I see this subject come up frequently here but I guess I'm still vague on what is meant by "equal outcomes"?
Closing gaps, or giving the appearance of closing gaps, involves capping the growth of students at the top as well as helping students at the bottom improve their learning, application, achievement, and demonstrated knowledge.
What do you mean by "the appearance of closing gaps"? ...
Capping the upper end of the classrooms and teaching to the bottom third certainly isn't a new trend. ...
Describing "Withholding appropriate growth opportunities" as an attempt to "force equal outcomes" seems a pejorative way to describe that particular issue.
I've been in education grant review sessions and in meetings where educators explicitly stated that they were "closing achievement gaps" by focusing on poor performers and ignoring high achievers. The high achievers were viewed as "already proficient" and therefore not in need of more instruction --- even if this meant that they spent an entire semester or year learning nothing. Their pre- and post-tests showed that they'd been ignored. The scores were essentially the same. This was defined as "closing the achievement gap." It was really "ignoring the most capable students."
Educators see this as "focusing on the ones who need help" but they're failing to see that
all their students "need help." Some just need it at a higher level. A student has a right to an education. A school doesn't have a right to ignore him because he's smart.
What irks me about this approach is that we often see articles comparing "smart but lazy" types and those who "don't have as much, but who work harder and achieve more." First, this idea kind of assumes that smart and working hard are mutually exclusive, and second, it fails to consider that schools that don't provide challenging material to their best students in the name of closing the achievement gap are teaching a terrible lesson: you can be lazy and get As. Until you can't, by which time you may not have study skills due to not having needed them for 10 or more years.
They help create a situation and then dump on students over it. Typical of short-sighted edumacation-think.
