Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Quota system would dilute school's quality

That is still correlative, though, rather than a mechanistic explanation.

Could be that any time-intensive/attention-intensive intervention would have the same impact.

One of the problems here is that designing a large study with ONLY the studied variable in play is virtually impossible-- and frankly, probably more than a little unethical, at least with those interventions that have demonstrated positive impact on children.

So does improved access to healthcare improve school performance? Yes.

Does improved nutrition? Yes again.

Does improved access to library services? Yes, though not as much as EARLY childhood literacy efforts in those same SES disadvantaged neighborhoods.

I'm just not convinced that we truly know which of these is the "best" intervention to be using. Probably all of them.

Don't misunderstand me-- I don't think that even all of that is going to magically eliminate disproportionate performance that reflects SES. Part of the problem there, I hypothesize, is that we don't really know what the distribution SHOULD look like if there were no bias created by opportunity scarcity.

But when resources to implement interventions are scarce, then it really matters that we are doing the things that have the very best chance of doing the most good for the most children. Is that nutrition?

Honestly? I have no idea. It might be. It might just as readily be better healthcare or childcare, though.