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California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

latimes.com

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Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#271

Post by [deleted] »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #206
bobfromsf wrote: post #90

As 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…

Don't sweat schooling. It's good for him to be with people his age, and he will be fine long term. Let him do extra curricular that fill his curiosity. When he gets to college he can really excel, until then just let him go to school and make friends with kids his age.

[deleted]

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#272

Post by s5300 »

nonameiguess wrote: post #50

I was in California GATE programs in the 80s and 90s. I was also (and still am, I guess) Latino, so it's not like there was universal exclusion if you weren't white. As far as I remember, being placed in these programs was entirely a matter of scoring high on some IQ test you were given in 1st grade. It's hard to say the program made any difference. We took some extra classes I barely remember. We had special summer…

>> but what else was I going to be served well by?

Probably MMORPGs if you had been in the 2003-2008 timeframe

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#273

Post by liontwist »

bobfromsf wrote: post #90

As 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…

Any school system is not going to provide any education for him. Just write it off, and take things into your circle of influence. He needs someone to teach him material at his level. Whether it’s a family member, or 2 dedicated hours a day with a tutor.

Now as others have pointed out here intellectual development is only one kind. You may see your son as exempt from certain requirements and activities, when he is really not. If you have dedicated time where his intellectual needs are met you will less tempted to step in and save your son from important life lessons.

It’s difficult to express exactly my experience. I know you are proud and excited for your son. But remember he is only with you for a short time, and being smart and getting degrees and jobs etc is such a small part of having a good life. If you only focus on that part he may have a very hard time and not be able to take advantage of his gifts.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#274

Post by psunavy03 »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #183
bobfromsf wrote: post #90

As 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…

In Seattle there is a strong movement to ban gifted education. The prospect of that becoming fully implemented has caused many politically progressive parents I know to move out to suburbs in some cases and red states in others. Even without bans there has been a tangible dumbing down of the rigor of schooling. And the forced introduction of weird political curriculums like ethnic studies in math ( https://www.king5.…

As someone who lives in the metro area, Seattle proper is honestly 142 square miles surrounded by reality, and terrified of the idea that somehow, somewhere, San Francisco or Portland might be doing a better job of saying and doing all the fashionable progressive things.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#275

Post by giancarlostoro »

csa wrote: post #10

It’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…

Had never read this before.

https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Edit: I've heard of it before, especially on HN and Slashdot, but forgot entirely about it.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#276

Post by PittleyDunkin »

snerbles wrote: post #197
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also learn outside of school, too. Expecting the school to cater to every student just isn't going to happen. Even at the swanky private ones. I was certainly capable of teaching myself in high school and skipping multiple years in certain subjects; why not just do that? Or find some other topic to learn about that isn't taught in school, like programming. As a former "gifted" child—which I thought was code f…

> You can also learn outside of school, too. As someone who spent time in all three, I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school. Sure, "learning outside" is always available, but that doesn't regain the time served in government mandated kid-prison. > In my experience all that people talk about how private and homeschooling affects your ability to socialize with normal people is true. In my expe…

> I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school

No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill.

> "You're so well-adjusted", is a frequent refrain.

Sure, some people make it work. I don't think this invalidates the broad observation that private and homeschooled people are frequently socially... off. I myself had a homeschooled kid in our town who transitioned to public school for high school and made a very gregarious time of it. Then again, his parents also had him integrate tightly with athletics for the decade before this over precisely the concern about socialization we're discussing. Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this. I'm just saying you can't expect to completely avoid normal people and then slot into them later in life.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#277

Post by liontwist »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #206
bobfromsf wrote: post #90

As 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…

Don't sweat schooling. It's good for him to be with people his age, and he will be fine long term. Let him do extra curricular that fill his curiosity. When he gets to college he can really excel, until then just let him go to school and make friends with kids his age.

I understand the sentiment, but you also can’t write off 18 years of development.

The mistake would be assuming public school will be both socially and intellectually fruitful. No man can server two masters. Budget time accordingly.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#278

Post by chasd00 »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #56
csa wrote: post #10

It’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…

What we oughta do is make a system where state education funding is equally distributed (per student capita) to all the schools in a state. Local funding by property taxes, while not most of the funding for schools, also needs to go. We also oughta try and tackle the administrative bloat on a federal level to get more of that money going to things that directly help students. I agree equality of outcome is a hopeless…

my wife has been teaching for about 15 years and i have one kid in HS and one in middle school. Adding money to a bad school makes it worse, we've seen it time and time again. The only time we've ever seen a school stop the downward spiral and turn around is when the neighborhood gentrifies or becomes hip and new people move there, have kids, and get involved and start holding feet to fire via school board and district elections. Even then, it takes a 5-10 years. It's not a question of funding it's a question of administrative competence.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#279

Post by ndriscoll »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #150
phil21 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> first generation Asian kids who didn’t grow up rich If those are the kids in a specific school/school system that happen to be the most academically gifted, then they should be the ones attending the gifted and talented programs. I don't see how them attending precludes anyone else from also qualifying though? That the demographics happen to skew this way in some number of school districts is interesting at best. R…

> Second generation immigrant children from first generation parents sounds like the American Dream working as-intended to me! If your definition of the American dream is the tiny fraction of poor Asian kids that get into Stanford you have a screwed up definition of the American dream, which is built on people that go to Cal State LA and never had G&T programs. > This can simply mean being a functional member of soci…

I'm not following your hyper focus on first gen Asian kids or the implication that gifted programs are only for Stanford-bound students. My ancestors have been in North America since the 16-1800s, I went to public K12 and university, and I've benefited quite a bit from having parts of my education that weren't a complete joke (I've done much better economically than my parents, for example).

Teaching high-aptitude kids at their level also does not require taking away from the other kids assuming you have enough of them to fill a classroom.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#280

Post by pnutjam »

hintymad wrote: post #168
laidoffamazon wrote: post #130

Earlier 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.

citation needed
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