New York is in uproar over push to ax gifted programs. This school is doing it anyway

[David_TheMan]

You know how stupid parents have to be to cripple kids education for some racial bs. Smh.

Puvlic education has done its.job

 

[Copy Ninja]

"not all segregation is bad"

Like I said, "read four decades of research that disagrees with your intuitive assumptions".

Or how about looking at the countries that have done it:



Even the Wall Street Journal of all people had to give props: What makes Finnish students so smart?

Poland showed similar results - its students performed far better after tracking ended.


If the class is "too slow for you", then something is already wrong. What does "too slow" even mean? Classroom activities should be engaging at any speed, when you claim something is "too slow", it indicated you're already assuming a teacher-centered content-delivery model that belongs with the horse-and-carriage era. Modern curriculum with any degree of competence are focused on discovery activities, group projects, interactive lessons, material that challenges the entire classroom. If all you getting out of school is the teacher explaining shyt slowly in front of the class, you already lost.


Quick life lesson. Almost none of the material you learn in high school matters for shyt. You can go 10 times as fast as me and learn 10 times as many facts, and it's all meaningless. Hell, even in the gifted program most of the stuff you learned at that age is probably wrong or misleadingly simplified anyway - that goes for science, history, literature, all of it. What matters isn't how "fast" you go or how "many" things you learn, it's whether or not you learn to think right, be creative, solve problems, work with other people, express your ideas, listen to others, etc. And you can do all that no matter what the skill level of your classmates is.

Like I said, I went to an under-performing public school every year of my life all the way through 12th grade. No gifted classes ever. And it took months for me to start kicking the ass of the same kids who went to the best California and New Hampshire private schools and New York and Philly gifted public schools. All that extra stuff has very little to do with your future life outcomes so long as you get opportunities and drive.

So are you against classes available for kids who want to push themselves?

My kid is a sophomore and is taking 2 AP classes that he can get 3 college credits for for each class. He will be taking more AP classes the next two years and if all goes well and passes them, he'll cut down the college expenses pretty significantly. And financial reasons aside, he genuinely wants to challenge himself and take these AP classes because he's a curios kid.

So you are saying you're against these options for students who want to challenge themselves?

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

i can only give my personal experience - i did better moving to a school with a student body that cared about academics as opposed when i was in run of the mill public schools that mixed everyone together. nikkas acting a fool in class, hell disruptions, fights, the lower expectations teachers have for all students - i vividly remember turning in an essay written how i'd talk - full of slang, black vernacular english...and got an A-...no way in hell a formal essay should've been written like that and gotten anywhere near an A. i used to act a fool in class too since it was so acceptable and barely trying would still keep me leaps and bounds ahead of the middle of the class...

i don't know, i think public schools need some sort of way to keep focused kids together. of course i don't fukk with trying to track kids starting at 3/4/5 years old, but OUSD, outside of the schools in wealthy neighborhoods, was a shyt show and i'm lucky i had strong guidance at home because the classroom fukkery was at an all time high and it would've been easy as hell to just stop caring about or, at minimum, not push myself in school had i gone to public high school

 

[newworldafro]

Damn.

This a tough one here.

Mmm. I missed my school's gifted program by a few points.

Only maybe 2 black people were ever in the program from elementary through middle school, both black girls, the rest was mostly white and a few Asian kids. However, in the regular classroom I was just as smart if not smarter, as well as some other black kids.

I remember there was a special history competition event and I was only non-AG person in there.

At the end of the day, it's a nice lil extra thing to have, but will not determine your future. Please believe I know countless homeboys that grew single family low income, did ok in school, now doing amazing things, making big bucks.

First, that should be the first thing to note, this is not going to determine your kid's future, in or out of an AG program.

Secondly, NYC needs to improve just overall academics. Maybe it has to do with the number of kids that don't speak English well, or if you not getting proper nutrition at home, or got other issues at home, then learning will be a problem.

