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)

#471

Post by concordDance » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #18

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…

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.

Got a link to the specific paper and description of how it was done?

Trying to chase it down just got me to this: https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-news/files/20190417222934/Gris...

Which seems like it just is saying that the proportion assigned to gifted programs was lower than what the average test score would suggest (notable when compared to hispanics), but hispanics could have a wider distribution (or a bimodal one), so this seems like a shoddy test. The correct check of the hypothesis would be to find the test score threshhold above which 50% of students get into the gifted program and see if this threshhold varies by race... but I can't find anywhere this is done.

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

#472

Post by jakelazaroff » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

car_analogy wrote: post #347

jmyeet wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the abstract of the paper you cited: > Yet race remains related to funding disparities and schooling experiences in ways that raise concerns about the role of school finance in perpetuating racial opportunity gaps. What you are pulling out seems to be narrowly-focused and highly-contextualized. Consider [1]: > Property taxation and school funding are closely linked in the United States. In 2018–2019, public educ…

> What you are pulling out seems to be narrowly-focused and highly-contextualized. It's the most straight-forward and objective measure. That the main result of a paper would be omitted from the abstract and "highly-contextualized" is not surprising, given social science's bias. If a study gets the 'wrong' findings, it tends to be rejected: The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review bo…

Suggesting that the authors intentionally omitted the main result of their study from the abstract and hid it under layers of obfuscating details for sharp-eyed readers to uncover is basically a conspiracy theory. The far more straightforward explanation is that the authors saw it as one fact among many that contributed to their overall conclusion stated in the abstract.

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

#473

Post by anthonypasq » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

lights0123 wrote: post #358

glerk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who didn't grow up in the American school system, I am a bit surprised that Algebra I in the 8th grade is considered "gifted education". If Algebra I is about solving linear equations with unknown variables, I am pretty sure I was taught this much earlier than 8th grade as part of the standard curriculum. But maybe this means something different in the United States.

Algebra I also generally includes systems of (2 or 3) linear equations, quadratics (different equation forms, factoring, graphing, solving) and basic exponential functions (although usually just recognizing them and filling in Ce^rt).

i dont think so, thats all algebra 2

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

#474

Post by kadabra9 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #227

WalterBright wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No surprise, in des moines all schools in the area get the same funding per student. This includes inner city schools, suburbs, and rural schools. Yet there is still a large difference in results with the inner city schools doing worse than the suburbs by far. Either it is cities elect different people to school boards (seems unlikely but I can't prove it), or family background makes the biggest difference. Many othe…

Careful, we're not allowed to point out that family background is the root cause.

The answer is always more money!

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

#475

Post by eric_b » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

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…

In Minnesota anyways, the schools in lower-income areas get more money per pupil than the "good area" schools. In some cases dramatically more. For example, the high school in north Minneapolis (a not-good part of town) get's $20k per student. Whereas the southwest Minneapolis high school (nice area) gets 13k. This is common across all grades.

So the disadvantaged area schools get 35%+ more money per pupil, and the outcomes keep getting worse. And the politicians keep doubling down on the same policies and wonder why things aren't changing. Money isn't everything, or apparently even most things. What a mess.

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

#476

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

mymllnthaccount wrote: post #122

WalterBright wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's so funny to me that people treat businesses and government so differently. Want results from your start up? Find someone to invest in it. Want results from a government program? Well, we need to cut out all the wasteful spending.

> It's so funny to me that people treat businesses and government so differently.

As we should. Businesses are rewarded for efficiency. Government is judged on effectiveness. It is a huge mistake to conflate the two and judge them on the same metrics.

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

#477

Post by scarmig » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #207

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…

It's a hard topic, and it certainly is not made easier by repeating old cliches that has been proven false repeatedly. Throwing money at bad schools does not make them good. There are plenty of terrible schools spending as much money as the best ones, with no results. It's not a money question - at least not alone. Yes, there are correlation between academic success and living in a rich neighborhood. Because yes, ric…

And, perhaps most unfortunately, it's schools in poor and disproportionately minority communities that are axing algebra and gifted programs in the name of equity, while schools serving children from more privileged backgrounds continue to offer them.

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

#478

Post by moth-fuzz » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

I'm not sure at the end of the day there's such a thing as 'intelligence', in terms of how we talk about it, like some sort of RPG stat. In my experience, kids aren't really 'smarter' than other kids, they have learning styles and brain patterns that match up with how the courses are run.

Anecdotes, I know, but I was terrible at math compared to the kids in high school who could all just memorize and regurgitate (I have ADHD & very poor working memory, and no random-access). These kids also regularly looked up answers to future quizzes they found online and bsed their way through. But, in college, which involves a more abstract and rigorous (and dare I say meaningful) understanding of the material, I excelled while many of my former colleagues fell behind as these were 'new problems' they couldn't just look up because they didn't have answers.

My point is intelligence is not a scalar axis in which some people are 'gifted' and some people are not, it's a multidimensional series of mental configurations that must be adapted to in the classroom and outside. Hire better teachers and pay them more is the only concrete thing I can think of. Gifted programs aren't the way as they're entirely arbitrary to a specific environment. The wrong teacher for the right student will ultimately make the student worse for it, and these programs don't account for how truly uninspired some teachers can be. Not to mention parents, or availability of learning materials, quality of libraries, etc etc.

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

#479

Post by anthonypasq » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

victor9000 wrote: post #328

llbeansandrice wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

you could theoretically have questions that rely on cultural background info to understand it. i imagine there are questions that a chinese student would understand and an american would not, but IQ tests and most other standardized test are rigorously tested to avoid this stuff.

they look for this and throw out offending questions on the SAT all the time

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

#480

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

Yeah this is a fact. I moved from SF to a suburb of Sacramento. Our SF school was absolutely horrible (and the main reason we moved). Our suburban school has a much smaller per-student budget but the student body is mainly from families where the parents are skilled tradesmen, white collar workers (mainly Asian or Indian), and state government workers. These families instill very different values in their kids than we saw in San Francisco. Although the suburb is highly diverse, 35% White, 30% Asian, 20% Hispanic, 15% Black, the student body is excellent. The high school here regularly sends a couple dozen seniors to Ivy League schools, and another 30-40 students to the UC System.

And though they have few resources and a bad football team, the students have a chess club, robotics club, various study groups and college prep groups.

There is also a big difference in what the kids here are focused on. In SF there was so much chatter about politics, protests, gender identity, and sexuality. Out here kids just seem to be focused on studying and after school activities.

I much prefer this environment