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Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees.
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Sep 17, 2015 20:24
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Obdicut posted:The system doesn't exist as a system. There is no system. There are a large series of ad-hoc approaches. What you are describing as an ideal gifted program is in place almost nowhere, because testing for aptitude for learning is extremely difficult--a test administered one way will show a child has high aptitude for learning, administered another way will show that they're a dullard. Getting the kid into the test in the first place, getting them to take it seriously, to believe it will affect their life--all huge problems in testing. IN addition the political pressures as explained by Main Painframe tend to make 'gifted' testing reflect what politically powerful parents want more than what kids need or deserve. In addition, the idea that children who get in for achievement but don't have aptitude will fall behind is fallacious, because children don't exist as lone entities; the same things that contributed to that child having been able to achieve in the first place are likely still in place. Imagine a child with aptitude to learn, who lives in the same room with three of his brothers and experiences food insecurity on a regular basis, to a kid whose parents have the wealth to provide them with materials in anything they show an interest in, who can hire tutors, and who gets a good, well-nutrient-ed, lead-free, non-asthmatic night of sleep every night. A strong educational system is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between classes. It is the phenomena of teacher instruction. It's my hypothesis that the idea of gifted and the testing of it are not pre-given entities which are seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over various forces of education, from its administrators to its its teachers. Remember, the gifted and talented were rejected and persecuted at the precise moment when your commentary against tracking became incontrovertible, when it was forbidden to say that the emperor had no clothes ntan1 fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 20:50
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Effectronica posted:Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees. Except a properly administered gifted program shouldn't have that problem, because there's no particular reason to teach a different curriculum that's otherwise inaccessible to "normal" students. That just creates more work for very little benefit. In my program, we followed the same curriculum as everyone else, and received the same credits; the only difference was the demands of the coursework and the rate at which new material was presented. If anything, taking the GATE version of those courses was a disadvantage for admissions, because the class was more challenging. I agree 100% that giving students in the gifted program some kind of "advantage" as a result is foolish policy. The only advantage I remember was not being bored out of my goddamn skull all day. The very point of it is to make things more difficult, in a sense, so that the kids remain engaged and actually learn study skills that they will eventually need. Apart from counterproductive egotism, I don't see what would be the gain of having a non-gifted child in a gifted program. It really sounds like most, if not all, gifted programs in the US are horribly, horribly run, and it seems like most of what's being described here isn't really about how best to teach gifted kids. I guess I got very lucky that my program was well-run and not just some political poo poo-show. PT6A fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 20:51
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PT6A posted:I think the most productive definition is the one I bolded, and I think the "high-performing" bit is irrelevant and actually harmful to the concept of gifted education. That's what's allowing for gifted programs to be used as a segregationist run-around, and it's both morally wrong and detrimental to gifted children themselves. In a properly-administered gifted program, one would see children who got in merely for being high-performing eventually become average, before ultimately falling behind the children who got in for having a high aptitude for learning. That's how a gifted program ought to work, and indeed in the program I was in, exactly that sort of attrition could actually be observed. Further, a gifted education program should not require advanced knowledge in the first place. A proper gifted program should be able to cater to a student who lacks fundamental skills or knowledge, but does have the high aptitude for learning, and the entrance process should be able to identify those students. This is one of the reasons why testing based on things like vocabulary is nonsense. Actually, you've got it exactly backwards. "Aptitude for learning", being literally impossible to measure reliably and objectively, is the condition that turns gifted programs into a segregationist's dream. School performance, while still tilted incredibly unfavorably against minority students, is at least a basically objective standard. Aptitude, being essentially unmeasurable, is the subjective element that transforms gifted programs from a simple magnification of the education system's problems into a beast all their own. PT6A posted:Except a properly administered gifted program shouldn't have that problem, because there's no particular reason to teach a different curriculum that's otherwise inaccessible to "normal" students. That just creates more work for very little benefit. In my program, we followed the same curriculum as everyone else, and received the same credits; the only difference was the demands of the coursework and the rate at which new material was presented. If anything, taking the GATE version of those courses was a disadvantage for admissions, because the class was more challenging. I agree 100% that giving students in the gifted program some kind of "advantage" as a result is foolish policy. The only advantage I remember was not being bored out of my goddamn skull all day. If new material is presented faster, and the coursework is demanding and more in-depth, then how do you not end up learning more than the kids in the normal classes? The basic range of material may be the same, but you're covering more information, one way or another. No, you don't get extra credits for it, but that's not the point - there's potential to learn more, for years and years (in the US, many kids are shunted into gifted programs as early as kindergarden), and the difference in teaching coverage over the course of their schooling will make itself felt ten years down the road in the form of higher standardized test grades and more recommendations for honors classes and other such programs.
