251–260 of 922 posts
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If you let students attend any classes they wanted, I bet they would sort themselves appropriately. The rowdy kids won't want to be in a classroom where everyone is quiet and the teacher is explaining the central limit theorem.
but then the rowdy kids get left behind. You could argue that the rowdy kids are getting left behind either way.
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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.
In my city, the worst schools tend to pay a good 20% better than the best ones, for teachers. They get lots of federal and state aid. People still usually prefer not to work at them, if they have options, because the work environment is terrible.
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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.
The most important thing money can buy is more teachers. I went to chicago public schools. In my elementary school each class had 32+ students and 1 teacher. I was accepted to a gifted high school which had very successful fundraising campaigns. That allowed the school to hire extra teachers, lowering the class sizes to ~25. Meanwhile private schools have class sizes < 20. It makes a huge difference. When there are 3…
The idea that class size reduction is a highly effective educational intervention is at best ambiguously supported by the (many) studies of it. And it's a super expensive intervention.
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Just read what he wrote? > Black students are 66% less likely to be identified as gifted compared to white students with similar test scores. Black, Latinx, and Native American students are far less likely to attend a school that even offers a gifted program.
Unacceptably white is still a horrible way to phrase this. Is the NBA unacceptably black? Why don't we remove basketball courts from inner cities and cut off black kid's feet /s eye roll BTW, I realize he is arguing for the opposite of this. edit: If you think I am racist or something let me spell it out as I did in another comment: It is not unacceptable when white children have opportunities. It is unacceptable whe…
Whether the NBA is unacceptably racially biased is a problem so tiny that it is not worth spending any societal attention solving. That is not true of public schools.
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…
> 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 not my experience. I chose a more expensive house with higher taxes because the schools are better. They are better funded than those in the surrounding areas. Sure the Federal Government gives free meals but my kids' books and chromebooks are always nice and new.
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“Math is racist” is not what is being claimed in link #2. It’s math instruction that they claim to be racist. I have no idea if this is true but it’s at least plausible.
The veneer is quite thin. There are even more radical proposals [0] they are trying to introduce in High School classes. It's hard not to see the real agenda past the shallow arguments against gifted programs [1]. This was an enlightening read to say the least. [0] https://criticallyconsciouscomputing.org/ [1] https://unherd.com/2022/02/anti-racism-betrays-asian-student...
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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.
Private schools don’t significantly outperform public schools in the US when adjusted for the differences in student populations. There are some world class private schools in the US and some terrible private schools it’s really a mixed bag, just like public schools.
Gifted children are rare enough that they can be dealt with one at a time. I see no need for special programs. In contrast handicapped children may require special attention. OTOH I have seen students unwilling to attend a particular school b/c it has a reputation for behavioral problems and also low testing scores. So best spend money on improving education for all. I would like to see more usage of an old tradition…
Promote that camaraderie all the way down. Let them see what it's like in another's shoes. Etc. All of your arguments for putting the gifted in normal classes, but applied to normal students and children with learning dysfunctions.
Gifted students are special needs students. They exist on the entire other end of the spectrum than those with learning dysfunctions.