The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021) • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by TameAntelope » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

derac wrote: post #295

minsc_and_boo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unacceptably white is still a horrible way to phrase this. Is the NBA unacceptably black? This statement is a textbook syllogistic fallacy. It ignores the qualification context for being gifted vs. being in the NBA. There are a number of historically exclusive systems, prejudiced on socioeconomic and racial standards, that are required prerequisites for being in a gifted school, which do not exist for being in the N…

No. It is not unacceptable when white children have opportunities. It is unacceptable when black children do not.

Nobody is saying "actively remove white children from gifted programs" they're saying, "when more people qualify for gifted programs than can fit in the program, consider including those who have fewer overall opportunities."

Those white kids will get other opportunities to be successful, and the non-white kids will get fewer of those opportunities, because society is racist as hell. Therefore, when you have a chance to give a non-white kid a shot at excellence, and they're qualified, give it to them.

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

#322

Post by Joel_Mckay » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #155

The elephant in the room: In the US, average East Asian IQ is 105, average white IQ is 99, average black IQ is 85-95. Nobody in politics can afford to admit that.

The highest IQ in US history belonged to a man that spent his life as a plumber by choice.

  According to several studies, the greatest predictor of early academic advancement is the financial status of the parents. While scientific hubris and narcissism tend to quickly dominate competitive environments in colleges, the irrational pretense of a meritocracy quickly degenerates when you enter the faculty area. Note that most academically successful students will do well regardless of the curriculum or instructor, and the funding they bring in later makes anyone popular with staff.

Perhaps you are asserting that “intellectual gifts” are justification for inflicting misery or undue burden on the general community?

I speculate one could likely outrun a one-legged physicist or a one-legged golden retriever just as quickly… but not escape their own cognitive biases.

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

#323

Post by IAmWorried » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

It's hard for me to tell how many of these "progressive" programs are motivated out of a sincere desire to make the world a better place, and how many are simply motivated by hate and spite, a "if I can't have it nobody can" kind of attitude. Certainly eliminating advanced classes seems to fall into the latter case.

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

#324

Post by kube-system » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

corrral wrote: post #203

willcipriano wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have to pay more to hire people to do harder jobs.

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

#325

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #272

arcticbull wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not sure how you can generalize from prisons to schools. Because private prisons are bad, so private schools are bad?

All sorts of past failed experiments:

- Private fire departments that used to show up at your house and demand payment in order to put the fire out, otherwise they'd just let your house burn to the ground. In Rome, they'd literally show up at your house, and buy it from you for pennies on the dollar before putting it out.

- Private prisons fail the people in the way I've described.

- Private healthcare fails Americans each and every day. 45,000 Americans die each year due to lack of access to care. One person dies every 12 minutes. Their goal is to deny you cover because each treatment they avoid paying for pads their bottom line and benefits their shareholders. It costs twice as much per capita as Canada, 60% as much as Norway - and yet fails to cover everyone and yields worse outcomes.

The generalization is simple: when your task is to provide services to the public, then profit must be secondary. In private enterprise, profit is primary. You fail the people when you provide core social services via private enterprise because you have fundamentally failed to align incentives.

Private social services are designed to fail the people.

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

#326

Post by logifail » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

abirch wrote: post #255

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: 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 Govern…

> my kids' books and chromebooks are always nice and new

There's plenty of evidence that parental attitudes are a big factor:

"Middle-class pupils do better because parents and schools put more effort into their education, according to a study [..] factors studied were the parents' interest in their children's education, measured by, for example, whether they read to their children or attended meetings with teachers"[0]

(Full disclosure: my wife and I read - and have read - to our kids almost every single night)

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/29/middle-cla...

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

#327

Post by dpbriggs » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

adverbly wrote: post #127

Gifted programs threads on HN are the new flame war battlegrounds... turns people into an armchair geniuses, ready to post solutions based on some anecdotal data. I pity the actual researchers in these fields. Must be tough to work in an area that everyone has an opinion on.

Why exactly is that a bad thing? It's repetitive but most people here are

- former children

- attended public education

- hated or loved aspects of that education

Of course they're going to discuss ideas.

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

#328

Post by victor9000 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

llbeansandrice wrote: post #88

derac wrote: post #11

Gifted programs are "unacceptably white". WTF does that mean? I had to pass essentially an IQ test to get placed into those classes. For me, it made a big difference in being engaged in schoolwork when every class consisted of reiterating content for days which I had mastered in minutes. Edit: I removed "I don't see what race has to do with it." I do see how race can affect this when the gatekeeper is a teacher with…

> I had to pass essentially an IQ test to get placed into those classes. IQ tests are notoriously and historically pretty racist. They can be useful in certain contexts but they aren't very good as an academic gatekeeper or a measure of individual intelligence.

Ok, I'll bite, how are IQ tests racist?

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

#329

Post by Retric » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #257

Retric wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s simply no private schools in poor districts to serve poor families. I am not sure how do you run the comparison.

Boarding schools exist, as do affluent areas next to poor ones.

Anyway, there are several ways to compare systems, some private schools operate in whole or in part on a lottery system so you can track students who do or don’t get in. But the most common method is to model parent education and income as a predictor of performance and then compare outcomes.

As you suggest poor students are underrepresented in private schools, but some do get in. The important thing to remember is a student who received a scholarship isn’t representative of the general population.

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

#330

Post by HWR_14 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #243

wbsss4412 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity isn’t a bullshit goal. As is typical, the concept get confused because one assumes that gifted programs correctly track students based primarily on ability, whereas in my personal experience and looking at the data, they primarily track students based on socioeconomic status. It’s not about denying that some students have the ability to excel in subjects in comparison to their peers. The question is whether or…

Socioeconomic status tracks with academic ability because more well off parents are more likely to read to their kids, participate in their education, and get them help when they need it. It’s a lot like how being tall tracks with being in the NBA, it isn’t a requirement but it sure helps. One of the hardest pills for education policy advocates to swallow is how important parental involvement is. Instead of bitching…

> people should be hammering parents to be more involved and actively, daily, participate in their child’s education.

And people shouldn't complain about the cost of gas, they should just buy EVs. The fact is, what you're asking for is really expensive. I imagine that the number of parents who would love to be reading to their kids or helping with homework but instead are working to feed and shelter them are quite high. In the US, I'd guess it's the millions or even tens of millions.