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)

#491

Post by twblalock » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

DAlperin wrote: post #335

Alright, I don't imagine this will be a common take here but here goes. I am a product of the New York City public school system. I have spent the majority of my life as a student in it. The New York city public school system is both the largest public school system in the country and the most segregated. The argument about removing gifted programs are built on the faulty assumptions that the students in those progra…

> When we are calling for an end to "gifted" programs in New York, it is not because we "hate smart kids" but because we want resources to be evenly divided so that everyone can get a well funded well rounded education, not just the rich kids in gifted classes. This is not a single issue but is a larger component of an attempt to dismantle segregation in public schools.

Ok, then that's what you should ask for. Ask for a more even distribution of resources.

If you single out the elimination of a specific program as a proxy for what you really want, you shouldn't be surprised when the discourse fixates on your targeting that program -- especially when it's a program for gifted students. By doing that you've made it very easy for your opponents to portray you as someone who would rather bring all students down to the same level than allow differences in ability to be cultivated.

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

#492

Post by atx42 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

My quick take on "gifted" programs. * These are really supposed to be for kids that learn differently, not necessarily "smarter". * The percentage of kids in these programs is higher than should be expected. * The number of kids that happen to have teacher parents or some possible inside track seems high.

I think people hear "gifted" and think they are being left out, but that's not supposed to be the case. Sort of the difference between classroom and home school, sometimes one works better for a kid than the other, not that one is necessarily better than the other.

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

#493

Post by ars » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #322

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…

This:

"the irrational pretense of a meritocracy"

and this:

"most academically successful students will do well regardless of the curriculum or instructor"

Are contradictory - if the smarter students do well regardless, then it's not something in the school, home, or environment, that are making them do better. They are simply smarter, and that's not something you can create in other people.

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

#494

Post by car_analogy » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #472

car_analogy wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not a conspiracy theory, but an empirically validated fact, as the study in my link showed. It is not the only one with such findings:

Ceci et al. (1985) found a similar pattern. Research proposals hypothesizing either "reverse discrimination" (i.e., against White males) or conventional discrimination (i.e., against ethnic minorities) were submitted to 150 Internal Review Boards. Everything else about the proposals was held constant. The "reverse discrimination" proposals were approved less often than the conventional discrimination proposals. - https://jsis.washington.edu/global/wp-content/uploads/sites/...

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

#495

Post by zozbot234 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #472

car_analogy wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's suggesting a disagreement as to what counts as "main result". That's quite normal and need not imply any conspiracy.

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

#496

Post by mturmon » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

6502nerdface wrote: post #430

danans wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

I wonder if another factor could be: - in higher performing schools, parents fund a number expenses directly through a very active PTA, so those expenses don't show up in the school's official spending per pupil, while - at lower performing schools with less active and more impoverished PTAs, those same expenses must be funded by school budgets, driving up their official per-pupil spending.

Absolutely. Case in point, the La Canada (LA area) Educational Foundation -- https://lcfef.org/endowment/our-story/

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

#497

Post by com2kid » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:34 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?

Let's take a math story problem.

Give an upper class white kid a problem involving tennis scores, no problem. The kid will be able to easily understand what is being talked about, there isn't anything mentally jarring going on.

Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely.

My, largely well to do, neighborhood has tennis courts. The more diverse, and poorer, neighborhood I grew up in, didn't. I am still not sure how tennis is scored, but I am pretty sure the kids in the house next to me understand it.

Repeat this idea a few times with some of the other tests. Give some word recall lists using words poor/minority kids aren't accustom to. It is harder to recall words that you have never heard before, they are basically nonsense syllables, which is a very different test. If you had thrown "quiche" in the middle of a word list 8 year old me would have had no idea what you were talking about.

Modern day IQ tests have tried to correct for these biases, but school administrators can choose an "older" test to purposefully get biased results.

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

#498

Post by tssva » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

It has been decades since I was in school. I was in the gifted program and found it to be an utter waste of time. My daughter is now in a gifted program and we both find it to be an utter waste of time. I attended a school in a middle class area and my daughter attends a school in a fairly wealthy area. Is there any studies which show a benefit to gifted programs in schools which are adequately funded?

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

#499

Post by ge96 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:35 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…

Didn't think about this much until later. The town I went to high school in they had two high schools about 2 miles apart and one had more minorities than the other (as in 80% vs. 20%) and yeah the former was poorer than the latter.

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

#500

Post by commandlinefan » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #159

abfan1127 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity of opportunity is acceptable. Equity of outcome is a bullshit goal.

Equality of outcome is not the goal of equity. That’s a straw man argument created by its detractors. People point out disparities as evidence that there aren’t equal opportunities in society. The conservative position is simply to assert that equality of opportunity exists cuz America, and if you question that you are a communist who just wants everyone to be the same.

> Equality of outcome is not the goal of equity.

They actually say that it is - have you seen the famous comic where the three guys are watching the baseball game but the short guy can't see through the fence? They literally are saying the equity of outcome is the beginning and the end of their goals.