I don't have the answer, because its multifaceted, but I dont think they should just get rid of the programs. Definitely need to improve regular classroom academics.

 

[Adeptus Astartes]

I don't see how GATE programs are any different than Honors or AP classes. Smart kids taking advanced classes isn't segregation, especially if there is theoretically equal potential access, like standardized tests. Eliminating the programs is absurd.

 

[88m3]

cutting the nose to spite the face perhaps

this is good, this is progress

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Love the number of hot takes that have come without any serious engagement with anything I posted here. Either y'all were in the gifted programs or you proving they don't work.

 

[Wargames]

Explain

the issue is if kids don’t get on that track from the beginning they are then more likely doomed to be in the lesser classes their the entire time they are in school because they miss the frame work. Instead of focusing on a few schools of advanced work, raise the quality of everyone to a higher level. The current system is set up to be gamed by rich people who are mostly white and perpetuates a class system based around mostly race

 

[Professor Emeritus]

So are you against classes available for kids who want to push themselves?

My kid is a sophomore and is taking 2 AP classes that he can get 3 college credits for for each class. He will be taking more AP classes the next two years and if all goes well and passes them, he'll cut down the college expenses pretty significantly. And financial reasons aside, he genuinely wants to challenge himself and take these AP classes because he's a curios kid.

So you are saying you're against these options for students who want to challenge themselves?

You didn't engage with the research but I'm glad you at least provided a specific example to discuss. I'd answer you at four different levels:

#1. There's nothing wrong with high-quality advanced-level courses for college-bound students to take in their later years in high school. In the space for electives some students can take arts or weightlifting or whatever courses while others take advances courses in their areas of interest. The problem is in pulling those kids out of the normal-track courses earlier on. AP courses aren't supposed to be the introductory-level courses in those subjects, and schools that replace introductory courses with APs are almost certainly serving their students poorly at both ends. If AP was even high quality, which is why my next point is....



#2. AP is a scam. I'm not kidding, take it from a college professor, AP Classes Are a Scam. That's just one of many many articles you'll find on the subject. To summarize, they're nowhere near actual college difficulty, many colleges don't give college credit for them, nearly half the students who take them (and 70% of the black students) fail the test anyway, and if the focus of a class is passing a test at the end then the entire year is centered around an ugly "shove in as much material as you can while teaching to the test" methodology that kills real thought, problem-solving, creativity, etc. If your kid is seriously going to skip college courses because they took an AP, they're going to learn LESS, not more. If they want to save money, then take those courses at the local community college instead, it almost certainly will be taught at much higher intellectual level than the AP teacher is handling.

AP courses are pushed because The College Board makes $500 million dollars off of them and has a couple dozen staff pulling in the neighborhood of half-a-million each whose salaries depend on that. The CEO alone makes $1.5 million/year (great "non-profit" gig he has going there). But they are not well designed for maximizing an intelligent student's potential. They're far more likely to be year-long cram sessions.



#3. You're very unlikely to save much money if any at all from taking AP courses. I went to an elite school, they allowed zero AP courses to count for credits, and they didn't charge tuition by the credit # anyway. And that was 20 years ago, even more schools refuse to take them now. At best he might be able to use a great AP score (if he gets it) to pass out of intro courses, which would actually be a disservice because he would have likely learned far MORE in those college intro courses than he did in the AP. In fact, some of my college intro courses (psychology, US History, physics) I still remember as some of the best courses I took in school and it would have been a massive disservice if I had missed those because of some dumbass high school course where I'd likely have forgotten everything afterwards anyway.



