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Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

hechingerreport.org

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Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#181

Post by barry-cotter »

nitrogen wrote: post #161
barry-cotter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on average, public-school teachers receive total compensation that is roughly 50 percent higher than what they would receive in private-sector employment. While salaries are at appropriate levels, fringe benefits push teacher compensation far ahead of what private-sector workers enjoy. Consequently, recruiting more effective teachers for public schools will be much more difficult than simply raising salaries. https…

As someone raised by two teachers I can say that my parents both had to work two to four different jobs at times just to struggle to keep up. Whatever that statistic is claiming, it doesn't reflect reality in at least some cases.

If you could share something about where and when your parents were working that would be most informative, thanks. Certainly there are outliers in every population but the study is talking about the teaching population, on average.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#182

Post by 77pt77 »

empath75 wrote: post #78
xhkkffbf wrote: post #10

I 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. Ev…

I think they’d do better by taking the kids who understand the material and asking them to work with the kids who don’t. You learn as much by teaching as doing, if not more.

This is recipe for disaster for everyone.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#183

Post by Filligree »

eloff wrote: post #172
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was very difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, just didn't give a fuck. It really sucked Can't we fix bullying in the first place ?

I wonder if it's better in old style schools not segmented by age. Then faster physical development gives much less of an advantage, and the immature younger students can have their behavior moderated by the older, hopefully more mature students. And older siblings can watch out for younger ones.

Every study I've ever read says this is much better.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#184

Post by ip26 »

empthought wrote: post #134
solveit wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how would that work in practice? Special schools for high performers is much more palatable than special schools for quarantining children who aren't going to amount to anything (no matter what you call it and how you design it, this is how it will be perceived).

If mandatory school attendance were repealed, it would work itself quite quickly.

All well and good, but those people still get to vote.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#185

Post by taurath »

solveit wrote: post #120
koolba wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is not to pull out a handful of high performers, it’s to kick out the even smaller number of disrupters.

Yes, but how would that work in practice? Special schools for high performers is much more palatable than special schools for quarantining children who aren't going to amount to anything (no matter what you call it and how you design it, this is how it will be perceived).

We have them - even in my small town there was a high school where the kids who were in and out of juvi would attend - everyone at the school knew it’s reputation. It’s where you went if you were expelled.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#186

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

The problems that smart kids encounter are the same issues that appear generation after generation. Smart kids usually don't follow the crowd so they stand out and are easy picking for bullies. We want and are expecting bullies to disappear since we are better tuned into the problem of bullying. So things will change for the better we say but that's just, not reality.

There's special education for kids with special needs; why is there no special education for smart kids that will help them deal with social situations? Smart kids have to deal with social land mines that will scar them if not handled correctly. No matter how smart someone is there is no way to know what to do in all social situations especially since most of these kids will not have a role model to follow. Even if they are kids of parents that had to deal with the same issues it does not mean that the parents will be able to help.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#187

Post by rtpg »

nitrogen wrote: post #153
hackerrenews wrote: post #9

I 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…

Everyone advocating for forced abolition of private schools and high-wealth public districts needs to read this thread. Hits too close to home. Bullying and peer pressure cause serious harm, not just emotionally but economically when good kids drop out of society. These harms would be magnified if kids who don't fit in with the crowd had even fewer options to escape.

> These harms would be magnified if kids who don't fit in with the crowd had even fewer options to escape.

The idea isn't to just get rid of private schools, but to take money that goes into that and finance better public education (which can still include ways for people to move around if needed!)

Having a separate world for the rich means that kids who "don't fit in with the crowd" but don't have wealthy parents won't have any way out.

In an alternate world where more money is invested in the public system, having wealth would no longer be a necessary requirement for having access to alternatives.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#188

Post by whiddershins »

cortesoft wrote: post #48
dguido wrote: post #8

Here'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, inspire…

Right, so it raises the question: What is the relative importance of helping the best students verse helping the worst students? Even if we solve the talent identification problem, SOME kids are going to be the lower achievers.... are we willing to sacrifice helping them do better to help the top achievers do their best? How much are we willing to sacrifice in either direction?

That’s saying it is a zero sum game. Why is that the assumption?

It seems intuitive that separating students by aptitude/achievement would make it easier to teach the cohort effectively.

If the range of abilities is too wide in a group of students the teacher is going to be miserable and so are all the students who don’t fall within the range the program is optimized for.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#189

Post by AnthonyMouse »

barry-cotter wrote: post #165
rayiner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 95% of why we send our kids to private school. In the rare case a disrupter makes it in, they're "counseled out." It's a travesty that schools permit a handful of bad apples to ruin the learning experience of everyone else.

It’s not the schools permitting it, it’s the justice system making getting rid of disruptive students impossible. https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/public-sch... > Wonder what allows a school to at least consider permanent expulsion? The student has to be convicted of: > murder drug dealing aggravated assault rape possession of a deadly weapon > But expulsion can be permanent if and only if he or she…

That's for expulsion, which makes a certain amount of sense. A student with home life problems or a psychological condition is still entitled to an education. But why is it incumbent on every other student that they receive their education in the same classroom?

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#190

Post by bg4 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #148
travisoneill1 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need more help? The classes are already designed for them. The problem is that the smart kids are forced to be in them too.

He said he did bad because he was bullied. Smart people aren't the only ones that get bullied. If the problem is bullying you aren't fixing it by pulling someone out, the bullies will just target other people.

The bullies aren't living healthy, productive lives either. More than likely, their home life is awful if not horrific.
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