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Sep 17, 2015 21:08
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Effectronica posted:Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees. My specific argument was, "It's highly beneficial, and in specific cases is an admissions requirement" not "it's an absolute requirement for every case out there". It's also helpful when competing against those who can afford to attend private prep schools, in terms of admissions and achievement.
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Sep 17, 2015 21:23
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Main Paineframe posted:Actually, you've got it exactly backwards. "Aptitude for learning", being literally impossible to measure reliably and objectively, is the condition that turns gifted programs into a segregationist's dream. School performance, while still tilted incredibly unfavorably against minority students, is at least a basically objective standard. Aptitude, being essentially unmeasurable, is the subjective element that transforms gifted programs from a simple magnification of the education system's problems into a beast all their own. For that to work, the person or organization doing the testing would have to be complicit in using the program to achieve those ends, though. This would probably count as some variety of professional ethics violation, so I find it difficult to believe that it would be achievable on a large scale. quote:If new material is presented faster, and the coursework is demanding and more in-depth, then how do you not end up learning more than the kids in the normal classes? The basic range of material may be the same, but you're covering more information, one way or another. No, you don't get extra credits for it, but that's not the point - there's potential to learn more, for years and years (in the US, many kids are shunted into gifted programs as early as kindergarden), and the difference in teaching coverage over the course of their schooling will make itself felt ten years down the road in the form of higher standardized test grades and more recommendations for honors classes and other such programs. So, the alternative should be that kids who learn faster should simply sit there and be bored, forbidden from learning things that might give them an advantage somewhere down the line? That's loving ridiculous, you know that, right? You're talking about making kids suffer, when it would be easy to prevent that suffering, just to maintain some notion of equality. That's reprehensible, and I'm glad the people in my school district had no such ridiculous notions.
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Sep 17, 2015 21:25
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Main Paineframe posted:The underrepresentation of minorities in gifted programs nationwide is a well-known and well-documented problem and has been for decades, despite the fact that many districts refuse to provide statistics for it; I'm not just talking anecdotally there. Gifted lobbies even have their own special terms for the racial disparity; NAGS calls it the "excellence gap", for instance. This article goes into the reality of gifted programs in the US, as well as their history, origins, and the problems they face in defining the undefined. Certain minorities are significantly overrepresented in gifted programs. In your NYT article above, for example, it's easy to compute that over 75% of Asian students are in gifted classes (compared with around 55% of white students). The issue there happens to be that Asians only represent 6% of the overall proportion of the school -- you'd see a substantially different demographic distribution in gifted classes elsewhere. As far as white, upper-class families are concerned, I think that private schools cause significantly more pernicious effects than public gifted programs.
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Sep 17, 2015 21:58
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the concept of gifted classes and students is such bullshit pretty sure the "gifted" kids are the ones with higher earning not-poo poo parents
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Sep 17, 2015 22:04
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Effectronica posted:Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees. Look, if you want to institute a Harrison Bergeron style Handicapper General because ensuring equal status is more important than customizing education to a student's ability then you should just say so.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:04
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archduke.iago posted:Look, if you want to institute a Harrison Bergeron style Handicapper General because ensuring equal status is more important than customizing education to a student's ability then you should just say so. I think he's wondering why the only people getting a customized education are the ones that already excel in the current system.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:06
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computer parts posted:I think he's wondering why the only people getting a customized education are the ones that already excel in the current system. That's not actually what's happening though, if someone claimed that special ed programs should be dismantled because they instituted a hierarchical status difference they would be laughed out of the room. Yet the analogous view seems to be in vogue wrt the other side.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:09
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computer parts posted:I think he's wondering why the only people getting a customized education are the ones that already excel in the current system. And you're quite correct that that's a bad thing. Removing that from the children currently receiving it would be a bad thing; instead, we should be discussing how we can provide a better, more appropriate education for all children. This is like when people complain about unionized employees getting high salaries and benefits and whatnot like it's a bad thing. No, those are things that all workers should have, not something to be stripped away from the few who have it.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:12
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archduke.iago posted:That's not actually what's happening though, if someone claimed that special ed programs should be dismantled because they instituted a hierarchical status difference they would be laughed out of the room. Yet the analogous view seems to be in vogue wrt the other side. huh maybe the pc police really have gone too far then if this is what gifted means now DISCLAIMER: I do not in fact genuinely believe that archduke.iago is claiming that so called gifted students are mentally handicapped. I am using sarcasm to insult iago for making what I consider to be an obviously simplistic equivalency between both groups of student. I also don't believe that the "PC Police" are a thing that exists, and my usage of the term was supposed to imply that I'm giving iago's argument as much consideration as I would someone who's genuinely worried about them. Ernie Muppari fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 22:12
