New York City to Phase Out Its Gifted and Talented Program • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by pacbard » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

_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 context for the use of "racially segregated" is probably within the current anti-racist movement (see, for example, Kendi's work). This movement has moved away from labeling racist a policy that was implemented with racist intent (like segregated schools during Jim Crow) towards labeling racist a policy that has unequal outcomes based on race, regardless of policymakers' intent.

If you start from that perspective, it naturally follows to label G&T education as segregated if we observe that one group being overrepresented in it and another group being underrepresented.

Of note here, it's the assumption that the distribution of gifted and talented eligibility attributes is uniformly distributed among different groups of students and that somehow the system is not picking up eligibility signals for specific students. There is some emerging evidence that this is the case for Black students, as the identification gap between Black and White students closes when the G&T assessor is Black (I think that Grissom has a recent paper on this). If we reject the uniform distribution assumption, we end up assuming that the G&T eligibility traits are unevenly distributed among students, which I believe is one of the longest lasting beliefs of racist thought in education.

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

#92

Post by endisneigh » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #80

endisneigh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If wealth ultimately is the driver for such a disparity Fortunately, we know it's not. Black Nigerian immigrants slightly outperform whites in many careers, and very likely start with substantially less wealth (because they're immigrants). So one variable is constant (skin color), a few are "worse" (wealth, knowledge of English), a few might be better (motivation, IQ, work ethics, cultural expectations, ...).

A single counterexample doesn't invalidate a trend, lol. One could say Nigerian immigrants, coming from the richest country in Africa, would show better outcomes over other African immigrants. Oh wait, they do.

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

#93

Post by chucksmash » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

zentropia wrote: post #48

_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.…

Some people don't like institutions that will enlarge racial inequality gaps.

Why would it necessarily enlarge racial inequality gaps?

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

#94

Post by Zababa » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

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…

Thinking that someone will perform better can help them perform better, sure. But that doesn't invalidate the whole thing.

> By starting so young (kindergarten!) in NYC they were creating the division out of essentially nothing.

I think that by kindergarten you already have lots of factors that will statistically influence school performance. I would argue that some will be environmental, and some will be inherent to the kid.

> 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 lottery. The difference in performance, was entirely based on expectation.

I mean, that's obviously going to be true. But how big was the difference? Was it bigger than when students are chosen with another method? Which method? Which one performs the best? What you're describing is basically the placebo effect, but applied to this situation. It's a good control group, and we already know that placebo works. The interesting part is to see if the current programs work better or worse than placebo, and by how much.

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

#95

Post by flexie » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

_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.…

Even if it's not intended by design to segregate based on color, but just an unfortunate effect, when that effect is known for years and nothing is done, then I think it's OK to call it segregation.

Many of the parents I know who has kids that were accepted in the gifted and talented program had very expensive tutoring in order to be accepted. We are talking thousands of dollars for toddlers. That's tutoring that most Black and Latino New Yorkers simply cannot afford. And their parents paid these obscene amounts in order to avoid that their kids were stuck at the mostly Black ordinary public schools with kids from the projects.

I don't think NY Times claims that the parents are racist. But the fact remains that they try to get their kids from mostly Black schools into mostly white schools.

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

#96

Post by zozbot234 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

_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 article states that the GATE program featured a high-stakes entry exam which could place incoming students in a 5-years long separate "track". While "segregated" is a harsh term to describe this, it does seem like something which would introduce high disparity in outcomes due to what's essentially random luck/noise.

It looks like they'll be replacing this with a more finely-designed system featuring "accelerated" learning for those students who are doing well at any given time in some specific subjects, which seems more appropriate to current needs.

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

#97

Post by hunter2_ » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

superflit2 wrote: post #64

barney54 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Following the IQ distribution by races. I can scream whatever I want about people being equal and have equal capabilities. But that is a lie. Genetics is a huge factor in disease, skills and behavior. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

But if the group (G&T program, or whatever organization) benefits not only from the best and brightest, but also from diverse backgrounds, then both of those things should go into recruitment, right? You wouldn't want to form an org that excels at solving typical problems but then is completely stumped (in a way where other backgrounds could help, even if it brings down the average so-to-speak) in edge cases. This is why many companies do DEI even when they aren't compelled by moral high ground and virtue signalling. It's actually a net win for achieving the core goal.

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

#98

Post by endisneigh » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

_hilro wrote: post #89

endisneigh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Segregated doesn't mean "by design." What definition are you using? Segregation can exist as a manifestation of some process. It doesn't have to be some person manually dividing people. Your entire comment rests on a false premise.

> word such as segregation, which has connotations of 'by design' My entire comment does not rest on a false premise. 1) My comment commented on the use of the word segregation and it's implications. * and 2) the fact that the program is not racially segregated using any dictionary definition of the word. > Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a (natura…

Webster, Dictionary.com, Oxford and others define segregation as:

> separated or divided along racial, sexual, or religious lines.

Perhaps the NYC editor was using that definition. If you use any of those definitions, then yes your comment is objectively incorrect.

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

#99

Post by SamoyedFurFluff » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

Does anyone know if there are any real serious studies about the effectiveness of gifted programs in children to actually identify gifted kids and provide them with appropriate tools that justify giving them to gifted children only and not to disseminate to the entire population of children? Despite this discussion having >70 comments in it a lot of it seems to be intuition, anecdotes and gut feel without actual data behind them.

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

#100

Post by goldenkey » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

_hilro wrote: post #72

goldenkey wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> How else are we gonna detect the asshats if they don't tribalise themselves at Poly Prep? Maybe we can just judge them by what they put out in to the world? Such as naming their personal blog something really pretentious? Or you know, like, having utterly pretentious quotes in their HN bio? > churchofthought.org > Hardy couldn't have been more wrong about the innocence of pure mathematics. But we live by his legacy…

Personal blog as opposed to what, a corporate blog? And it's not just a blog, it's a literal incorporated church. Wait, did you get your ass handed to you in high school and never got over the swirlies? Perhaps we should dive in to some public CBT on HN so we can cure you of your anachronistic pent-up teenage angst.

That isn't a quote, it's something I wrote myself. Do you consider nuclear bombs or guided missiles to be benign? That's my point about Mathematics. If you read Apology of a Mathematician by Hardy, you'd understand the perspective I'm parlaying.

There's bullying at public schools but I took the bus and train back and forth to a gifted and talented high school every day for 4 years and it made me a tougher person. If you want to raise a fluffy lapdog, then maybe prep school is ideal.