Putting aside a second the debate about diversity... gifted and talented admission tests at four years old strikes me as far too young. Having witnessed my own children and their peers grow I simply don't believe that passing a test at Pre-K is a useful marker of some innate talent, rather it's clued-in parents making sure their kid is able to jump through required hoops.
My kids could read and do math in K, unlike many of their classmates.
At that point it doesn't really matter, because K is really about play and learning the conventions.
By the end of 2nd grade it was clear that they were bored out of their minds. So to private school they went.
For parents with kids that aren't motivated it's hard to understand what the fuss is.
But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here. Where I used to live the Talented and Gifted program (which was state mandated) had a $1000 budget systemwide. The "equity" fund was almost a third of the budget. At that point why bother with public schools? It's taxation without representation.
> they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here.
This claim about the USSR seems strange to me.
In high school, I had a couple of classmates from the USSR and they had been attending advanced schools since childhood. They were brilliant mathematicians. The state-sponsored educational system had recognized their talents and lifted them up.
I understood the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a net loss for educational funding, but I am by no means sure of this.
In USSR they actually recognized gifted students and placed them into specialized classes and schools where they would thrive. They treated it as a matter of national security. The math circles and dedicated schools with STEM had the state support. The "equity" applied to the later stages of life - an engineer or a scientist would earn not much more than a blue collar worker.
Same story for my middle kid. He’s bored out of his mind in 2nd grade math. He overheard me explaining square roots to his older sister while he was working on a coloring page at a restaurant waiting for our food. Then he pops his head up and says “so square and square root are the opposite of each other” (which isn’t something I said). He’s an exact clone of my brother, who has a BS in Physics from Yale.
It’s not because he “works hard,” and I don’t tiger parent. There’s just smart kids and average kids and dumb kids.
>But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here. Where I used to live the Talented and Gifted program (which was state mandated) had a $1000 budget systemwide. The "equity" fund was almost a third of the budget. At that point why bother with public schools? It's taxation without representation.
Whether or not to cut gifted and talented programs is very much debated on the "left".
Can you share more about education in the USSR? My impression is that for all its faults, education is one area where the USSR excelled, with very high standards and outcomes.
Right the USSR was famously known to not aggressively coach and foster young talent in math, physics, and chess. There's literally no prodigies from there.
> But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here.
Both US political parties have pushed for educational reforms that have resulted in this sort of accusation.
There was a long running idea on the right that faltering education was a national security threat, and naturally parents want their kids to have a decent education. Things changed a bit after George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" ended up extremely unpopular, but you still hear some of the same talking points.
That paper, which follows 106 people born in Denmark from 1975 and 1979, says there may be correlation coefficients of 0.48 or 0.50 for IQ groupings between ages (1) 4 and (2) 14 and 44 years. 0.48^2 is 23%, 0.5^2=25%, so if you accept everything else about this, this would mean 23%-25% of variance in the older years may be explained by IQ at 4... that strikes me as not enough to make your conclusions ("IQ is pretty stable from preschool onward) even if the rest of the study is concluded to be accurate.
"Having witnessed my own friends, I simply do not believe that people who can juggle exist."
.
Gifted kids exist. I see friends' kids who read at 4 and they absolutely do not need to be stuck in a class with kids who still chew on their toys. The fact that you have not seen those does not mean they do not exist.
As a second example, I was able to read before I was 4 and multiply 2-digit numbers before I was 5. Luckily schools did have programs that challenged me. I would have been much less lucky, had I been a kid in Mamdani's NYC...
> I see friends' kids who read at 4 and they absolutely do not need to be stuck in a class with kids who still chew on their toys.
Its worse than that; putting them in that class forces them into a situation where their only options are abject boredom (which kills motivation, drive, creativity) or to act out, because it is at least better than being bored.
I went through NYC's gifted program in early grades. I grew up on rent control and food stamps.
My closest school when I started, before the gifted program, was spending the majority of its resources on special ed programs and barely functional. The gifted program allowed me to attend much better schools.
