Posted on 10/28/2021 7:24:54 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
NEW YORK — Communities across the United States are reconsidering their approach to gifted and talented programs in schools as vocal parents blame such elite programs for worsening racial segregation and inequities in the country’s education system.
A plan announced by New York City’s mayor to phase out elementary school gifted and talented programs in the country’s largest school district — if it proceeds — would be among the most significant developments yet in a push that extends from Boston to Seattle and that has stoked passions and pain over race, inequality and access to a decent education.
From the start, gifted and talented school programs drew worries they would produce an educational caste system in U.S. public schools. Many of the exclusive programs trace their origins to efforts to stanch “white flight” from public schools, particularly in diversifying urban areas, by providing high-caliber educational programs that could compete with private or parochial schools.
Increasingly, parents and school boards are grappling with difficult questions over equity, as they discuss how to accommodate the educational aspirations of advanced learners while nurturing other students so they can equally thrive. It’s a quandary that is driving the debate over whether to expand gifted and talented programs or abolish them altogether.
“I get the burn-it-down and tear-it-down mentality, but what do we replace it with?” asked Marcia Gentry, a professor of education and the director of the Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute at Purdue University.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
It is nearly axiomatic to say that classes and schools for the gifted and talented are elitist, since they are only taking the best and most talented students. But it does not need elitist in a class sense if poor smart and talented kids have the same opportunities as rich smart and talented kids.
It can only be racist if there are external barriers (such as “we don’t serve your kind here”) that prevent minorities from attending.
Stupid people and smart people will always segregate each other. Who wants to hang around with a moron?
“Back in the day, us non-Mensa kids could care less about these classes.”
I almost joined Mensa. When I graduated from college, someone asked me if I wanted to join Mensa. I told him OK. I took their admission IQ test and got a really high score. I joined and 2 hours later they asked me if I wanted to go with them to protest the (Vietnam) War. Being a veteran, I declined and promptly resigned from Mensa. I belonged to Mensa for a little over 2 hours. I didn’t want to belong to a group of stuck-on-themselves liberals.
Yet the welders and plumbers often make more $. The best revenge.
I love that quote from Heinlein. It is so spot on. Thanks for posting!
Our big city public schools are a disgrace and almost a total failure (the charter schools and magnet schools are en exception but they are trying to do away with these now). The teachers and administrators cry for more money but we already spend more per student than just about any industrialized nation in the world. I have an older sib who does subbing in a metropolitan system and having high school seniors who can barely read and write is not a rarity.
Dumbing down in the name of “racial equity”. good grief
I saw more a week or two ago the NCAA was considering dropping test scores for athletes again under the guise of racial equity Even though 18 to 22 starters are black with a minimum test score
how ridiculously low that is now
Time to put the student in student athlete they got their NIL and scholarships. Now it’s weed out the fake stones this isn’t professional league farm teams
some families spending thousands of dollars on tutoring and expensive specialized programs to boost scores
IMG Academy:
Yearly Tuition (Boarding Students) $84,400 (Tuition varies depending on your sport program.)
Enrollment 1300 students
Grades Offered 6-12
% Students of Color 51%
% International Students 35%
"But why isn’t IMG Academy not receiving any scrutiny? More athletic factory than high school, the players that comprise the Ascenders roster are the best of the best. A program where nearly every kid holds, or will receive, a college scholarship."
https://www.smdailyjournal.com/sports/local/giving-high-school-sports-a-bad-name/article_5a2170a2-0b87-11ec-9e27-87ba37195186.html
I have a higher IQ.
My parents were VERY clear I was NOT going into any gifted program for two reasons.
1. Those were reserved (in my school) for the teachers kids and children of other influential people in the district. Hog farmer’s kids need not apply.
2. You spend a few years being told you are special, and it ruins you. You may have a gift, but that does not make you special. What you do with what your given in the determining factor. Dad said it was like being able to run fast. All find and good, but what will you do with that gift? How do you develop it? Is it worth the cost to develop it?
Dad felt it was better I get used to communicating to “normal” people. It worked. I have done well in my career for being able to “Speak redneck”. Nothing gets you in trouble faster than having someone think you are smarter than them from the word go.
Some of those gifted people? Some did well. A lot flamed out in college where they had to work for the first time.
Was school boring for me? At times. But my teachers would just throw more work at me to shut me up.
—”a poor throw on my part led to my expulsion.”
What a bummer!
You could’ave been a contender, could’ve been a somebody, instead of a bum...
So sad.
This is despicable!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.