#4. In any good course, all the students can be pushed regardless of how "fast" the material comes. The idea that material coming "fast" is a good way to push a student is damn near prehistoric in terms of educational thinking. If the kids wants to learn more material, get a library card - the whole building is full of books. If he prefers lectures, there's a billion of them on Youtube. But a strong classroom teacher is doing open-ended or limits-testing problem-solving activities, team projects, independent research projects, assigning essays that require higher-order thinking skills, etc. - all shyt that can simultaneously challenge ALL the students in the room no matter where they're at. And in fact, many AP courses have less of that challenging higher-order thinking than a regular class does, because there's too much material to cram.



#5. Worst case scenario, let's imagine your kid goes to some shytty school that fails to challenge him the entire time. Like I did. But since he's a good, curious kid who wants a challenge, he'll still learn stuff here and there on his own while acing all those easy high school courses, then he'll get into college and actually learn shyt, just like I did. Meanwhile, while he's sitting with all those other students in those other courses, he'll likely learn things interacting with them that he never would have learned otherwise (like how to explain concepts to people who don't yet understand them, which requires another entire level of higher-order thinking far superior to that which is required to just memorize twice as much material).



That last one really sums it up the best. I think tracking is a bad idea because it segregates the classroom (not just intellectually but also by class and race), because it is part of a mentality that leads to the best resources and teachers being pushed towards the "good" kids while the rest of kids get less, because research shows that it significantly hurts the other students while not even helping the gifted students, and because I think it has a negative impact on social and moral development.

But pretend, for a moment, that the ONLY thing you care about is your own kid's intellectual abilities. Let me ask you - which do you think really does more for a kid's intellectual abilities. Memorizing twice as much material in a "fast-paced" class, or learning how to explain half as much material to someone who does not yet understand it? Which one of those two options requires a greater depth of understanding, demonstrates a greater mastery of the material, and indicates more higher-order thinking?

 

[Professor Emeritus]

i can only give my personal experience - i did better moving to a school with a student body that cared about academics as opposed when i was in run of the mill public schools that mixed everyone together. nikkas acting a fool in class, hell disruptions, fights, the lower expectations teachers have for all students - i vividly remember turning in an essay written how i'd talk - full of slang, black vernacular english...and got an A-...no way in hell a formal essay should've been written like that and gotten anywhere near an A. i used to act a fool in class too since it was so acceptable and barely trying would still keep me leaps and bounds ahead of the middle of the class...

i don't know, i think public schools need some sort of way to keep focused kids together. of course i don't fukk with trying to track kids starting at 3/4/5 years old, but OUSD, outside of the schools in wealthy neighborhoods, was a shyt show and i'm lucky i had strong guidance at home because the classroom fukkery was at an all time high and it would've been easy as hell to just stop caring about or, at minimum, not push myself in school had i gone to public high school

That's basically the argument. The situation you describe is shytty for ALL the kids. Tracking kids because your school ain't shyt is a terrible reason to track kids

 

[Agent Mulder]

My daughter has taken 4 AP classes thus far. Just read the Atlantic article @Rhakim posted above and sent it to her. Pretty eye opening. One thing she noted was that being in a more challenging classroom with students that are focused and a bit more driven is a wonderful escape from your average public High School environment.

 

[gldnone913]

Studies show nonblack teachers are less likely to recommend black students for gifted and talented programs. Another study showed that when parents and teachers nominated children, they missed many qualified students. When the large urban district in that study, Broward County Public Schools in Florida, switched to screening all children in second grade, more low-income and minority students were placed in gifted programs.

Unrelated, but black and Hispanic kids are pushed into special education at alarming rates. My son is in a gifted program at his elementary school. Although his school is highly diverse, and the majority of students in the program are minorities, not everyone knows that you can request for testing for entry into the program. If it's dependent upon a teacher or staff member recommending entry, teachers who already have biases against black and Hispanic kids will by default not look out for our kids' best interests.

I agree....enrichment for the whole class would be ideal. However, our kids do not learn at the same pace. I didn't read the research on Finland and Poland, but I don't think taking homogeneous countries into consideration works for this discussion.