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PT6A posted:For that to work, the person or organization doing the testing would have to be complicit in using the program to achieve those ends, though. This would probably count as some variety of professional ethics violation, so I find it difficult to believe that it would be achievable on a large scale. No it wouldn't. The lack of any large scale conspiracy is exactly what makes institutional racism so difficult to combat - everybody at every level of the system insists that they're not racist in the slightest, but when you gather the statistics and add everything up, it emerges that a large percentage of subjective decisions made by the many individuals in the system were biased against minorities! You've dodged this question before, so I'm going to put you on the spot: How do you propose that we identify kids who "learn faster"? No, don't answer this with a cop-out like "I'll leave that to the professionals", because the professionals don't know either. I've been alluding to this more and more heavily as the thread's gone on, but I'm going to say it straight out: the reason that the criteria and procedures for identifying kids who have an "aptitude for learning" are such a mess is because nobody has any loving idea how to do that. That's why some districts use standardized tests, some use IQ tests, some use school performance, and some just give a slot to every parent who asks rhe right questions: there is no wide-ranging agreement or consensus in education for how to identify kids who are better at learning. Nor, for that matter, are we even entirely certain that there is such a thing as "objectively better at learning". The old idea of a simple straight-line spectrum with "fast learners" at one end and "slow learners" at the other is no longer certain. There probably are differences in learning ability, but like I said before, those are probably mostly obscured by the differences in learning style. Gifted kids, rather than being just straight-up superior at learning, may simply be particularly good at absorbing information in the way that it is currently taught in schools. A better method of teaching might very well eliminate that disparity - not just bringing underperforming students up, but alleviating the massive difference in pace that allows gifted students to get so far ahead that they become unbearably bored.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:46
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PT6A posted:And you're quite correct that that's a bad thing. Removing that from the children currently receiving it would be a bad thing; instead, we should be discussing how we can provide a better, more appropriate education for all children. Indeed, this issue keeps being treated like a zero-sum game when instead we should be looking towards proper funding, property tax equalization, not insisting that schools be responsible for solving poverty, systemic racism and so on. The idea that some kids should have to give up their educations for other kids is loving crazy - they're all kids and they all deserve a great education that fits their particular needs. It should be us adults who should be figuring out how to give this to everyone, not take away from some to give to others.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:47
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archduke.iago posted:That's not actually what's happening though, if someone claimed that special ed programs should be dismantled because they instituted a hierarchical status difference they would be laughed out of the room. Yet the analogous view seems to be in vogue wrt the other side. The point of special education is, ideally, to annihilate the hierarchy around disability and enable disabled children to get an equal education. Many schools do not do this or attempt this, which would be worthy of a thread in a parallel universe where people didn't squeak, "Harrison Bergeron!" when it came to the idea of universal public education.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:48
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Solkanar512 posted:Indeed, this issue keeps being treated like a zero-sum game when instead we should be looking towards proper funding, property tax equalization, not insisting that schools be responsible for solving poverty, systemic racism and so on. Seriously, anyone can achieve their fullest potential. Who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our own choosing. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of education. The teachers you have can't be changed but, but perhaps the system can be challenged.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:58
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Solkanar512 posted:Indeed, this issue keeps being treated like a zero-sum game when instead we should be looking towards proper funding, property tax equalization, not insisting that schools be responsible for solving poverty, systemic racism and so on. The thing is, it doesn't even necessarily take that much in the way of extra resources. These students would be entitled to receive a public education regardless of how it's delivered. You needn't hire extra teachers, or build extra facilities or anything of that nature -- you only need to have a teacher who is willing to present the same information in a slightly different way. It seems like a large part of the objections are just that they don't want anyone to get "further ahead," despite the fact that gifted students often struggle when they aren't in gifted programs. Main Paineframe posted:No it wouldn't. The lack of any large scale conspiracy is exactly what makes institutional racism so difficult to combat - everybody at every level of the system insists that they're not racist in the slightest, but when you gather the statistics and add everything up, it emerges that a large percentage of subjective decisions made by the many individuals in the system were biased against minorities! I would use a comprehensive IQ test designed and administered by a professional, ideally one not employed directly by the school in question. I would try to design such a test around a variety of "puzzles" instead of knowledge. These tests aren't perfect, but they're a drat sight better than basing decisions on prior academic achievement or standardized test results, which are deeply flawed and have their own biases, as has already been discussed.
