome involved here, due to unresolved physical abuse leading to friendships with the abusers in high school.
Separating gifted children for accelerated learning is great. Ignoring social development by blindly sticking all kids together in unstructured environments where bullying and physical abuse is allowed to persist will override any hope for some kids. I know, I was there. Still here.
Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
#10I have to say that this result is wildly different from my experience and that of my children. It's boring to sit in class redoing a simple math problem just because someone wants to detrack math.
A friend of mine who is a teacher says that he has MORE discipline problems from the smart kids who aren't challenged enough.
The real secret should be to embrace independent, computer-mediated systems like Khan Academy. Everyone can move at their own pace. That's the best choice going forward. We have the technology. We have the ability to liberate our children to learn at their individual pace. I don't know why we cling to the old sage-on-a-stage model.