The gifted program was also the basis of what allowed me to even interview to attend (and eventually test into) NYC private schools. Because of class I would not have had that opportunity otherwise. In fact, at first these schools didn't want to deal with me -- we had to be very persistent over a couple of years just to get me in.
Before the gifted program I was years ahead of my peers and barely getting an education in school. It wasn't without problems, but it definitely created opportunities I benefit from today that I otherwise would not have had access to.
Gifted Program is not just a cheat code for kids of parents with means. The parents of means are already sending their kids to private schools and gave up on the NYC public school system decades ago.
It’s this exactly. Gifted programs help many kids who wouldn’t have been able to access other options. If you close them rich people will simply go private, and the rest of the people who can’t afford 45k/year will be back where they started.
There’s not enough empathy for the gifted and talented weirdos who get bullied by their peers at a pre-school age for being differently abled. But I don’t know enough about the program in question to say whether or not it really was for gifted students, or just for those whose parents happened to pull some strings, regardless of the parent’s income or wealth status.
It was a lifesaver. I went through it. I remember, distinctly, going from 'why am I here with all these other kids who just want to stare at the wall or play with G.I. Joes or stack rings' to an immense sense of relief when there was a bit more structure, a bit more freedom to choose what to do, etc.
But more importantly, when I wanted to understand or ask about some existential question, my teacher didn't say "oh that's cute kid, don't worry about it, just go be a kid and play with your friends." They took me seriously, chatted with me through my questions, and treated me like I wasn't a complete idiot, even though I was a child. That made all the difference.
And even more importantly, asking those questions didn't make me a pariah; instead, the other kids had those questions too, and we all learned from each other and grew.
If this sounds a bit absurd, I assure you I knew it then; I literally wrote about it in my journal in second grade.
My experience both personally and via my children is it's little more than a few more worksheets during the week. There is very little actual teaching going on. Just segregation from peers and more busywork. I was personally distracted by new busywork for a while because it was at least different than what I was experiencing in class. But I didn't learn more because of it. The only real difference was in high school where you can take actual accredited college classes in place of class with the normies. Everything before that was just to distract us so we didn't interrupt "normal" classes with our boredom.
After witnessing my wife work as a para-professional with special needs kids on a volunteer basis, the biggest thing anyone could do to improve overall educational achievements is to get them the fuck out of "normal" classrooms. There is very little reason for a non-verbal fourth grader to be taking classes with fourth grade "peers". While their presence may engender some empathy in fellow students, it is often the biggest distraction in the classroom and schools don't have the desire or resources to actually address special needs children in a way to not be disruptive. And I'd extend this further. It would be far better for everyone in this country if the bottom of the bottom was left behind (from an education, not a safety net standpoint) and the average could advance in pace with the more advanced students. And I say this as a flaming leftist.
I have zero issues with additional funding being applied to help special needs children learn and adapt to the world as we have to experience it. But I have a major problem with the slowest of society dictating the educational attainment of the average (or above average) member of society. No Child Left Behind means we have to run at the pace of the biggest fucking moron in our class. It shouldn't just be exceptional children with engaged parents who are able to escape that.
Smart kids can be a distraction as well. It certainly would have benefitted me to enter G&T at Kindergarten instead of 3rd grade. Much of my first grade was spent separate from the other kids doing 5th grade workbooks.
Bold move to take this stance when he would have caught very little heat for saying he wouldn't change anything. But I think he's right in that gifted education doesn't mean much in the earlier years. It mostly selects for children of means with anxious parents.
I wouldn't based any policy based on people's opinion IMO. There has to be a cost/benefit study to base your decision on. Anyway kids can be pretty smart. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that this program is beneficial even that early in life.
Often times, educational programs are put in place without rigorous study, based on opinion. And the program design space is so large that it is hard to have a clear conclusion on an entire concept, like early gifted and talented programs.
My perspective is that the mos important thing in the early grades are that kids are engaged and not being held back. But there are many ways to address this.
Readit News
At that point it doesn't really matter, because K is really about play and learning the conventions.
By the end of 2nd grade it was clear that they were bored out of their minds. So to private school they went.
For parents with kids that aren't motivated it's hard to understand what the fuss is.
