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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

#81

Post by frmersdog »

This comment section is going to be a sh*tshow, but I think I agree with the author's central contention that the issue is one of lax definition, and a failure to prevent dilution of that definition by pushy parents. The racism aspect is a chicken-or-egg situation; whether such programs started as a way to allow engaged, mostly white parents to track and separate their kids from students of color, or merely became that, is probably a matter that varies by location, but the tensions that such a state conjures are clearly a major component of the initiative's undoing.

It once again comes down to us not being able to have nice things until that racial hysteria is resolved - minority parents assured that their children aren't being mistreated because of conscious and unconscious perceptions on the part of the school, white and affluent Asian parents assured that their children aren't going to receive a subpar education just because their child's class is double-digits percentage black/brown - and, perhaps more broadly, there is a decoupling of elite educational attainment and basic economic stability. Suffice it to say that anyone telling you that the only problem is that schools are Harrison Bergeroning their little prodigies either aren't acknowledging the whole story or are hoping that you don't know it yourself.

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

#82

Post by scarmig »

danans wrote: post #74
scarmig wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is institutional racism. The opportunity is not equal. The test is not a form of racism, institutional or otherwise. It's doubling as a proxy measure for the socioeconomic disadvantage the students have experienced up to that point. You can't get rid of socioeconomic disadvantage by refusing to measure it, no more than you can cure COVID by refusing to test for it.

> It's doubling as a proxy measure for the socioeconomic disadvantage the students have experienced up to that point. A socioeconomic disadvantage which in the case of California - and almost certainly elsewhere - is caused in significant part by historical racist policies (i.e. redlining).

Getting rid of a test that measures effects from redlining does nothing to eliminate the effects of redlining.

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

#83

Post by bachmeier »

resource_waste wrote: post #6

What is the goal for gifted students? Skip a grade and teach them stuff ahead of time (No, their social skills cant handle it apparently) Teach them extended topics... aka waste their time on stuff they can already do. I was able to skip 1 grade in college due to my insistence on taking college classes in high school. Everyone from parents to teachers were against it. Had a random adult I met working tell me about it…

> I was able to skip 1 grade in college due to my insistence on taking college classes in high school. Everyone from parents to teachers were against it. Had a random adult I met working tell me about it and I got it in my head.

I don't know your circumstances or when you were in school, but my son is in high school in Kansas, and he's taking university classes with the encouragement of the school. And not easy classes, either. One of them is a proof-based Calc III. I'm working with a high school student to give them a research experience (they obviously can't do much, but they get exposed to the research process, which is pretty exciting). The high school gives them credit for doing it.

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

#84

Post by frmersdog »

couchdb_ouchdb wrote: post #67
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…

We just ejected from Seattle Public Schools for this reason. My daughter, as a gifted student, was basically ignored by her teachers for the last 3 years because she was smart, and therefore they didn't have to worry about her. But, by ignoring her, she atrophied. Her standardized testing scores dropped every year. She no longer cared about learning. It truly is a regression to the mean.

In what way are you certain that she's gifted?

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

#85

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

atomicUpdate wrote: post #14

> There’s little doubt that racism played a role in identifying children as gifted even though the label was based on supposedly objective criteria. Why has the LA Times settled on racist teachers as the only reason for the skew in enrollment numbers, and why aren’t teachers upset the LA Times are calling them racists? I’m constantly surprised how often accusations like this are thrown around and how little pushback…

It's really surprising they can't make the logical conclusion from what they wrote that they just point blank accused teachers as being racist.

So are we saying that teachers purposely disproportionately identified asian and white students as gifted? Can we not just admit that asian and white students usually have more learning resources provided to them during their younger years (both due to cultural and economic reasons) and thus in a typical classroom they will be the more likely to stand out academically before jumping to the race card. They've decided to skip straight past logic and straight to identity issues this time.

I am a "white-passing" latino (i.e. nobody assumes I'm latino until they hear my last name) and I was in the gifted program in California growing up. Plenty of the people also part of that program were black or latino themselves.

