Is school about bringing the best up or is it about educating the general populace? Public education in the US is about offering a minimum level of education and acculturation to students. It is _not_ about producing elites.
A contrast to this is Soviet education policy which explicitly tried to select for talent from a young age and funnel them up. In the Soviet Union though, poorer students had full employment guarantees, so the danger of falling through the education system was a lot lower.
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> I may come across as an asshole for this but I don't really care, I think it's far better to reward the top percentage for trying than to throw them in the shitter with the kids that don't care at all and make them suffer 12 years of their youth learning worthless drivel far below their capabilities.
It's not about being an asshole. This is the danger of thinking about your own personal experiences. _You_ viewed the experience as drivel and far below your capabilities. But how does this affect the aggregate experience of students? For that matter, how does this affect the experience of elite students?
I get that it's not about producing elites otherwise the curriculum, even in the gifted programs, wouldn't be a joke. I'm only forming my opinion of this from my own experiences, because that's all I can really say, but I went to one of the worst schools in the state. It was full of kids that didn't try at all and didn't give a shit, fights were a daily occurrence, bullying was out of control. If that school didn't have a gifted program that separated me from the sea of crap that was my school, who knows who I would be right now.
Punishing the top by forcing them to deal with all the problems of the bottom is the absolute dumbest way to try and improve the system. It's just going to make the talented people suffer for no benefit of the lower percentages.
I went to a very similar school, so I understand what you're saying. I also had similar feelings at the time. But having studied the problem and being removed from it now for many years has made me think more coolly about the topic.
Maybe there could be student groups where everyone had to be silent?
Seems that'd benefit most students
If each class had two rooms, one silent "library room" and one where it was ok to talk a bit. And the students could choose freely.
Just that if they made noise in the silent room, a school janitor would have them go to the other room instead
And the fast students could get an unlimited supply of more and more harder and harder study books. Regardless of in which room they were. (Note that I didn't write "gifted" -- maybe some students get lots of things done, are comparatively fast, primarily because they work a lot.)
>It's not about being an asshole. This is the danger of thinking about your own personal experiences. _You_ viewed the experience as drivel and far below your capabilities. But how does this affect the aggregate experience of students? For that matter, how does this affect the experience of elite students?
You have to speak from your own personal experiences when it comes to education. You did so yourself in other places in the thread despite your own warning. Everyone that went through the public school system in america has a bias because they experienced it personally. To attempt to ignore that experience and bias for some theoretical broader good is a farce.
The curricula was definitely far below my capabilities in K-12. However, what I care about here is not so much the capabilities, as much as it is to try and foster an environment of students that at least try compared to the kids that show up and are complete jackasses.
If we're really talking about aggregates, how would removing gifted programs possibly benefit the aggregate? How would the kid that would never be in a gifted program possibly benefit from the removal of said programs? The existence of the programs benefits elite students because it segregates them from idiots that don't care, regardless of the joke curriculum.
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Is school about bringing the best up or is it about educating the general populace? Public education in the US is about offering a minimum level of education and acculturation to students. It is _not_ about producing elites.
A contrast to this is Soviet education policy which explicitly tried to select for talent from a young age and funnel them up. In the Soviet Union though, poorer students had full employment guarantees, so the danger of falling through the education system was a lot lower.
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> I may come across as an asshole for this but I don't really care, I think it's far better to reward the top percentage for trying than to throw them in the shitter with the kids that don't care at all and make them suffer 12 years of their youth learning worthless drivel far below their capabilities.
It's not about being an asshole. This is the danger of thinking about your own personal experiences. _You_ viewed the experience as drivel and far below your capabilities. But how does this affect the aggregate experience of students? For that matter, how does this affect the experience of elite students?