But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here. Where I used to live the Talented and Gifted program (which was state mandated) had a $1000 budget systemwide. The "equity" fund was almost a third of the budget. At that point why bother with public schools? It's taxation without representation.
This claim about the USSR seems strange to me.
In high school, I had a couple of classmates from the USSR and they had been attending advanced schools since childhood. They were brilliant mathematicians. The state-sponsored educational system had recognized their talents and lifted them up.
I understood the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a net loss for educational funding, but I am by no means sure of this.
It’s not because he “works hard,” and I don’t tiger parent. There’s just smart kids and average kids and dumb kids.
Whether or not to cut gifted and talented programs is very much debated on the "left".
Right the USSR was famously known to not aggressively coach and foster young talent in math, physics, and chess. There's literally no prodigies from there.
Both US political parties have pushed for educational reforms that have resulted in this sort of accusation.
There was a long running idea on the right that faltering education was a national security threat, and naturally parents want their kids to have a decent education. Things changed a bit after George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" ended up extremely unpopular, but you still hear some of the same talking points.
Harrison Bergeron
==
"Having witnessed my own friends, I simply do not believe that people who can juggle exist."
.
Gifted kids exist. I see friends' kids who read at 4 and they absolutely do not need to be stuck in a class with kids who still chew on their toys. The fact that you have not seen those does not mean they do not exist.
As a second example, I was able to read before I was 4 and multiply 2-digit numbers before I was 5. Luckily schools did have programs that challenged me. I would have been much less lucky, had I been a kid in Mamdani's NYC...
Its worse than that; putting them in that class forces them into a situation where their only options are abject boredom (which kills motivation, drive, creativity) or to act out, because it is at least better than being bored.
My closest school when I started, before the gifted program, was spending the majority of its resources on special ed programs and barely functional. The gifted program allowed me to attend much better schools.
The gifted program was also the basis of what allowed me to even interview to attend (and eventually test into) NYC private schools. Because of class I would not have had that opportunity otherwise. In fact, at first these schools didn't want to deal with me -- we had to be very persistent over a couple of years just to get me in.
Before the gifted program I was years ahead of my peers and barely getting an education in school. It wasn't without problems, but it definitely created opportunities I benefit from today that I otherwise would not have had access to.
Gifted Program is not just a cheat code for kids of parents with means. The parents of means are already sending their kids to private schools and gave up on the NYC public school system decades ago.
But more importantly, when I wanted to understand or ask about some existential question, my teacher didn't say "oh that's cute kid, don't worry about it, just go be a kid and play with your friends." They took me seriously, chatted with me through my questions, and treated me like I wasn't a complete idiot, even though I was a child. That made all the difference.
And even more importantly, asking those questions didn't make me a pariah; instead, the other kids had those questions too, and we all learned from each other and grew.
If this sounds a bit absurd, I assure you I knew it then; I literally wrote about it in my journal in second grade.
After witnessing my wife work as a para-professional with special needs kids on a volunteer basis, the biggest thing anyone could do to improve overall educational achievements is to get them the fuck out of "normal" classrooms. There is very little reason for a non-verbal fourth grader to be taking classes with fourth grade "peers". While their presence may engender some empathy in fellow students, it is often the biggest distraction in the classroom and schools don't have the desire or resources to actually address special needs children in a way to not be disruptive. And I'd extend this further. It would be far better for everyone in this country if the bottom of the bottom was left behind (from an education, not a safety net standpoint) and the average could advance in pace with the more advanced students. And I say this as a flaming leftist.
I have zero issues with additional funding being applied to help special needs children learn and adapt to the world as we have to experience it. But I have a major problem with the slowest of society dictating the educational attainment of the average (or above average) member of society. No Child Left Behind means we have to run at the pace of the biggest fucking moron in our class. It shouldn't just be exceptional children with engaged parents who are able to escape that.
I cannot believe NYT readers would fall for such partisan editorialising.
My perspective is that the mos important thing in the early grades are that kids are engaged and not being held back. But there are many ways to address this.
Not all 6 year olds are the same - and we do significant harm pretending it is so.
Deleted Comment