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

#86

Post by hardwaregeek »

Did people read the article? There's actually some interesting points about how gifted/advanced curriculum isn't always the solution. I'd have to agree. I went to a magnet school, so already presumably for "gifted" students, that in turn had advanced courses like honors or AP. And while there were students who genuinely benefited, myself included, it also became a game of getting into the most advanced course so you could have it on your college applications.

Also, imo, the vast majority of students did not benefit. It's not like they were all brilliant. They basically passed a standardized test that they spent a few years in prep classes to pass. What this measured was whether your parents were tapped into particular social circles and knew to put you in prep. Once you were in the school, if you wanted good teachers, you had to take honors. I had a fantastic history teacher who talked about how he loved teaching regular history, but he was constantly pressured by administration to only teach AP. So for a lot of students who didn't have the grades to do honors, they got stuck with the mediocre teachers. Not to mention, psychologically, it sucks being in the bottom 50%. There were so many kids who thought they were dumb or underachievers, but were really just in the wrong environment. When they went to college, they blossomed from not being in such a rat race.

I'm not saying the solution is to eliminate gifted programs, but let's not pretend that they're universally great for kids. They're often much more status games than actual educational fulfillment.

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

#87

Post by chimpanzee »

surgical_fire wrote: post #57
ironlake wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> settled on racist teachers If the population of gifted kids is statistically over-represented by white kids, then one of these must be true: • The test doesn't measure giftedness, but rather level of education. So we would expect kids from worse schools to perform worse. This is institutional racism. The opportunity is not equal. • Gifted kids from minority communities don't have equal access to the test or the cla…

> They all took the same test, white kids came out on top. This is a racist belief I am not even white, but something there in your rationale does not make sense. If they all took the same test and white kids were on top, how is this a belief? Is there a word missing somewhere? Is the implication that the test was rigged? It is an honest question, I couldn't follow the rationale there.

you missed this relevant (albeit, unspecific) fragment when you extracted the quote:

> with a millennia of discredited science to back it up

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

#88

Post by JoshTriplett »

AstralStorm wrote: post #9
resource_waste wrote: post #6

What is the goal for gifted students? Skip a grade and teach them stuff ahead of time (No, their social skills cant handle it apparently) Teach them extended topics... aka waste their time on stuff they can already do. I was able to skip 1 grade in college due to my insistence on taking college classes in high school. Everyone from parents to teachers were against it. Had a random adult I met working tell me about it…

Teach them more skills and/or use the extra time they do not need on their strong sides to boost weak ones with extracurricular activities. Yes, you cannot skip a grade, but nobody is stopping a kid from going to a later grade for some classes really. The school social atmosphere has to be right for it though. But nobody wants to pay for it.

> nobody is stopping a kid from going to a later grade for some classes really

Nobody should be, but many people are.

At a minimum, the college-style model of subject-based classes and prerequisites for those classes should start much, much earlier, in elementary school.

There are elementary-school students who should be in calculus classes, and there are high-school and university students who should be in remedial arithmetic classes. (Though in some cases the latter would be less true if K-12 hadn't failed them so badly thus far.)

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

#89

Post by foogazi »

phil21 wrote: post #32
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…

> 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…

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward

Do gifted students move society forward ?

Where is society moving to ?

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

#90

Post by bobfromsf »

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 were utterly ignored. We have had to go to private school because California does not skip grades even though it’s obvious the child doesn’t belong in the grade level for his age. My kid is 6 grades ahead in math, scored over 175 in his VCI and they refused to even entertain the idea of skipping even a single grade.

California is doing whatever it takes to drive away any family that cares even a modicum for their children’s education and had the means or is willing to sacrifice to ensure their children are adequately educated. Meanwhile they are dropping the requirements at the same time, so the gap between private school and public school educated kids keeps growing more and more.

It’s pretty telling that in SFUSD, 50% of the black and brown kids graduate high school without being able to read properly. The real racism isn’t gifted kids, it’s dropping the educational standard for those that can’t afford private school so that they graduate and can’t compete when they get into the workforce because they have been undereducated their entire lives.

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