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)

#571

Post by com2kid » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #542

com2kid wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

>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. Over around 18 years of having various maths topics in schools The only thing that required some "non-math" knowledge were cards related questions and maybe dice but what is that tennis counting example? do they actually appear on IQ questions? how about maths exams?

I've seen plenty of problems involving scoring in various sports. I've seen stats taught using baseball batting averages and tons of problems involving football scoring.

Oh and poker hands.

I can easily imagine an IQ test 50 years ago involving scoring in bridge games.

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

#572

Post by nlittlepoole » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

MockObject wrote: post #394

nlittlepoole wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re describing why you believe it’s okay to discriminate against that Asian student because there’s “too many yellows, not enough blacks”. Not really. If intelligence is equal between races and a system is an actual meritocracy, then the balance between groups should be the same. One group outperforming indicates a difference in circumstances. If you believe those circumstances aren't because of disadvantages th…

> or that one group has a more effective culture > Generally, there is a lot of animosity within the black community toward ̶A̶s̶i̶a̶n̶ people who tend to believe any of the above In my experience, there is much, much discourse within the black community regarding culture, and how it affects success.

Absolutely there is but the way that those outside the group make it seem is that we're 100% responsible for how the culture that exists got to where it is. The mainstream culture has problems but a lot of those problems are the result of historical inequities. It needs to be fixed but all of American society needs to see it as something they are also responsible for fixing and not fixing by simply pushing people to adopt the cultural norms of another group of people.

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

#573

Post by lazide » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #483

cyberlurker wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC they also flatten all Asians into one group and say the “gifted” programs aren't diverse enough because a high percentage are Asian. As if implying Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc. all have the same life experience, cultures, advantages, disadvantages… Also you nailed it on the property tax point. Often overlooked as the biggest issue with education. A similar sized home in a good school district ca…

Call me a radical, but to me "our race laws don't have the best categories" is the wrong level to deal with this. The US has never been without race laws, so I see how it's hard to imagine not having them, but that is what I think is needed.

I think it’s pointing out how absurd the system is for the people actually in it. If you dig deeper though, it’s just another way of trying to define blocs of power (or no power), and draw arbitrary lines to get benefits or avoid being singled out.

There is no objective definition for race or ethnicity I’ve ever found for instance, but to quote a controversial Supreme Court justice, everyone goes ‘I know it when I see it’.

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

#574

Post by lettergram » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

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

#575

Post by twistedpair » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

car_analogy wrote: post #133

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…

> 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'm not sure where the difference comes from, but it's there.

When I visit some public high schools in suburban CT, they look nicer than my college campus.

When I visit public schools in rural VA, they're a cluster of trailers and dilapidated structures that don't even have air conditioning, let less modern amenities.

So, maybe it's the taxes, or the highly active parents, or donations, but there's a visible difference, more than "$200" per student. Of course, how far and effective each dollar is WRT to outcomes is a different matter.

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

#576

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #556

nscalf wrote: post #432

It's probably time to stop letting people in our society that are not building up systems terrorize the rest of us with scarcely hidden threats of slandering your name as a racist. There is nothing racist about having a merit based system within education. If the problem is that it is not entirely merit based, the solution comes from improving the on ramp, not from destroying the program. We should treat people who w…

There are plenty of students (more than some) in non-gifted classes who genuinely want to learn and work hard. But there are two issues that make those classes terrible: 1) Teachers dedicate 80% of their instructional time to the 20% worst performers, and every incentive pushes them in that direction. 2) More than that, it only takes one or two kids with behavioral issues to reduce teachers' instructional time from n…

I'm pretty nearly convinced that the primary signals derived from many private school interviews are "parents will pay the tuition" and "kid will not be a behavioral problem".

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

#577

Post by vorpalhex » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #565

nscalf wrote: post #432

It's probably time to stop letting people in our society that are not building up systems terrorize the rest of us with scarcely hidden threats of slandering your name as a racist. There is nothing racist about having a merit based system within education. If the problem is that it is not entirely merit based, the solution comes from improving the on ramp, not from destroying the program. We should treat people who w…

The general issue with merit-based systems is the definition of merit. In practice there are strong cultural aspects to it, favoring characteristics the dominant group likes. So merit-based programs end up conferring the most advantages to those best conforming to the ideals of the dominant culture, strengthening the dominant culture. It's debatable (at least) whether that's a good thing... if you consider the domina…

> In practice there are strong cultural aspects to it

Study, do your homework, behave? What "strong cultural aspect" do you see?