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Sep 17, 2015 23:08
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The problem is that even IF you successfully isolate 'gifted' students and give them accelerated materials, the program itself will become a status symbol. As a teacher I have definitely met parents who want their child to be academic overachievers and put a lot of pressure on them. If the program exists, parents will want in. Some sort of private tutoring will probably help the kid get in; if you're poor your chances for admission will be inherently shittier because you have less access to those opportunities. To anecdotally back up Painframe: I was a 'gifted' kid. Or at least , I read quickly, I enjoyed reading, and I had good verbal recall. It meant everything till Sophomore year of high school was a complete breeze; when I got into more advanced classes I hit a wall because my study skills were nonexistent. Looking back at it I had poo poo artistic and social skills and my math skills were only above average. But if you were testing my ability to repeat back information I read in a book I looked like a loving genius.
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Sep 18, 2015 00:10
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PT6A posted:This argument can be applied to anything ever. Just because it's impossible to avoid structural inequality entirely shouldn't mean that you simply eliminate gifted classes entirely. I didn't say it was, though, so why are you saying this to me? quote:Why not just act to minimize inequality, and administer the program in such a way that it's as good as possible even if it's not perfect? The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. But is it good? You're assuming that it is.It might be that making a 'gifted' class that is entirely self-selected would work best. Maybe some other form would work best. Maybe having the gifted kids in class, but in their own discussion group--which is what CC recommends--will work best. Maybe teaching the smart kids study skills and group collaboration and the things they haven't had to learn because they're smart would be a good idea If all you mean by 'the program' is 'attempt to educate bright students well' then of course no one will argue against that. That the nature of this program should be a 'gifted' class or track that you place into through testing is not something you can automatically assume is good. quote:The thing is, it doesn't even necessarily take that much in the way of extra resources. These students would be entitled to receive a public education regardless of how it's delivered. You needn't hire extra teachers, or build extra facilities or anything of that nature -- you only need to have a teacher who is willing to present the same information in a slightly different way. If it's the same information, it's really not what we're talking about. It's presenting different information. It does require more resources--just like making classes that are targeted at people who have poor textual recall or some other problem take exta resources. quote:It seems like a large part of the objections are just that they don't want anyone to get "further ahead," despite the fact that gifted students often struggle when they aren't in gifted programs. Nobody has this objection. quote:I would use a comprehensive IQ test designed and administered by a professional, ideally one not employed directly by the school in question. I would try to design such a test around a variety of "puzzles" instead of knowledge. These tests aren't perfect, but they're a drat sight better than basing decisions on prior academic achievement or standardized test results, which are deeply flawed and have their own biases, as has already been discussed. What will you do when this test still winds up selecting the wealthier and the whiter, and replicates what we've going on now? There aren't any kinds of testing that aren't affected by SES and prior preparation. quote:It's clear that improvements can and should be made, even if it's not possible to create the ideal gifted program. The program I described was the one that I was in, so it can be done, in a public school no less! Is this going to be another "this can't possibly work in America because reasons" even as it's actually being done elsewhere in the world? No idea where you get this idea about this can't possibly work in America.The same problems adhere to the rest of the world too. Solkanar512 posted:
So we shouldn't take resources away from the kids at the low end of the scale and give them to the kids at the top end of the scale. The best teachers should be teaching the slow students, not reserved for the best students. Right? ntan1 posted:A strong educational system is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between classes. It is the phenomena of teacher instruction. It's my hypothesis that the idea of gifted and the testing of it are not pre-given entities which are seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over various forces of education, from its administrators to its its teachers. If you can rewrite this in non-totally-pretentious language I'd be able to understand what you actually mean, though I suspect there's not actually a lot of substance in there. blah_blah posted:
It's a very compelling argument to spend those educational resources for the structurally disadvantaged, isn't it? Obdicut fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Sep 18, 2015 |
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Sep 18, 2015 00:23
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Noam Chomsky posted:pretty sure the "gifted" kids are the ones with higher earning not-poo poo parents Yeah, there's huge correlation between the above and the designation of 'giftedness', and it's not because of some pure meritocracy where rich people have superior genetics and pass these down to their children. And this is a Bad Thing and should be addressed. But the fact that economic and social differences accumulate and cause substantial differences in achievement by the time students are e.g. in high school makes a case for differentiating education according to the varying needs of students, not the opposite. Attempting to reverse broader systems of inequality or achieve 'social justice' through forcing unprepared and over-prepared students through an identical curriculum which is ill-suited for both is not a sensible use of resources, and produces predictably poor outcomes. Effectronica posted:Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, Sure, but so does e.g. postsecondary education, and you could argue that the advent of the computer and other similar technological advances have done the same. So that alone isn't a particularly compelling argument. I mean, forcing rich students to have the same mean childhood exposure to lead as their poorer counterparts would probably reduce structural inequality.
