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New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

nytimes.com

21–30 of 274 posts

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#21

It's long been a fallacy that you can sort young kids into high or low performers. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. By starting so young (kindergarten!) in NYC they were creating the division out of essentially nothing. Long ago somebody tried dividing an elementary school class into regular and advanced students. At the end of the year, the advanced students had done better. The selection was a random l…

Was the study ever replicated?

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#22

It's long been a fallacy that you can sort young kids into high or low performers. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. By starting so young (kindergarten!) in NYC they were creating the division out of essentially nothing. Long ago somebody tried dividing an elementary school class into regular and advanced students. At the end of the year, the advanced students had done better. The selection was a random l…

Could you share a link to that random allocation of students into regular and advanced? Sounds fascinating, though not surprising: imagine the confidence hit of being told by the system you're not advanced.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#23
post #13

> But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students. Wow, using a word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' sure lays bare their hand. Just to be clear, there is no segregation(of any kind) amongst the students in the program. In fact, there is no segregation at all. There's just not equal representation of the makey-uppy USA racial classifications.…

If a school system or program doesn't have enough black kids in it, it is by definition segregated.

School antisegregation laws care nothing for intent, only for effect.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#24
Subtitle: "Students who are currently enrolled in gifted and talented classes will not be affected. But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students."

The reasons can be debated, but it's a fact that on IQ tests, American blacks score about 1 standard deviation (15 points) below whites. A common threshold for a gifted program is an IQ of 130, 2SD above average. If you demand that all racial groups be proportionally represented, you cannot have a gifted program. You will not get proportional representation among FAANG programmers either. In general, America needs to make a choice between non-discrimination and government-enforced equal outcomes. Charles Murray's book "Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America" (2021) discusses this. He co-authored "The Bell Curve" (1994).

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#25

I am generally quite liberal but I strongly disagree with he current strain of progressive education reform. There are inherent differences within the capabilities of students, we can detect these early, and we should use them to provide students with appropriate challenges. Our education system should provide avenues for top students to excel, ad hopefully these top students become the people who create businesses o…

The current progressive movement is highly illiberal

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about as biased as you can get? It was clearly about providing for all. Nothing said about treating Asians and differently.

The current stats include a ridiculously large number of Asians, and the changes are racially motivated according to the proponents' own words. It doesn't sound like the system was perfect, I'm all for reform that helps everyone. Hurting Asians to create equality isn't it.

Equality, to the priviledged, looks like persecution.

That many Asian kids got a golden ticket, and now won't get a golden ticket, seems like not such a problem to those who were denied any such chance at a golden ticket for generations.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#27

Subtitle: "Students who are currently enrolled in gifted and talented classes will not be affected. But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students." The reasons can be debated, but it's a fact that on IQ tests, American blacks score about 1 standard deviation (15 points) below whites. A common threshold for a gifted program is an IQ of 130, 2SD above average. If you de…

It's also a fact that American blacks have several standard deviations less wealth than whites.

If wealth ultimately is the driver for such a disparity, and education is the gateway to said wealth, you're effectively trapping people.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#28
My brother teaches at an exam school in Boston which similarly had its requirements dropped recently, and it seems like a lot of these changes are poorly thought out and done for optics. Sure, some of the exam schools in BPS are overwhelmingly White/Asian, but the school he teaches at is mostly Black/Asian/Hispanic.

While he was previously able to teach classes of bright, focused students, now they need to break up fights of unruly students and divert their attention to the ones that are struggling. I imagine the parents that can afford it will likely remove their kids from the public school system if quality continues to drop, which will only hurt funding.

The real issue is a much more complex socioeconomic problem, but that's hard to solve, so it's easier to point the finger at schools.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#29
post #13

> But the highly selective and racially segregated program will be replaced for incoming students. Wow, using a word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' sure lays bare their hand. Just to be clear, there is no segregation(of any kind) amongst the students in the program. In fact, there is no segregation at all. There's just not equal representation of the makey-uppy USA racial classifications.…

The problem for NYC apparently is that the largest ethnic group in the program was Asian.

Re: New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

#30

It's long been a fallacy that you can sort young kids into high or low performers. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. By starting so young (kindergarten!) in NYC they were creating the division out of essentially nothing. Long ago somebody tried dividing an elementary school class into regular and advanced students. At the end of the year, the advanced students had done better. The selection was a random l…

Perhaps more than just 'expectation' i.e. those who feel they are special and talented may actually strive harder. Maybe a bit of pressure as well.

But there's a lot of truth to this I think people should cognize.

That said, I'm wary of NYs move, in the later years of high school, providing programs where kids can be among other kids that really want to learn is powerful.

At my school, they didn't actually 'vet' students in the advanced program. You just did it if you want. I think that's fair.

You can have Algebra 101 and Algebra 101++, which covers more ground, at an accelerated pace, and it's your choice to join. I think that would work.

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