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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)

#691

Post by havblue »

DAlperin wrote: post #669
havblue wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think public schools are underfunded? Any chart I've seen has shown the opposite, if you compare our schools to other countries'.

Having been in public school for most of my life I can say unequivocally: yes. It is not uncommon for teachers to purchase books and classroom supplies out of pocket since there simply is not enough funding.

Most estimates I've seen of funding for New York students is $25k to $30k a year though. I would think that's more of a sign of incredible corruption and mismanagement and not that there isn't enough money to go around.

To compare, Stuyvesant High School, the best in NYC, is $18k per student.

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

#692

Post by sokoloff »

TameAntelope wrote: post #676
sokoloff wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is qualification already being done today , such that the set of people qualified is larger than the available seats? Is there no adjustment whatsoever possible to that process? If the people running that process had had a slightly tighter set of criteria, would the outward appearance be dramatically different than the path they took to get to the "slightly too many qualified" condition?

There is no adjustment whatsoever possible that will accurately further qualify/disqualify students from a gifted program, that is correct. Simply "tightening" the existing fuzzy criteria will only further arbitrarily limit qualified students.

That's exactly my point. There's a system today that has some amount of arbitrariness to it. Tweaking that system slightly is almost surely arbitrariness-preserving, likely not increasing or decreasing it significantly.

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

#693

Post by thegrimmest »

corrral wrote: post #600
thegrimmest wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Single parent households are perfectly capable of raising children who value education, cooperation, sobriety and non-violence. I would know, I grew up in one, as did many of my peers. The key difference was and continues to be culture. The question is who is accountable for culture? Is it "society", or the individuals who perpetuate that culture in their own households?

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

#694

Post by SamPatt »

thegrimmest wrote: post #662
jacobolus wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good teachers are wasted on troublemakers and class clowns It is entirely natural for children to “clown around” in a boring setting, and their lack of interest / trouble focusing reflects a societal (and school) failure to make school engaging and give them the appropriate challenges and direct feedback to keep their attention. Many of the greatest human breakthroughs were made by people who were squirmy and distr…

School was never meant to be "engaging". It's not recreation, it's work. The problem seems to be that we've lost the value of working hard and pushing through things we find dull and uninteresting, in order to attain a greater goal. Instead we expect everything to be engaging, stimulating and entertaining. Real world success is not like that - it's work - so better get into the habit early on.

If school is work then we need to recognize the children's own agency in school, otherwise it it literally slavery.

Forcing children to spend the majority of their lives working against their will leads to problems, especially among non-conformists.

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

#695

Post by s1artibartfast »

ODILON_SATER wrote: post #648

Gifted programs as we know, are basically advanced programs for shape-rotators, which closely relates to IQ. The IQ distribution is different across race groups, therefore you expect to have more representation of certain groups relative to others. It's obvious that Asians --I am not Asian-- perform extremely well in IQ tests compared to other groups. Same with Ashkenazi Jews. These groups would have, relatively spea…

It is worth noting that IQ is heavily impacted by environment and nurture, especially so at the ends of the spectrum.

When different groups have different home and social environments, it is expected that there will be IQ differences.

It is strange that people can be vocal about the harsh conditions difference groups are subjected to, but in denial about the damage done by those conditions.

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

#696

Post by dgfitz »

googlryas wrote: post #528
dgfitz wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory that 2-parent homes make a world of difference. Maybe if there was reliable male birth control there wouldn’t be so many single moms working 3 jobs because dad left and the children don’t have a second parental role model, or even a first because they never see mom.

Condoms are a very reliable form of male birth control. And, it may be hard to understand, but there are certain fairly popular subcultures where men brag about how many different kids they have with different women.

Why would that be hard to understand?

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

#697

Post by thegrimmest »

zozbot234 wrote: post #682
thegrimmest wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School was never meant to be "engaging". It's not recreation, it's work. The problem seems to be that we've lost the value of working hard and pushing through things we find dull and uninteresting, in order to attain a greater goal. Instead we expect everything to be engaging, stimulating and entertaining. Real world success is not like that - it's work - so better get into the habit early on.

> School was never meant to be "engaging". That's backwards. A school that doesn't engage its students has failed at its most important goals, and the very best schools have always striven to be engaging. Often this was done in unconventional ways, such as directing the youngest students to memorize their pre-set "lessons" word for word and be able to literally chant them back to the teacher. Similarly "direct" yet e…

I guess we're circling around this question: Should schools bend to the natural tendencies of students, or should students bend to the rigours and structure of academic life?

Given that society itself doesn't bend much, I'm inclined towards the latter.

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

#698

Post by danans »

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, but the PTA at the higher performing (higher income) school pays for additional educational programs, like art, second language, science, etc. This amount is referred to in the PTA language as "the gap" in public funding for basics.

At the low performing school, the extra public funds received are often paying for support staff for serious social issues. There is little budget for the "nice to haves", and even when there is, the school staff has it's hands full managing the basics, so it's not always effectively utilized.

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

#699

Post by dgfitz »

zozbot234 wrote: post #490
dgfitz wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory that 2-parent homes make a world of difference. Maybe if there was reliable male birth control there wouldn’t be so many single moms working 3 jobs because dad left and the children don’t have a second parental role model, or even a first because they never see mom.

It's a factor among many. The other POV is that single parenthood matters less than you might expect, because others in the broader family or community can contribute to raising those kids. Which might actually work if you had that community orientation in the first place!

At least one resource disagrees [1]

> According to Amato’s research, sociologists warn that many children of single parents are born into undesirable circumstances. These children have a higher likelihood of being poor, committing crimes or using drugs. Many sociologists agree that childhood’s adverse effects outlive youth.

[1] https://www.everydayhealth.com/kids-health/what-are-effects-...

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

#700

Post by corrral »

thegrimmest wrote: post #693
corrral wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Single parent households are perfectly capable of raising children who value education, cooperation, sobriety and non-violence. I would know, I grew up in one, as did many of my peers. The key difference was and continues to be culture . The question is who is accountable for culture? Is it "society", or the individuals who perpetuate that culture in their own households?

It can both be true that a particular single-parent household is very successful, and that if you study an entire population and control other variables, single-parent households are less successful than two-parent households.
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