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Sep 18, 2015 00:24
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blah_blah posted:Yeah, there's huge correlation between the above and the designation of 'giftedness', and it's not because of some pure meritocracy where rich people have superior genetics and pass these down to their children. And this is a Bad Thing and should be addressed. But the fact that economic and social differences accumulate and cause substantial differences in achievement by the time students are e.g. in high school makes a case for differentiating education according to the varying needs of students, not the opposite. Attempting to reverse broader systems of inequality or achieve 'social justice' through forcing unprepared and over-prepared students through an identical curriculum which is ill-suited for both is not a sensible use of resources, and produces predictably poor outcomes. Wouldn't you say It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction? No matter what engineering field you're in, you learn the same basic science and mathematics. And then maybe you learn a little bit about how to apply it.
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Sep 18, 2015 01:44
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Maybe we should put all kids in the gifted program.
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Sep 18, 2015 02:03
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PT6A posted:So, the alternative should be that kids who learn faster should simply sit there and be bored, forbidden from learning things that might give them an advantage somewhere down the line? That's loving ridiculous, you know that, right? You're talking about making kids suffer, when it would be easy to prevent that suffering, just to maintain some notion of equality. That's reprehensible, and I'm glad the people in my school district had no such ridiculous notions. Um, the status quo of separating gifted kids from the rest of the student population also causes harm. You (and a number of other posters in this thread) seem to only be looking at things from the perspective of a gifted child; probably because that's the only experience you personally have. Non-gifted (for lack of a better term) students benefit greatly from being placed in classes with more gifted students and suffer from being relegated to inferior classes. Ideally it would be possible to provide a high quality education to all students in a way that doesn't result in schools where all the gifted classes mostly consist of well off white/asian kids (which absolutely is currently the case; children in well off families generally perform better in school for a number of reasons*). Maybe this is possible, and I don't feel equipped to argue that it isn't possible. I just find that a number of posters in this thread seem to be concerned only with gifted children, despite them only making up a tiny portion of students (again, this is likely because you were a gifted child yourself and, like most people, sympathize more with people like yourself). *Just to elaborate on this, it's not completely clear what the all the causal factors are, but lower income students (of which minority students are disproportionately a part) absolutely do poorer in terms of academic achievement than those from better backgrounds. Whether this is due to factors directly related to wealth (like the stress or poor nutrition often associated with poverty) or things indirectly related to it (better schools being in more wealthy districts, which is more due to the massive economic(+racial) segregation in American communities), it is still an important factor.