 

[Copy Ninja]

You didn't engage with the research but I'm glad you at least provided a specific example to discuss. I'd answer you at four different levels:

#1. There's nothing wrong with high-quality advanced-level courses for college-bound students to take in their later years in high school. In the space for electives some students can take arts or weightlifting or whatever courses while others take advances courses in their areas of interest. The problem is in pulling those kids out of the normal-track courses earlier on. AP courses aren't supposed to be the introductory-level courses in those subjects, and schools that replace introductory courses with APs are almost certainly serving their students poorly at both ends. If AP was even high quality, which is why my next point is....



#2. AP is a scam. I'm not kidding, take it from a college professor, AP Classes Are a Scam. That's just one of many many articles you'll find on the subject. To summarize, they're nowhere near actual college difficulty, many colleges don't give college credit for them, nearly half the students who take them (and 70% of the black students) fail the test anyway, and if the focus of a class is passing a test at the end then the entire year is centered around an ugly "shove in as much material as you can while teaching to the test" methodology that kills real thought, problem-solving, creativity, etc. If your kid is seriously going to skip college courses because they took an AP, they're going to learn LESS, not more. If they want to save money, then take those courses at the local community college instead, it almost certainly will be taught at much higher intellectual level than the AP teacher is handling.

AP courses are pushed because The College Board makes $500 million dollars off of them and has a couple dozen staff pulling in the neighborhood of half-a-million each whose salaries depend on that. The CEO alone makes $1.5 million/year (great "non-profit" gig he has going there). But they are not well designed for maximizing an intelligent student's potential. They're far more likely to be year-long cram sessions.



#3. You're very unlikely to save much money if any at all from taking AP courses. I went to an elite school, they allowed zero AP courses to count for credits, and they didn't charge tuition by the credit # anyway. And that was 20 years ago, even more schools refuse to take them now. At best he might be able to use a great AP score (if he gets it) to pass out of intro courses, which would actually be a disservice because he would have likely learned far MORE in those college intro courses than he did in the AP. In fact, some of my college intro courses (psychology, US History, physics) I still remember as some of the best courses I took in school and it would have been a massive disservice if I had missed those because of some dumbass high school course where I'd likely have forgotten everything afterwards anyway.



#4. In any good course, all the students can be pushed regardless of how "fast" the material comes. The idea that material coming "fast" is a good way to push a student is damn near prehistoric in terms of educational thinking. If the kids wants to learn more material, get a library card - the whole building is full of books. If he prefers lectures, there's a billion of them on Youtube. But a strong classroom teacher is doing open-ended or limits-testing problem-solving activities, team projects, independent research projects, assigning essays that require higher-order thinking skills, etc. - all shyt that can simultaneously challenge ALL the students in the room no matter where they're at. And in fact, many AP courses have less of that challenging higher-order thinking than a regular class does, because there's too much material to cram.



#5. Worst case scenario, let's imagine your kid goes to some shytty school that fails to challenge him the entire time. Like I did. But since he's a good, curious kid who wants a challenge, he'll still learn stuff here and there on his own while acing all those easy high school courses, then he'll get into college and actually learn shyt, just like I did. Meanwhile, while he's sitting with all those other students in those other courses, he'll likely learn things interacting with them that he never would have learned otherwise (like how to explain concepts to people who don't yet understand them, which requires another entire level of higher-order thinking far superior to that which is required to just memorize twice as much material).



That last one really sums it up the best. I think tracking is a bad idea because it segregates the classroom (not just intellectually but also by class and race), because it is part of a mentality that leads to the best resources and teachers being pushed towards the "good" kids while the rest of kids get less, because research shows that it significantly hurts the other students while not even helping the gifted students, and because I think it has a negative impact on social and moral development.

But pretend, for a moment, that the ONLY thing you care about is your own kid's intellectual abilities. Let me ask you - which do you think really does more for a kid's intellectual abilities. Memorizing twice as much material in a "fast-paced" class, or learning how to explain half as much material to someone who does not yet understand it? Which one of those two options requires a greater depth of understanding, demonstrates a greater mastery of the material, and indicates more higher-order thinking?

