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New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program

nytimes.com

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

#31

Post by throwaway6734 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

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…

>It's long been a fallacy that you can sort young kids into high or low performers.

As someone with teaching experience, I find this incredibly hard to believe if you were sorting by raw talent on not something that can be gamed like basing it on grades/good behavior. Certain students have a better natural aptitude for certain subjects.

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

#32

Post by refenestrator »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #26
refenestrator wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You realize a lot of those Asians are from poor, immigrant families, right? You ever spend time in Flushing?

Rich white liberals should not be tearing them down in the name of "antiracism".

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

#33

Post by jason-phillips »

rvba wrote: post #9

I dont think that one can judge if a kod is gifted or not at the age of 4, but stupid people dragging smart people down with "equality" is a big problem with current system. I was a part of a gifted program and I dont understand why there arent more of them.

> I dont understand why there arent more of them.

From my perspective, because they suck. The execution is poor. Your experience may have been better, but mine was one of missed opportunity. The course material was virtually the same, i.e., not challenging and thus insufferably boring. A dozen years wasted, GATE/TAG or not.

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

#34

Post by goldenkey »

dilap wrote: post #2

Smart rich kids can continue to go to academically rigorous private schools. Smart poor kids can go pound sand. Of course, to really strike a blow for equality, they should also ban the private schools. Reminds me of the Vonnegut story. "The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal..."

Private schools are great. They keep rich people snobby. How else are we gonna detect the asshats if they don't tribalise themselves at Poly Prep?

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

#35

Post by throwaway6734 »

dilap wrote: post #2

Smart rich kids can continue to go to academically rigorous private schools. Smart poor kids can go pound sand. Of course, to really strike a blow for equality, they should also ban the private schools. Reminds me of the Vonnegut story. "The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal..."

Bingo

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

#36

Post by _hilro »

bitwize wrote: post #23
_hilro wrote: 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.

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

No, it is literally not "by definition" segregated. Using the phrase 'by definition' is not that powerful a modifier that every word that surrounds it suddenly becomes true.

That's the most nonsense thing ever. Secondly, read the line I quoted:

> highly selective and racially segregated program

The program is not racially segregated. The NYTimes just needed to sneak in the word segregation because it's a very strong explosive word. To do that, it hammered it incorrectly to a place in a sentence which gives the impression the program itself is racially segregated.

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

#37

Post by ReptileMan »

barney54 wrote: post #29
_hilro wrote: 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.

A culture that highly values academic excellence for its progeny achieves it at disproportionate rates. I am shocked.

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

#38

Post by smachiz »

barney54 wrote: post #29
_hilro wrote: 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.

The problem for Bill de Blasio....

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

#39

Post by lowercased »

rvba wrote: post #9

I dont think that one can judge if a kod is gifted or not at the age of 4, but stupid people dragging smart people down with "equality" is a big problem with current system. I was a part of a gifted program and I dont understand why there arent more of them.

I think you can, in some (many?) cases. Whether you should or not (or... how you do it) is perhaps the deeper question.

My parents were pushed by others around them to get me recognized as gifted/advanced (or whatever the term in the 70s was). Other parents (and my parents' parents) all recognized something different, so my parents went to the school, right before I started kindergarten. They got a reassuring pat on the head by the teacher and principal. "Everyone thinks their child is unique/special/advanced, especially their first, but trust us, everyone needs this..."

School started on Wednesday, and Friday afternoon they got a call saying "lowercased should be accelerated a grade or two - he's too advanced". So I was moved up a grade - that's the only lever the school had for "advanced" and, to my knowledge, I was the only one they'd done that for in the 20+ years the school had been open. I later learned it might have been 2 grades but my dad was concerned about socialization issues. And... 1 grade was bad enough in that respect.

There were multiple programs for "behind" students - kids were taken out of class for directed reading programs, other counseling sessions, etc. But there was nothing for 'advanced' kids in our area for several years. So yeah, I think there should definitely be more recognition and support for 'gifted' students in some capacity, even if it's subtle. Perhaps moreso if it's subtle. Being visibly 'different' is difficult for a lot of kids.

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