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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

#351

Post by brewdad »

leetcrew wrote: post #341
chongli wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do need special attention. The problem is that the average teacher is simply not equipped to deal with their level of need. Kids at the very bottom of the performance distribution tend to have major issues at home, mental health issues, and may even have personality disorders in the dark triad. These kids need serious help from experts. That's too expensive though, so they aren't going to get it and everyone who…

a quick Google search shows that public school teachers get paid as much as or more than a typical LCSW, so I'm not sure why getting these kids help would inherently be super expensive unless you want to also increase the adult-to-student ratio for them by a lot. even if it's a bit more expensive per student, my guess is it would be very cost effective at improving outcomes for the rest of the kids.

You would absolutely have to have more adults involved per student. My kid's HS has an average class size of 30 and some classes approaching 50 students. I can't imagine what a class of 35+ disruptors and only 1 instructor would look like but it wouldn't be pretty.

Ideally, something closer to the 5-1 ratio my district mandates for special ed classes would be more effective. These kids are going to need a lot of individualized attention if you want to help turn them around.

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

#352

Post by achenatx »

jml78 wrote: post #321
tuesdayrain wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The split doesn't need to be permanent, you could always rearrange the top/bottom achievers in each group.

But that never happens. I come from the opposite side of the equation. I was not allowed into the gifted and talented program in my school because I had a lot of trouble with reading when I was young. However, I was probably the most gifted person in mathematics. But the G&T program was only for people who scored high on both. So what happened? I was stuck in the average kids where I excelled but was bored. Anytime m…

I didnt see this growing up and dont see it now. Anyone can enter G&T at any time and kids drop out as well. Be an advocate for your kid with the administration. At one school we attended, math was done in 4 week blocks. There was a test to rank the kid for that block and then they were grouped with like skilled kids.

My wife volunteered a lot for the school and as a result she knew all the administration. She was able to get our preferred teacher each year etc. Get to know the teachers and administration, help them out. They can bend any rule at any time.

We are in private school now. In my son's 1st grade class (mostly 7 year olds), there is a kid who just turned 5. Private school could be a good option.

Public schools even within the same school system can be different, so dont generalize across the entire public school system.

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

#353

Post by DataWorker »

sokoloff wrote: post #279
LaLaLand122 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been educated in probably a different country, with a different school system, I am surprised to read all these comments. Not saying my country school system is perfect, it isn't. And there are cases of abuse, bullying does exist. But 30 years ago I was the good, shy, student in a poor neighbourhood of a big city and never suffered or witnessed anything too bad (and from 4 to 12 year old we had a kid with Down…

At some point , every fully developed education system splits kids by ability. Not everyone goes on to advanced studies, engineering school, law, or medicine. Not everyone learns a trade. That split might not happen until age 18, but my wager is that it does happen everywhere. The question is when is the optimal time? I tend to think earlier rather than later.

In the US we have increasing numbers of students who don’t speak English? Is it ability grouping to give Spanish instruction? Are such students not “disruptive”?

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

#354

Post by Spooky23 »

theamk wrote: post #219
Spooky23 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds good, but once you’re in the dumb caste you tend to stay.

I wouldn’t call community college “dumb caste”. The people there are often ready to move upwards (whatever this means for them)

It’s about the high school, not the college.

Kids in this track don’t get access to services, AP classes, etc.

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

#355

Post by downerending »

wwright wrote: post #81
downerending wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one deserves to be bullied. And I'd be pretty okay with permanently removing bullies from the general population. That said, in my experience, the gifted/nerdy/aspy kids got the lion's share of the bullying. I still carry it with me decades later, and at least one of my comrades in misery killed herself because of it.

Do you not feel that gifted/nerdy/aspy kids reciprocated? It might just be that I’m a complete asshole, but I grew up in Mississippi feeling very isolated and estranged from everyone around me. I think I definitely felt like I was bullied when I was very young. But by high school and college, I was being outright toxic to people. If I am generous to myself, a lot of that could be attributed to anxiety, depression, la…

I'm sure that happens, but it didn't in my cohort. If you whip a dog for a while, it'll fight. Whip it for long enough, though, and it will just lay down helpless. That's what I saw.

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

#356

Post by dang »

Kaiyou wrote: post #284
scarface74 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Almost like intelligence is inheritable. Fascinating.

Please don't post flamebait to HN. Comments here need to be better than shallow provocations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#358

Post by dang »

trempdig wrote: post #266
jl2718 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a shocking level of journalistic mendacity, absolutely intent to decieve. It begs the question: What is the author trying to accomplish, and why? So far, the “equality of outcomes” crusade seems to have an abysmal record with the truth. It’s become a lampoon of legitimate socio-economic problems.

The author has accomplished everything she wanted. She’s used faked science to push her agenda and sell a lot of books along the way. Because of her progressive credentials, anyone who questions her gets skewered by an army of 2nd grade teachers who eat up the pseudoscience. She’s the math version of “The Secret”.

You can't use HN like this. Thoughtful critique is welcome; shallow dismissals, name-calling, and personal attack are not. The rules are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. They're not hard to follow if you want to.

We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do that with?

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

#359

Post by dang »

trempdig wrote: post #346
midasz wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did or did you not create a new account solely to bash on Dr. Boaler?

I did not. However, her continued attacks on real science did upset me enough to make a new account to comment (I forgot my old password). But if I had made an anonymous account to bash her it would make sense, considering the irrational rabid behavior of her fan base that ignores all of the reproducible studies in favor of her feel-good frauds.

Actually the evidence suggests that you did create this account for that purpose. Either way, we've banned the account for breaking the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21455081. Please stop creating accounts to do that on HN.

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

#360

Post by dang »

zebby wrote: post #265
sershe wrote: post #232

I actually wonder what's up with bullying in US schools. I grew up in Moscow, Russia in the 90ies (many people were not well off to say the least) and I was both super nerdy and extremely eh, daring (I would talk back to other kids who were much stronger/more popular than me all the time etc.). Sure, I was not popular, yet I was bullied lightly and almost never physically, mostly by a couple classmates who were just…

The difference is obvious, niggers.

We've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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