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Sep 18, 2015 02:45
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Ytlaya posted:Um, the status quo of separating gifted kids from the rest of the student population also causes harm. You (and a number of other posters in this thread) seem to only be looking at things from the perspective of a gifted child; probably because that's the only experience you personally have. Non-gifted (for lack of a better term) students benefit greatly from being placed in classes with more gifted students and suffer from being relegated to inferior classes. I agree with your premise to a certain point. Lower-achieving students clearly benefit, in certain situations, from being in classes with higher-achieving students; however, this is only the case with gifted students if those gifted students are high achievers, and it doesn't stop being true when the high achievers are simply students with an average aptitude but a great work ethic. Secondly, this is only the case when there's actual interaction between the students. When the same basic concept is being covered for the umpteenth time by the teacher, the students who learn faster are sitting there bored off their asses, and the other students are deriving no benefit either at that point. quote:Ideally it would be possible to provide a high quality education to all students in a way that doesn't result in schools where all the gifted classes mostly consist of well off white/asian kids (which absolutely is currently the case; children in well off families generally perform better in school for a number of reasons*). Maybe this is possible, and I don't feel equipped to argue that it isn't possible. I just find that a number of posters in this thread seem to be concerned only with gifted children, despite them only making up a tiny portion of students (again, this is likely because you were a gifted child yourself and, like most people, sympathize more with people like yourself). I can empathize with students who struggle with school, and do not learn as quickly as I did/do, but I have no idea what that's like and I don't know what can or should be done to alleviate that problem. Certainly something should be done, but I don't know what. Treating gifted children as beasts of burden who ought to suffer in order that the other students do better, I don't think is a workable solution. If I have to put up with misery in order to do something for other people, that's basically a job, and I should be getting paid (or some other form of benefit). A big problem, I think, is that students are compelled to attend school, and compelled to attend every class.
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Sep 18, 2015 03:03
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Ytlaya posted:Non-gifted (for lack of a better term) students benefit greatly from being placed in classes with more gifted students and suffer from being relegated to inferior classes. This is not substantiated by the NBER paper I referred to earlier (which I just realized that I failed to link to correctly -- see here). Students who just make it over the cutoff for admission to magnet schools do not outperform their peers who are just below the cutoff, despite the fact that they have access to better peers and teachers (and likely a more sophisticated, challenging curriculum as well).
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Sep 18, 2015 03:15
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Effectronica posted:Yeah, to hell with all the other kids. I hope they loving burn for eternity rather than impinge on the smart kids's right to have Algebra a year earlier than otherwise. if that's what it takes.
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Sep 18, 2015 03:32
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Effectronica posted:Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees. See an example: With special programs an eager student in public education could get to learn calculus. But after the gifted programs are dismantled from public education; only rich students in private high schools would have a choice of having an advantage. The class hierarchy would be firmly solidified as anyone poor is prevented from advancing unless the rest of the class advanced, while the rich in their own schools are able to go as far as they can. wiregrind fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Sep 18, 2015 |
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Sep 18, 2015 05:04
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wiregrind posted:Removing them would only pass the hierarchy to private schools, making a deeper cut in structural inequality. The other issue is that private schools really do very little to address the need for gifted education. They may have a better instructional environment in some regards, but they also have a vested interest in making sure their students get the highest possible grades. Ultimately, that's not compatible with providing gifted students the challenge that will make them better students and keep them engaged. Also, as I've pointed out several times, giftedness in one area is surprisingly often correlated with some form of learning disability, and private schools are often not equipped or willing to handle those special needs either. I ended up going to a gifted program in a public school after my parents investigated any number of private schools, even after I'd written entrance exams for some of them, because it offered the best education. Public education can be a wonderful thing when it's done right, and we really owe it to students of all abilities to make sure that public school really does offer the best available education. It's not some sort of fever dream that it could happen, either; public schools can and do offer a great education in a lot of cases. What we need to do is to figure out how to improve it even further, and make sure that all students are well-served by it. Private schools are, in my view, fundamentally incompatible with that mission, and that's one of the reasons I remain very opposed to the concept of private education, and beyond that, the expansion of private education and charter schools.
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Sep 18, 2015 05:32
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blah_blah posted:This is not substantiated by the NBER paper I referred to earlier (which I just realized that I failed to link to correctly -- see here). Students who just make it over the cutoff for admission to magnet schools do not outperform their peers who are just below the cutoff, despite the fact that they have access to better peers and teachers (and likely a more sophisticated, challenging curriculum as well). Thanks, that paper is interesting. There are a couple questions I have about its results though. The first is that, when discussing the poor performance of students near the cutoff, it states "this result is consistent with an invidious comparison model of peer effects, whereby students are demoralized or garner fewer teacher resources by being placed lower in the achievement distribution of their class." This makes me think that the results might be at least partially due to a problem in the way education is administered in the magnet schools in question; ideally students near the bottom shouldn't be receiving fewer teacher resources, for example. The second is that I was wondering how the paper deals with the fact that the students in the magnet schools would presumably be taking more advanced courses when measuring achievement. It seems that they maybe used a standardized test? It seems that, if testing the same material, that it's true there wouldn't be much of a difference between children in the magnet schools and those just below the cutoff, but that the children in the magnet schools would still have learned more information that doesn't show up on the standardized tests by virtue of taking the more advanced courses. I'm pretty sure the paper addresses this, but I'm kind of tired and would appreciate it if someone else could explain that aspect of the results. In my post I had in mind some study involving students from a poor, majority black school being sent to a wealthier, more diverse school and performing better as a result. I forget what the specific study was, though. Either way, it seems like I might be wrong about the benefit of mixing up gifted/non-gifted students, though I would like more evidence/a better understanding of existing evidence between confidently believing there's no benefit.