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

#578

Post by micromacrofoot » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

My issue with gifted programs, and this is the reality in many cities: wealthy kids with tutors and intelligent parents are the ones benefiting.

This essentially creates a two-tiered schooling system, and since it's very tightly tied to income, this further exaggerates economic disparity, which is closely tied to race.

My city's school system is comprised mostly of minorities (~80% black, hispanic, and asian) and the gifted programs are predominantly serving wealthy white kids (~50%).

We also have exam schools. The most popular exam school in my area receives tens of millions of dollars in private donations. If you combined the private fundraising of the bottom 90% of schools in the district, it's still less than this one school. This school is also 50% white in a school system where only 15% of the kids are white. So we've essentially created a private school in a public system.

I understand why people don't want to eliminate gifted programs, but they are further exaggerating economic (and racial) disparities. I have not seen any good solutions for this, but it does feel incredibly unfair.

Having been someone who was poor and happened to be in a gifted program, I personally don't think the benefit is worth the divide.

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

#579

Post by wbsss4412 » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #500

wbsss4412 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We clearly have different interpretations of that metaphor.

The point is to demonstrate agency over the systems we create. What’s the flip side of that scenario? People aren’t given stools to stand on and tall people get to watch while short people don’t? Who built the fence? Why is it that height? Why aren’t there bleachers?

Is just sitting there doing nothing equality of opportunity somehow?

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

#580

Post by eggy » Wed, Jun 08, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #316

bsuvc wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the work environment terrible?

This is correlated with poverty, not race, per se- it's all about the culture of the students. A relative of a friend is a teacher in rural Iowa, an almost all white school. She teaches young students who have no concept of respect for authority or value in learning- getting cussed out by a kindergartener (ages 4-5) is not exactly an unusual thing she has to deal with. As kids get older, they fall into drugs and / or…

Yes, poverty not race. I grew up below the poverty line in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. My neighborhood was the background in Hubert Selby Jr.'s, "Last Exit to Brooklyn". My friends were Irish, Italian, Dominican, and Puerto Rican mainly. There were gangs, drugs, violence, throughout my whole childhood in and outside of my family. My parents never finished high school. All of my inner core of friends did OK, because their parents instilled values in them regardless of all the crap around. BTW, without a phone, a TV in the early years, and of course decades before the internet, we were happy in our bubble. I didn't realize how bad it was until I started hopping on trains with my friends to NYC on the subway at 10 and 11 without our parents, and then the world popped open when I went to high school in NYC. Even my friend Junior's sister, who got pregnant at age 14, managed to finish high school there, and go on to college because of a two-parent household and grandma upstairs. I became an honor student, got accepted to major universities, and have been successful considering where I started. To me a lot is the negativity found everywhere. I still have friends from the baby carriage, and it just seems a lot of excuses are made when kids should be encouraged to rise up and try their best given the circumstances. I look at the preface of a book I still have, "The Boy Engineer: The Study of Engineering from Prehistoric Times to the Present (A Popular Mechanics Book Series)" (no gender wars please - the book is from the 50s!), and knowledge is seen as the key to the universe and doing anything you can imagine. I looked at my daughter's high school chemistry text and there is so much about the doomed earth, planet, life, which is OK to an extent given some real world issues, however, it dominates the narrative. Science is seen as limited and a point of view, not the wondrous thing that brought awe to me when I looked at the stars on my rooftop with binoculars with my Mom when I was 8 or 9. I shouldn't mention hearing gunshots one night with her on the roof, but I will for a bit of darkness for the doom-and-gloom types!

PS: I think putting education on such a high pedestal has demeaned the integrity and honor of working with your hands. I also believe it was a panacea given to the poor as a carrot, and is not the only way out of poverty. Hard work counts!