This is why school choice matters. Parents can send their kids to whatever school is best for the kid, not whatever school is best for the teachers unions.
California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
241–250 of 553 posts
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The inventor of a vaccine or a microchip or a sculpture doesn't hoard the invention for themself The built-in assumption is that those outlier high achievers & inventors were gifted students. Is there any evidence for this prior? As a devil's advocate, my counterpoint is that "grit" was more important than raw intelligence, if so, should society then prioritize grittiness over giftedness? A few months ago, there wa…
Yes, there is a high correlation between intelligence (no matter how you measure it throughout childhood) and achievement in adulthood. A huge, massive difference. Obviously there are exceptions. Somebody seeming like a bad student is not one. Do you really need a citation for that?
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#243Earlier 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…
What is good for a society and what feels just are often disparate things. But it is not unjust on a human scale that some people are born with lower potential than others. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life. What is just then? To whom is it just to invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society? To whom is it just to -not- invest in people who are particularly…
> invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society?
So you would rather have the cleaning lady, the garbage collector, the truck driver,... not got proper read/write/calculate/economics... education and increase their chances of ending on the side where they fall for addiction instead?
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#244For those who may not be aware, this was precisely the spirit of why affirmative action existed and why I personally supported it. These are the type of things that happen when our society misunderstands an executive action (because it was never a law) and debates in bad faith the intent of the premise for political purposes.
I agree that focusing on 'equality of outcomes' is not a good fit for our American culture and it should be about 'equality of opportunity'.
From wikipedia (which quoted Harvard): "Affirmative action is intended to alleviate under-representation and to promote the opportunities of defined minority groups within a society to give them equal access to that of the majority population."
If focus is illiberally applied to the outcomes, then those at the edge of the bell curve are denied opportunities that likely work for them, i.e. the slashing of gifted programs as a gifted student.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#245It’s not just California, but California may be one of the more egregious state neglecters. The push at the state level for policies that focus on equality of outcomes over equality of opportunities will not end well for the gifted and talented communities. Whenever I hear these people talk about their policies, I can’t help but recall Harrison Bergeron. Focusing on equality of outcomes in a society that structurally…
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…
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Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You said a few weeks ago that
> As many countries demonstrated, wealth does not buy good genes. Talented kids stand out, as long as we have a decent public school system, which places a high academic standard and holds teachers accountable. That's how East-European countries and Asian countries produce high-quality students.
What implications does this have for all students getting trained rigorously in the public school system? People that also speak of genes like Charles Murray say this is a fool's errand and that we should effectively just throw them off the ship.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#247Earlier 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…
If you looked at my resume you wouldn’t think I’m “moving society forward” - I went to a public undergrad with a 50% accept rate. What do you think should happen to people like me?
You don't seem to have the right perspective to talk about things at scale like this. Taking that personally is unfathomable.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#248It’s not just California, but California may be one of the more egregious state neglecters. The push at the state level for policies that focus on equality of outcomes over equality of opportunities will not end well for the gifted and talented communities. Whenever I hear these people talk about their policies, I can’t help but recall Harrison Bergeron. Focusing on equality of outcomes in a society that structurally…
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…
Is it the kids who are chosen that make a program "work best", or the teachers and curriculum? Why not let anybody who wants to try it, try it?
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are not supposed to talk about this.
Exactly. Which is why it is a problem. In the 1950s, gifted education was pushed hard, because the US seemed to be losing against Russia. Sputnik was a big wake-up call for the US. Today, the US seems to be losing against China. Maybe it's time for a wake-up call again.
The US is a _very_ different country now from how it was in the 1950s. Things that were possible then may not be possible now.
Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO any student that is 1-2 years ahead can be considered gifted for the purposes of parents who are thinking about how to optimize public or private education for their kids. Based on how a lot of education systems work in the US (recognizing only discrete progress in a student), if your child is 1-2 years ahead then that's worth recognizing and start nurturing. That's about when public schools also recognize the gi…
The OP strongly tries to claim (before contradicting herself in the concluding pargraph) that gifted is a major psychological difference, not merely being smart and a fast learner.
Can you quote where you are seeing that I didn't get that reading at all from GP.