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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

#241

Post by scarface74 »

koolba wrote: post #112
borski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen to this. I was separated (went to Stuyvesant HS in NYC) and it made a world of difference for me, as compared to JHS or elementary school. 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. Stuy was a different world, and the first time in my life I felt the opportunity to actuall…

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

The “disrupters” are usually “pulled out” disproportionately if they are poor or minorities while kids who do the same thing but have more influential families get a “counseling”.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/5/17199810/school-disc...

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

#242

Post by scarface74 »

ryandrake wrote: post #47

When I was in middle school in the 90s, I think around 7th grade (~12yo), the school district experimented with a new way of organizing the student body where they separated us into six distinct, equally sized cohorts based on some evaluation of each student's performance and capability. From what I could tell it was rougly: 1. Gifted / clearly university-bound 2. Potential college prep 3. Community college 4. Normal…

And what are the chances that influential, well connected parents will be sure that their kid ends up in the highest level whether they deserve it or not? I saw this all of the time in school.

On a related metric, if you look at the top 10 students in my public low rated high school in the south, the top 10 students (which I was one) were made up of kids whose parents were in the school system, one kid of a prominent lawyer, one was the daughter of a plant manager, and only one came from a poor background.

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

#243

Post by scarejunba »

Damn, America is so rich it just invents problems. When I was a child, you worked hard in school or your life was going to suck. By American standards, your life already sucked because you defecated in the fields. So you did everything in your capacity to not keep it that way.

I'm in America now. Did it the hard way. It wasn't as easy as showing up to class and having the choice of working hard to apply to some of the best educational institutions in the world.

Bloody hell, it's no wonder everyone in America is terrified of immigrants. They're going to eat your lunch because they will go through all these things that ruin you and instead come out resilient and able instead of reduced to just smoking weed all the time or whatever other activity you've decided to blame on society.

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

#244

Post by spc476 »

zebraflask wrote: post #211
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…

I think the tenor of what you're trying to express is that smart kids shouldn't be abused for being smart. Not a controversial opinion. Making them unnecessarily cut off from everyone else who isn't quite as "gifted" is worse, in a way. How is that kid going to get out of his/her bubble?

I was part of the "gifted crowd" from 5th grade (9-10 years old) up, and not all of my classes were of the "gifted" variety.

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

#246

Post by pksdjfikkkkdsff »

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?

Why should talented kids be forced to sacrifice their progress and happiness to help the poor kids (or rather, for the odd chance it might help some poor kids)? That is tyranny, right there. The government is using their bodies, against their will.

If society wants to help poor kids, it should use tax money to pay for people to help those kids. Forcing other kids to give up their possible achievements is exploitation.

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

#247

Post by dre54673 »

I was in gifted classes for a couple of years from like 5th-6th grade but was eventually separated. I had perfect standardized test scores, but my grades were average due to many reasons. Some of my teachers didn't like me, and I guess they decided to kick me out. Later I ended up dropping out in high school but still went to college later and now work at one of the big tech companies. So in the end I ended up alright but others may not be as lucky.

I'm not going to lie, being separated from the "smart" kids felt bad. I knew I was just as capable, but someone had the power to decide who is gifted and I guess they didn't like me. I was placed in classes where the teachers were of lower quality and the material was even less interesting. One of the teachers who didn't like me while I was with the gifted kids was my science teacher and that made me dislike science as a whole. I had a couple of math teachers who were extremely supportive throughout my early education and that made a world of difference. I decided to study CS in large part because I could avoid a lot of science courses and focus on math.

I also have a sister who was indirectly affected by me being in gifted programs. She later admitted to me it made her feel really bad that I was placed in those programs while she wasn't. I think this really hurt her self esteem and had a negative impact in her education. I could imagine other kids feeling similarly when some of their peers get labeled as gifted while they don't.

Looking back, the biggest benefit of being in gifted programs was simply that the teachers were better. So the kids who didn't necessarily need better teachers got the best ones, while the rest got packets to read through. The kids also weren't that different. The main difference was how much the parents of the gifted kids were involved in their education and they were generally wealthier. Overall it seemed like an unfair system that told kids who were just starting out whether they were smart or not. I think we really need better and more teachers, but they aren't paid enough. School is more of a place to put children while parents work than it is a place to educate.

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

#248

Post by adwn »

Smithalicious wrote: post #236
ryandrake wrote: post #47

When I was in middle school in the 90s, I think around 7th grade (~12yo), the school district experimented with a new way of organizing the student body where they separated us into six distinct, equally sized cohorts based on some evaluation of each student's performance and capability. From what I could tell it was rougly: 1. Gifted / clearly university-bound 2. Potential college prep 3. Community college 4. Normal…

This pseudo caste system was probably beneficial to you in the upper caste, but I don't think students in tier 3 and below saw their lives improve.

> This pseudo caste system was probably beneficial to you in the upper caste, but I don't think students in tier 3 and below saw their lives improve.

It is hardly a child's responsibility to suffer from the violence, bullying, and general disinterest in any academic achievement by another group of children.

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

#250

Post by waterhouse »

cortesoft wrote: post #56
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…

Your experience is as the parent of a high achiever, it sounds like. This article is talking about the achievements of the entire class, which includes both high and low achievers. It might be true that the higher achievers do better separated, but that the reduction in performance for the lower achievers more than offsets that. This makes sense, because the high achievers are probably going to do pretty well either…

In the absence of further information, a decent start might be to give each student with special needs (be they due to giftedness or disability) the same amount of effort or funding. At least in terms of federal funding (because it's easier to aggregate across the U.S.), one Google result[1] says: "The federal government does provide GT funding to school districts through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Education program. The funding for the Javits program is $12 million annually, which equates to $2.50 to $4 per GT student in this country." I think I saw an article saying the current administration proposed canceling it, but it seems that hasn't happened.

Meanwhile, in terms of special education: "Ever since its initial enactment, the federal law has included a commitment to pay 40 percent of the average per student cost for every special education student. The current average per student cost is $7,552 and the average cost per special education student is an additional $9,369 per student, or $16,921. Yet, in 2004, the federal government is providing local school districts with just under 20 percent of its commitment rather than the 40 percent specified by the law, creating a $10.6 billion shortfall for states and local school districts."[2] Well, if they currently pay about 20% of $7500 per student, that comes out to $1500-ish.

So that's a difference of ~400x. Not that I think the federal government should be funding such things, but given that it is...

[1] https://ednote.ecs.org/do-we-really-need-to-fund-gifted-prog...

[2] http://www.nea.org/home/19029.htm

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