151–160 of 922 posts
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That is a bad analogy because the NBA is not the only accessible path to a stable middle class life while school, for many people, is.
So you have to be in gifted to have a successful life?
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> with similar test scores > with similar test scores > WITH SIMILAR TEST SCORES
Yeah, it's very easy to draw conclusions that suit your agenda when you use slippery terms like "similar." A score of 90 and a score of 100 are "similar" in the sense that they're both an A, but one is a bit more impressive. And that's not even getting into the possibility that the author is using an even broader range of test scores, like "students who make all As and Bs on tests." For all you know, he could then be…
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…
I was in one of these programs in middle and high school (1985-1990). My experience was that only a very small subset were selected to be tested. Most of the "gifted" students were born to parents who knew how to advocate for them and get them tested. (Mostly white, mostly upper middle class, many children of teachers.) I am certain that if every student had been tested, the composition of the gifted classes would ha…
But to your point, I was not able to take algebra until 9th grade due to reasons that felt a bit discriminatory as you'd described, but my mother was a maniac and no one liked her, so hard to say if that didn't add weight.
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…
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.
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 funding but not wealthy enough to be rich.
The real benefit to wealthy schools, in her mind (anecdata) was the number of single income households. Students and classrooms do a lot better when there are a bunch of volunteers.
Schools used to have Teaching Assistants. Dedicated, low-pay non-teachers who could help in classrooms. We don't have these (in my state) any more.
But the wealthy schools do. Because there are a lot of volunteer parents (mostly moms) who don't work and are happy to come in one day a week. When my MIL taught at wealthy schools, she often had 2 parents in her classroom every day of the week helping prep. In the poor schools she had Chromebooks for every kid (before that was the norm), but no help so she didn't bother breaking them out.
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So what happens when we decide "everyone is gifted" and teach all students at the level that would have been taught only to gifted students before? Seems like the obvious outcome would be a lot more students who struggle, necessitating a slower track for them. So instead of regular and gifted classes, you have regular and "non-gifted" (for lack of a better term) classes. This is why equity is a bullshit goal.
Equity isn’t a bullshit goal. As is typical, the concept get confused because one assumes that gifted programs correctly track students based primarily on ability, whereas in my personal experience and looking at the data, they primarily track students based on socioeconomic status. It’s not about denying that some students have the ability to excel in subjects in comparison to their peers. The question is whether or…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Equity isn’t a bullshit goal. As is typical, the concept get confused because one assumes that gifted programs correctly track students based primarily on ability, whereas in my personal experience and looking at the data, they primarily track students based on socioeconomic status. It’s not about denying that some students have the ability to excel in subjects in comparison to their peers. The question is whether or…
Equity of opportunity is acceptable. Equity of outcome is a bullshit goal.
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.
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…