It's not because of BLM. It's because of Prop 13.
Specifically, Prop. 13's impact on commercial real estate, which was the real reason for it all along.
California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
161–170 of 553 posts
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society I wonder if the progressives ever wondered why so many Chinese students or Indian students could excel in the STEM programs of those top universities? Like we grew up with our parents making less than $500 a month in the early 2000s if we were lucky. Heck, a family from countryside or a small town probably made $200 a month…
It’s really strange that you have such emotional reactions to the concept of equity while my Indian middle class IIT educated dad who experienced Indian institutional failure in the 70s and 80s never really cared about if me or my sibling were in the G&T program. What separates you from the people that didn’t make it out?
I don't care about G&T program per se, either. Nor did my country have it when I grew up. I do care about education. I guess my fundamental assumption is that when everyone maximizes their full potential, the outcome will naturally be different. So, pushing students to realize their potential will be against equity, but will be the best way to minimize the equity gap.
Now the nuances for us in the US specifically: the US system is really good for the most and the least talented. The most talented get access to all kinds of free yet prestigious programs and camps, excellent books in local libraries, and professors in colleges. The least talented are carefully looked after, and they don't necessarily have much pressure to get into a college, and rightly so. It is, unfortunately, the vast middle who get hurt because they squander their time in school. They think they have learned, but they barely scratch the surface. NYT used to report that a straight-A student dreamed to become a scientist, yet couldn't even pass placement test of her college. Malcom mentioned in his book David and Goliath that a straight-A student failed her organic chemistry class in Brown University. Similarly in my personal experience, if it weren't for my teacher, I wouldn't know how deep I could go. If a student like me, who managed to stay top of the classes in elite universities, still needed intense nurturing from my teachers, I'd imagine many more do as well.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot of strong words thrown around regarding this topic. You need a little of both. Consider a re-framing: Rather than trying to focus on the less-achieving third (half, tenth, etc) with the goal of bootstrapping entire groups (for your definition) via equality of outcome, it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come fro…
> it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come from. Quite obviously. That's what's being strip-mined at the moment. I, and my peer group from "back home" would have had zero chances in life without these programs. We were not well off, and my peers did not come from families that had anything more than strong parenting - almost…
Generally I agree with you.
The part where I disagree is the 'why' and the 'who'. There are a number of very strong forces (aka lobbying groups, aka decisions like 'no child left behind') doing their best to destroy the public school system. By making this conversation about gifted vs not gifted, we are again distracted and pitted against ourselves.
Public schools should be well funded and funded in an egalitarian manner that doesn't replicate residential aggregation of race or money. It should be funded for kids who need remedial help, help appropriate for their age, and help because they're advanced. It should be funded so that people who move from one group to the next, and you can and do move from one group to another, are supported
IMO the goal of the lobbying and shit policy is to make private school the default option for those who can afford it and those who can barely afford it. Public school will be left to the masses, and will be defunded leaving a populous more easily controlled, with less social mobility.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#164I really think most of the education debate in elides the central issue, which is that there is no coherent vision of what education is for. We’re going to keep changing things with no progress until that’s settled.
To paraphrase Einstein, the challenge of our age is the greatest proliferation of means paired with the greatest confusion of ends.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing. Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. It's a ridiculous self-own. This is perha…
You are totally over romanticizing institutional learning. It’s worth abolishing and starting over.
A bold stance given your username.
Institutional learning has been around globally in a wide variety of forms. What is so heavily romanticized in your opinion
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. What does this even mean? To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. For example, I don't think we'd call the culture/society of the…
You can't imagine interpreting the parent comment for its clear face value -- that supporting outlier high achievers helps everyone in society? The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself. Meanwhile, societies like USSR and Communist China, that persecuted their geniuses, collapsed their previously great societies.
You are equating "persecuting genius" with "supporting those from low-opportunity backgrounds". Classic mistake, especially considering that those kids could become """geniuses""" too if they had a chance to even try. Giving a decent shot at those from disadvantaged households will ironically probably do more towards improving the number of high achievers than allocating too many resources to the children of the rich, which is what we're doing now.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#167As a father with a son with IQ over 160, I can tell you unequivocally that California thinks gifted kids are the enemy. Gifted children, especially profoundly gifted kids like mine are special needs. He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. Since my kid was a toddler we have had to completely rely on ourselves to figure everything out and we w…
What U.S. state has the best resources for kids at the gifted end of the spectrum?
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking resources away from those who move society forward And those people do not even have to be geniuses or top students. Our society moves forward on the back of millions of ordinary people, yet those ordinary people, me included, would benefit most from a rigorous education system.
lol, when people talk about these things they’re talking about the Lowell High kids that want to go to Yale, not normal people like me. Let’s be real here.
I'm not. All I want is that students get trained rigorously. The last thing I want is as what NYT used to report: a straight-A student who dreamed to be a scientist couldn't even pass the placement test of a city college. That shows how irresponsible our school systems became.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go on...Going to need a little bit more of an explanation here.
Prop 13 limits property taxes which are typically used for funding local schools. The comment is implying that it’s low school funding in Ca that is the culprit.
Property prices in California have skyrocketed in the last decase, and so have tax revenues. Spending more money wastefully won't solve the problem.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have much experience with how education works in California, or in the US in general. But there is one universal issue with special programs for gifted kids: parents. It's hard to distinguish gifted kids from average kids with ambitious parents. If you let ambitious parents push their kids to programs they are not qualified for, they can easily ruin the programs for the actual gifted kids. Gifted programs wor…
Naming the programs gifted and creating a gifted identity is the core issue. Instead, call it something like asynchronous development, and place kids in classes appropriate to their pace of development. I'm hopeful that AI can offer highly individualized education to each kid, and get around this issue entirely.
> Instead, call it something like asynchronous development
"Differently abled" works just fine both ways, that there is stigma attached to the title helps since it means parents wont push for it for no reason.