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Sep 18, 2015 05:36
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Ytlaya posted:Thanks, that paper is interesting. There are a couple questions I have about its results though. The first is that, when discussing the poor performance of students near the cutoff, it states "this result is consistent with an invidious comparison model of peer effects, whereby students are demoralized or garner fewer teacher resources by being placed lower in the achievement distribution of their class." This makes me think that the results might be at least partially due to a problem in the way education is administered in the magnet schools in question; ideally students near the bottom shouldn't be receiving fewer teacher resources, for example. Note that the 'invidious comparison model' that they refer to is purely a hypothesis; they have no data supporting or refuting it. The argument may also run in reverse to some extent; the students who don't make it into the magnet school get the positive feedback/attention associated with being the strongest students at their school. Ytlaya posted:The second is that I was wondering how the paper deals with the fact that the students in the magnet schools would presumably be taking more advanced courses when measuring achievement. It seems that they maybe used a standardized test? It seems that, if testing the same material, that it's true there wouldn't be much of a difference between children in the magnet schools and those just below the cutoff, but that the children in the magnet schools would still have learned more information that doesn't show up on the standardized tests by virtue of taking the more advanced courses. I'm pretty sure the paper addresses this, but I'm kind of tired and would appreciate it if someone else could explain that aspect of the results. Their main assessment is the Stanford Achievement Test (not the 'SAT', though). But yeah, this is a very legitimate criticism that is ignored or hand-waved away to some degree in the econometric literature. For example, a handful of top magnet schools score amazingly well on math and science contests, which test material at a far greater degree of sophistication than the SAT or even AP exams (even though the material is more 'elementary', the problem solving difficulty is order of magnitudes higher). But things like this are a lot harder to quantify due to selection bias. Ytlaya posted:In my post I had in mind some study involving students from a poor, majority black school being sent to a wealthier, more diverse school and performing better as a result. I forget what the specific study was, though. AFAIK there is also a body of evidence that poor/minority students receive the largest comparative benefit in terms of standardized test scores/life outcomes from attending high-quality schools at both the secondary and postsecondary level. These aren't necessarily inconsistent results if these schools have admissions processes such that all students, whether poor/minority or not, qualify through test-taking or similar mechanisms.
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Sep 18, 2015 06:04
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PT6A posted:So, the alternative should be that kids who learn faster should simply sit there and be bored, forbidden from learning things that might give them an advantage somewhere down the line? So, the thinking goes, cutting gifted classes isn't denying anyone anything that they should have had in the first place. blah_blah posted:Certain minorities are significantly overrepresented in gifted programs. archduke.iago posted:That's not actually what's happening though, if someone claimed that special ed programs should be dismantled because they instituted a hierarchical status difference they would be laughed out of the room. Xand_Man posted:The problem is that even IF you successfully isolate 'gifted' students and give them accelerated materials, the program itself will become a status symbol. As a teacher I have definitely met parents who want their child to be academic overachievers and put a lot of pressure on them. At least for now, that is. The government, recognizing that there's some strange correlation between "having a degree" and "getting hired", is trying its best to ensure that every American receives a college degree at age 22 (the same way they've ensured that every American receives a high school diploma at age 18.) Pretty soon it'll be not just "did you graduate from college" but "did you graduate from an accredited top-rank college", and so on from there. And being designated as "gifted" or "advanced" in high school is going to make you more attractive to the fancier, flashier colleges that look better on your resume. So, yeah, it kind of does make sense that parents would insist on their kids being in whatever "gifted program" is present, and not as a mere status symbol; it's the parent doing what they can to ensure that child's future happiness and financial security.
