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The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

teachforamerica.org

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Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#191

Post by zozbot234 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #138
whatshisface wrote: post #3

> I agree that it is unacceptable to have eighth grade Algebra I classes and gifted education programs that disproportionately exclude Black and brown children. But if equity is the goal, we should be mandating that every eighth grader takes Algebra I—and then structure the entire pre-K to seventh grade student experience to ensure this is a legitimate possibility for every child. Since when does equity mean everyone…

Subject categories such as "math" are also very broad. I struggled with math in elementary school, because it was mostly about memorization. 3 + 5 = 8. 6 x 7 = 42. Learning and being able to spit out those facts as quickly and flawlessly as possible was most of what I remember about math as a young kid. I was never good at that. I still am not good at that. I got Cs and sometimes lower grades in math. Somehow, though…

You struggled with math in elementary school because of deeply flawed teaching. Even at that early age, it's not hard to understand that "3 + 5 = 8" is not something that you'd need to literally memorize. Of course, the fact that teaching quality can vary to such an extent is itself noteworthy.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#192

Post by brian_cloutier »

bobkazamakis wrote: post #168
car_analogy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the US funds public education (K-12) is rather unique. It's done through property taxes essentially. Depending on your state and city your property taxes can vary a lot with the same value property. But what this means is the wealthier localities have more tax revenue and thus better schools. This is an oft repeated myth. In addition to property taxes, school funding is supplemented by state and federal budgets…

>This is an oft repeated myth. In addition to property taxes, school funding is supplemented by state and federal budgets, in inverse proportion to property taxes, so that racial differences in per-pupil funding are negligible: >on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15, respectively - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2…

What makes it so bad, and what would be a better way?

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#194

Post by danans »

willcipriano wrote: post #160
car_analogy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the US funds public education (K-12) is rather unique. It's done through property taxes essentially. Depending on your state and city your property taxes can vary a lot with the same value property. But what this means is the wealthier localities have more tax revenue and thus better schools. This is an oft repeated myth. In addition to property taxes, school funding is supplemented by state and federal budgets…

I've taken a close look at the numbers for individual schools in my tri-state area, (NY, NJ, PA) and from my estimate it seems that lower performing schools far and away have the highest per student budgets.

It is much more expensive to teach and support the children at lower performing schools than it is at higher performing schools. Lower performing schools are also providing significant front line social support services for the communities they serve, including food, trauma counseling, sometimes medical intervention, extreme behavior management. None of that is cheap.

Students/families at higher performing schools have far lower need for support systems.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#195

Post by bee_rider »

WalterBright wrote: post #104
jmyeet wrote: post #51

There are so many topics that are hard to talk about nowadays without getting into politics but politics and structural inequality are at the core of this. For the benefit of non-US readers, know that how the US funds public education (K-12) is rather unique. It's done through property taxes essentially. Depending on your state and city your property taxes can vary a lot with the same value property. But what this me…

I've never been convinced that more money for schools produces better results. Sure, that means nicer buildings, but how does that improve education? In Washington State, the teachers finally got their "fully funding" proposal enacted, which was supposed to solve all the funding problems, including big raises for teachers. There's been zero change in results.

I mean, even assuming they spend all the money on better buildings -- if the building is so poorly made that the heat or air conditioning don't work, then that will be distracting, resulting in worse education.

The public school in the town I grew up in had lectures in these shitty trailers that were supposed to be temporary (spoiler: they became permanent). They couldn't afford to hire enough teachers to do small classes, but if they had the money for that, there wouldn't be enough rooms put them in.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#196

Post by havblue »

A lot of my friends in the city I went to college in would have been on the "equity" side of this debate as well, until they had kids themselves. It dawned on them that their kids in public schools may not be able to get algebra in eighth grade anymore. And good luck with long division. So after they realized their kids will get a worse math education than they had, they changed their tune.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#197

Post by tyjen »

whatshisface wrote: post #3

> I agree that it is unacceptable to have eighth grade Algebra I classes and gifted education programs that disproportionately exclude Black and brown children. But if equity is the goal, we should be mandating that every eighth grader takes Algebra I—and then structure the entire pre-K to seventh grade student experience to ensure this is a legitimate possibility for every child. Since when does equity mean everyone…

The state I occupy doesn't allow accelerated programs for students to help them advance to a higher level math than originally projected, they only allow it for students to catch up. This is the opposite of what the previous state I lived in which allowed motivated students to advance, but they're also turning gifted programs into lotteries versus achievement.

My daughter is in the high school math club, so she frequently talks with math teachers and they reveal what state or county school districts are intending for future high school students. Earlier this week, a teacher was ranting to the club about new guideline goals that either the state/county was pushing, that all (most) incoming 9th graders take Algebra 1.

I understand they're attempting to narrow the achievement bandwidth in public schools on the basis of race, but this appears to be creating societal inefficiencies and decreasing equity overall. Sort of like, how someone could have a PhD in physics and working as a middle school science teacher, they'd effectively be underemployed or underutilized in society due to lack of demand for particle physicists; however, unlike limited particle physicist positions, in the students case, they don't have to be limited or underachieving in classes. Further, the additional problem this push for public school equity is decreasing equity, without imposing the same limitations on private school, homeschool, or charter school students, this mechanism is increasing the divide between the haves and have-nots. Either lens you evaluate this from, either equity or utilitarian perspective, this is a poorly executed plan that isn't going to achieve success in equity; unless, equity strictly means racial categories and doesn't include wealth/income inequality.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#198

Post by robonerd »

bobkazamakis wrote: post #168
car_analogy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the US funds public education (K-12) is rather unique. It's done through property taxes essentially. Depending on your state and city your property taxes can vary a lot with the same value property. But what this means is the wealthier localities have more tax revenue and thus better schools. This is an oft repeated myth. In addition to property taxes, school funding is supplemented by state and federal budgets…

>This is an oft repeated myth. In addition to property taxes, school funding is supplemented by state and federal budgets, in inverse proportion to property taxes, so that racial differences in per-pupil funding are negligible: >on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15, respectively - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2…

How would you measure "racial differences in per-pupil funding" if not with difference in expenditure per-pupil?

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#199

Post by jugg1es »

We should not be punishing smart kids even if some of those smarts may be due to income inequality that may have some basis in racial inequality. It's not the kid's fault that their grandparents generation thought that lower taxes were better than good governance.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#200

Post by arcticbull »

temp8964 wrote: post #190
300bps wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $6,000 per student figure is from 1998 according to the link you provided. Today, the crappy school district near me pays $15,900 per student and the good school district near me pays $19,800 per student.

If you give a business $15,900 per student ($1.59million per 100 students), they can run much better than most public schools, especially than those public schools in crappy school districts.

If that's true why do private prisons have such higher recidivism rates? This is simply false.

> Mamun et al. (2020) report on studies that demonstrate that recidivism rates in private prisons are between 16.7% (Spivak & Sharp, 2008) and 22% (Duwe & Clark, 2013) higher when compared to public prisons. [1]

When providing services, private companies do worse because their charter is not to provide services per se, it's to make money. These are antithetical in the world of social services.

Private enterprise isn't a solution to every problem. It's a solution to a lot problems. However police, fire, healthcare, education, regulation and so on are services in the public interest and should be provided therefore be provided by the public.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.6721...

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