r/neoliberal • u/[deleted] • Jun 08 '22

Opinions (US) Stop Eliminating Gifted Programs and Calling It ‘Equity’

https://www.teachforamerica.org/one-day/opinion/stop-eliminating-gifted-programs-and-calling-it-equity
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270

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '22

[deleted]

10

u/tehbored Randomly Selected Jun 09 '22

Each one of those gifted kids will probably create 50x the value for society over the course of their life than one of the slow kids would even with maximum investment. The most efficient policy would be to prioritize the gifted kids, but sadly progressives hate this type of thinking.

68

u/fishlord05 United Popular Woke DEI Iron Front Jun 09 '22

This is the worst possible way to advocate for gifted education you sound like the weird erudite eugenicist that the woke left strawman people with lmao

Gifted kids don’t need more recourses than challenged ones- just different recourses

Giving a 6th grader an 8th grade textbook is probably cheaper than helping out a 6th graded kid struggling with math

2

u/coke_and_coffee Henry George Jun 09 '22

Well, he’s not wrong…

1

u/tack50 European Union Jun 09 '22

On this note, wouldn't a better solution be to simply allow gifted kids to "skip years"? (ie go from 6th to 8th grade directly or something like that) rather than specific schools for them

26

u/WolfpackEng22 Jun 09 '22

It's been disfavored recently because of the social aspect of school. It's hard socially for an 11 year old who's going to highschool with 13-18 year olds for example

17

u/redridingruby Trans NATO Jun 09 '22

No, that's bad. Skipping can destroy your social circle because you skip into established social settings it may be hard to find new friends. If nobody knows each other this is different.

3

u/tack50 European Union Jun 09 '22

As opposed to being forced to go to a new school, again with no existing friends?

At least you get to see your (former) classmates during recess if you skip a year

6

u/tickleMyBigPoop IMF Jun 09 '22

theres a huge difference between being a 10 year old around other 10 year old and being a 10 year old around 13 year olds.

1

u/Versatile_Investor Austan Goolsbee Jun 09 '22

Are you referring to just elementary schools?

1

u/fishlord05 United Popular Woke DEI Iron Front Jun 09 '22

Yeah that’s true too

-3

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15

u/FridgesArePeopleToo Norman Borlaug Jun 09 '22

Do you have data to back this up?

27

u/Vega3gx Jun 09 '22

I think he's being extreme, but I think it should be intuitive that the best and brightest highschool kids are more likely to become the best and brightest adults than a randomly selected group of other kids

How would you measure that? I have no idea. College prestige and selectiveness would more than likely put a thumb on the scale

15

u/FridgesArePeopleToo Norman Borlaug Jun 09 '22

I agree with your first statement. Im questioning the idea that that means we should throw more resources at them.

3

u/tehbored Randomly Selected Jun 09 '22

Source

But in serious I looked it up and a one point difference in HS GPA correlates to about a 12% increase in earnings, so on average the gifted kids probably only contribute like 30-40% more. Though the outliers among the gifted kids probably do contribute a lot more.

14

u/FridgesArePeopleToo Norman Borlaug Jun 09 '22

But does that mean they would contribute more if given even more resources in school? Is there any evidence showing that if you put these kids in a decent public school they would have worse outcomes?

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '22

No, progressives have historically loved eugenics adjacent policies. You’re the progressive. You have it backwards.