1. AP classes have a prerequisite before being able to take it. So they are not introductory classes.

2. That's a blanket statement that are true in some cases but not all. A friend of mine's daughter graduated last year and is now going to University of Michigan and all her AP credits were accepted. Conversely students who take AP courses are most likely to succeed in college.

3. From my understanding some colleges requirements differ based on the test score.

4. Youtube lectures and libraries are great but they don't provide the structure of a classroom and a teacher. Regarding the other points, that's going on now in the classrooms that he's in.

5. The school he's going to now imo is great. All the things you mentioned he's doing in his advanced classes. They're all high achievers, but there are still levels within their group. Some comprehend quicker and explain to other kids. All the interactions of kids that happen in regular classes are happening in the AP classes. I don't know why you think they're not.

You make fair points but the situation you were in or what you experienced doesn't necessarily apply to every situation. My son's classes are not all white or all asian, there are black and hispanic kids. And this is all based on merits.

You could apply this same logic with athletics. Kids make the teams over other kids based on their performance. It's a competition. Which is what life really is. The more they are challenged the better they're going to be prepared to continue with their journey.

Eliminating these classes simply because people don't like the numbers when you insert race into the equation is counter productive. Why not tackle the issue of why blacks and hispanic numbers are not up to par with Asian and white kids instead of eliminating these programs that a lot of kids from all races benefit from?

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

That's basically the argument. The situation you describe is shytty for ALL the kids. Tracking kids because your school ain't shyt is a terrible reason to track kids. That's basically the exact thing that Inglewood Unified did when they created City Honors, they were just straight up saying, "Damn near all our schools are crap and we know it so lets at least put the best-off students off in their own school so their parents won't leave the district". Except City Honors ain't even that good a school AND diverting all the high-scoring students to that school just made the other schools even worse. The same people who had the power to create City Honors also had the power to improve the situation at all of the district's other schools, but they don't, and THAT is the problem at the root.

if i'm a parent in shytty school district and can't afford private school, i'd absolutely want my kid on the advanced track where they can focus and get a better education. some of the problem of shytty schools is funding, admin, teachers and teaching style, but the reality is there are a lot of kids/families who don't value education and are disruptive to the learning environment - why does this piece of the puzzle get ignored?

my middle school consisted of kids arguing with and/or cursing out teachers in class for anywhere from 5-15 minutes worth of class time. talking to, arguing with, and fighting one another in class - can't count the number of classes i had where fights broke out, cats would come in class late from smoking or hanging out in the yard or leave class early, people running from campus security would duck in and out of the classrooms on the main floor (didn't happen upstairs in the advanced classes), etc. those are students who don't give a fukk about even just shutting up and letting others learn/do work, that's attention teachers have to spend elsewhere and not teaching. thing is, then people get outraged over too much disciplinary action being taken against kids, especially if it's a black/brown school, so we're tying people's hands from every angle.

i'm not writing off creating classes and academies within public schools that cater to kids who want to show up and learn at an advanced level because people have hurt feelings about it.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

#3. You're very unlikely to save much money if any at all from taking AP courses. I went to an elite school, they allowed zero AP courses to count for credits, and they didn't charge tuition by the credit # anyway. And that was 20 years ago, even more schools refuse to take them now. At best he might be able to use a great AP score (if he gets it) to pass out of intro courses, which would actually be a disservice because he would have likely learned far MORE in those college intro courses than he did in the AP. In fact, some of my college intro courses (psychology, US History, physics) I still remember as some of the best courses I took in school and it would have been a massive disservice if I had missed those because of some dumbass high school course where I'd likely have forgotten everything afterwards anyway.

I went to Stanford and finished UG a year early due to AP credits, that saved me money