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Sep 20, 2015 01:20
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PT6A posted:I can empathize with students who struggle with school, and do not learn as quickly as I did/do, but I have no idea what that's like and I don't know what can or should be done to alleviate that problem. Certainly something should be done, but I don't know what. Fix the classes. The reason most kids aren't learning fast isn't because they're less capable of learning, it's because the school is presenting lessons in a way that is difficult for people to quickly learn. The reason school exists is for the kids going through it (and for all the employers who are having the state train their future workers for them, but we don't want private business running basic education anyway. The reason it's not fun, again, is because we are Doing It Wrong. wiregrind posted:Removing them would only pass the hierarchy to private schools, making a deeper cut in structural inequality. The reason they're not teaching calculus in the eighth grade anymore isn't to level some playing field or prevent students from having an advantage. Instead, it's because there's no point in teaching calculus if the proper groundwork hasn't been built first in the preceding classes, and the curriculum was not ordered correctly to build that groundwork. Private schools may cram in calculus earlier, but even though that impresses parents who love to see a long checklist of skills that have been taught at the students, it's not a very good way at teaching calculus to students. Some might pass and a couple might even remember it a few months later, but it's a poor way of teaching it and basically a complete waste of time that could be better spent building proper fundamentals for a later calculus class.
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Sep 20, 2015 02:08
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Miss-Bomarc posted:For purposes of equality-in-education discussions, Asians count as white people. Maybe according to some lazy, reductive view of the world they do, but Asians also face discrimination relative to white students in various ways. It's arguably even silly to lump Jews in with whites given the historical discrimination they've faced in the academic system (as is well-known, the broad-based admissions criteria that have now become standard at top universities were originally instituted to keep Jews out). Saying that minorities are not represented in gifted education is patently ridiculous when Asians make up about three-quarters of elite public magnet programs like Stuyvesant. In particular, there's a moral argument hinted at in a lot of posts here, that gifted students (i.e., the children of rich whites who have set up society and the economy in such a way that they and their children reap unwarranted benefits now and in perpetuity) should not be entitled to continue benefitting at the expense of historically discrminated-against minorities. In actuality, children from many ethnic groups are participating (even poor children), and it's not even clear that whites are benefitting the most.
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Sep 20, 2015 02:30
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blah_blah posted:Maybe according to some lazy, reductive view of the world they do, but Asians also face discrimination relative to white students in various ways. It's arguably even silly to lump Jews in with whites given the historical discrimination they've faced in the academic system (as is well-known, the broad-based admissions criteria that have now become standard at top universities were originally instituted to keep Jews out). There's a pretty good reason why people are using "minority" to mean "Black or Hispanic". You should think about why that is.
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Sep 20, 2015 02:35
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Enforcing equality for the sole sake of leveling is silly. What's the end game? Full Harrison Bergeron and the department of handicappers to ensure no one has any advantages what so ever?
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Sep 20, 2015 04:45
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It's not about enforcing equality, it's about not reinforcing inequality.
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Sep 20, 2015 06:00
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Nice doublespeak. Could you elaborate on the functional difference?
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Sep 20, 2015 06:23
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In enforcing equality you'd push down on the higher performing students. In not reinforcing inequality you just don't heap more advantages on top of higher performing students. They still have the same advantages they came in with.
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Sep 20, 2015 06:28
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Higsian posted:In enforcing equality you'd push down on the higher performing students. Except the gifted classes, as I've said several times, are not just about giving further advantages to high-achieving kids, but just as often about providing an appropriate educational environment for under-achieving kids, some of whom may have some form of learning disability in addition to being coded as gifted. Honestly, it seems like most of the arguments being presented against gifted education would be better applied against honours programs or AP-style programs. Main Paineframe posted:Fix the classes. The reason most kids aren't learning fast isn't because they're less capable of learning, it's because the school is presenting lessons in a way that is difficult for people to quickly learn. I want to make sure I understand you correctly: is it your claim that, given some ideal, perfect instruction, all students would be able to learn at the same rate as the most intelligent person in any given group of people? That seems like nonsense. That's like saying, given enough time, I could train myself to be a competitive sprinter. I can certainly improve, but I'm always going to be poo poo because, guess what, that's how I was born. Yeah, it loving sucks that people don't all have the same natural abilities; having been born with cerebral palsy, I know that really, really well. That doesn't mean we can change that basic fact by trying extremely hard to ignore it.
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Sep 20, 2015 17:05
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