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

teachforamerica.org

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

#591

Post by tristor »

zozbot234 wrote: post #534
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

This comment is such peak HN. Maybe the people in SF don't care about these decadent bourgeois values that are so easily espoused, and would rather do their rightful part in fighting structures of oppression and injustice!

Let me translate:

> decadent bourgeois values

Values that produce measurably better life outcomes for participants.

> would rather do their rightful part

Refusing to participate thereby harming their own future and the community surrounding them. Or worse, actively encouraging others to reject values aligned with success.

> fighting structures of oppression and injustice

Fighting the most meritocratic system of governance we’ve had thus far in human history, whereby following values of success leads to success, whether you’re born here or elsewhere, and whatever your color, creed, or gender.

I am not sure if you’re being serious, but if you are, you should know advocating for crab bucket mentality does nothing to help the impoverished.

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

#592

Post by ceeplusplus »

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…

Math isn't racist. Whether you can pass an Algebra exam is not racist. If Asian kids who can barely read and write English can ace the exam, then so can poor minorities who were raised in the US. You can't claim word problems are suddenly racist when people who can barely read English are still acing them.

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

#593

Post by dixie_land »

rsync wrote: post #308
citizenkeen wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My MIL is a teacher, and she's taught at wealthy schools and poor schools. Wealthy schools have more money, but they actually often have less - if a school's average socio-economic class drops below a certain point, there's a slew of federal funding available and she often had more resources in a poor school than a wealthy one. The poorest schools are often the middle-class - those too wealthy to qualify for the fund…

"The poorest schools are often the middle-class - those too wealthy to qualify for the funding but not wealthy enough to be rich." That is a very interesting anecdote and conclusion - thank you.

This is also true in general, middle class gets squeezed.

All of the lefts “tax the rich” and welfare state initiatives end up hurting the middle class.

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

#594

Post by paulcole »

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…

> which many dubbed the No Child Gets Ahead Act.

This is a good example of why Wikipedia doesn't allow this kind of statement.

If you google this phrase, "No Child Gets Ahead Act", you get 4 pages of results ("About 84 results", which I don't know if I would call "many" in a country of 300 million plus people.

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

#595

Post by bombcar »

sokoloff wrote: post #576
scarmig wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Arguably the entire private school benefit can come down to "we can expel your kid".

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

#597

Post by travisgriggs »

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…

Myth or not, it’s not all about money. But as Americans we love to always reduce it to this axis.

My father was a very successful/loved elementary school teacher for 40+ years. For many of those he worked for the same school in the same district. In 25+ years he watched the demographics drift from the wealthier families in the districts to one of the backwaters. They got as much money as the other schools in the district. But financially stressed families provide a lot less support for their kids’ education. They don’t have stay at home parents who improve the room experience. They’re not as able to provide the volunteer support to participate in extracurricular activities like field trips and competitions and after school enrichment things. Parents who are in “just survive” mode will telegraph that approach to their kids’ schooling efforts. Parents who have discretionary bandwidth and appreciate that more education got them there, telegraph that to their kids.

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

#599

Post by Joel_Mckay »

slothtrop wrote: post #407
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> inflicting misery Is that what you suppose gifted programs do?

From one perspective, isolation or artificial peer group selection can lead to aberrant moral, social, and cognitive development. There is more to life than worksheets and exams.

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

#600

Post by corrral »

thegrimmest wrote: post #533
corrral wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the central problem with US schools isn't the schools . It's our broken policing and justice system, our bad social safety net, and our poor worker protection, among other things like the ongoing consequences of racist city planning. We will never move the needle very much, on school quality, by focusing on schools.

I'm not sure the broken policing and justice system account for a culture which glorifies violence, rejects education, promotes drug use, and encourages irresponsible procreation. In fact these things are relatively recent changes in poor urban culture, this isn't the mindset poor people had in the 50's (when policing and justice were much, much worse). I'm not saying that these things are inherently "wrong" (save th…

It doesn't create a poor educational culture on its own, but excessive incarceration leads to more single-parent (even zero-parent, in a sense—think: living with aunts/uncles, grandparents, et c.) families, worse job opportunities, et c, while ineffectiveness at actually curbing crime (despite our high incarceration rate) leaves lots of these kinds of areas wracked with criminality and violence on top of the damage that our policing and punishment approaches do.

That and the school-to-prison pipeline are contributing to the overall problem of—at the heart of this issue—multi-generational, persistent slums. The justice system is far from the only problem, which is why I listed others and left things open-ended to account for the huge list of other things that contribute, but it's part of it. However, I don't think much can be done about it by addressing only issues with the justice system, absent broader social reforms.

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