I'm familiar with those concepts but I haven't heard about them in practice, which is where my questions originated from.
Thank you for summarizing your lack of experience with these practices as that helps explain the virtual tossed-salad of ideas in your post.
Taking the same coursework for example.
When you raised the topic of "
all students taking the same coursework regardless of ability" I presumed you were familiar with AP and honors courses for which all prerequisites have been eliminated, making the AP and honors courses open to all... although some students are clearly not prepared to succeed in the AP or honors course for which they enrolled. You'll find threads with articles discussing the controversy and the impact upon students who were well-prepared but denied access to the opportunity to enroll because the course maximum was reached due to the enrollment being offered without prerequisite.
Most of what I've encountered, limited I'll admit, is that there's a larger push to individualize curriculums for students - ranging from IEP's to differentiation to charter schools and more magnet programs. can't comment on how effective those things are in practice but that's a very different direction than from when I was in school.
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IEPs address disability
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differentiation is a buzzword
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charter schools and
magnet schools do not seem to fit into a conversation on your topic of "all students taking the same coursework regardless of ability", nor into the thread's topic of data collection being used to force equal outcomes. A red herring?
What do you mean by "the appearance of closing gaps"?
This refers to a false measurement which finds things to be equal when they are not. For example, a test with a low ceiling is like measuring student height with a 3-foot yardstick; All graduating seniors may be recorded as being 3 feet tall and there would be no gaps in height.
Capping the upper end of the classrooms and teaching to the bottom third certainly isn't a new trend. I was under the impression that it was standard teaching practice for a long time. As is the idea of curriculums being designed to cycle through the same material repeatedly over time.
I do not believe it was suggested that this is a new trend. What is new is the extensive data collection, analysis of performance/achievement data, and the rating, ranking, and rewarding of teachers and schools showing equal outcomes (no performance gaps).
More importantly, as I said previously, it appears that most of the trends seem to be moving away from that approach.
Appearances can be deceiving; one must look beyond marketing statements and ask gently probing questions to see what is truly transpiring in a learning environment.
I don't know much about grading policies but the practices described are also fairly old.
I do not believe it was suggested that these grading practices are new. What is new is the extensive data collection, analysis of performance/achievement data, and the rating, ranking, and rewarding of teachers and schools showing equal outcomes (no performance gaps).
Now, I haven't been in elementary school for over 25 years but even then teachers helped under performing students get better grades by giving them more opportunities to improve. As a student who never needed any such opportunities, I didn't take it as unfair and I don't see it as such now.
Opportunities to improve what, specifically?
Improving the student's actual
knowledge base and application of material...
or simply improving a
score (for example, by repeating the same test)?
If the teacher's job is to help the kids learn - then kids who need more help should get it.
Kids who need more help with what, specifically?
Help with learning to the grade-level standard only...
or also help accessing curriculum placement, pacing, and intellectual/academic peers which may be years ahead of the grade-level standard?
Isn't that what we want for gifted kids? More help when they need it?
Rewarding equal outcomes provides disincentive to meet the needs of gifted kids and facilitate their continued growth.
Wanting more help for gifted kids doesn't strike me as necessitating that teachers don't also give more help to marginal and struggling students.
I do not believe it was suggested that teachers ought not to help the marginal and struggling students.
I don't see that as equal outcomes or equal opportunities, I see it as teachers doing their jobs and teaching.
Without a 1:1 student:teacher ratio, time must be divided.
Student grouping by ability and readiness may divide a teacher's attention into a few good-sized slices;
An "inclusive" classroom with a broader range of abilities and readiness divides a teacher's attention into mere slivers or splinters.
Of course, I still want to make sure that my gifted child gets as much teaching and instruction as he needs.
You may wish to consider homeschooling or a private, parochial, or independent school.
I just don't think it necessitates pillorying marginal/average kids and their needs to get there.
I do not believe it was suggested that marginal/average kids be pilloried.
Some may say that in actual lived experience, it is the gifted kids who are put in the pillory, undermined, and/or cut down as tall poppies.
Describing "Withholding appropriate growth opportunities" as an attempt to "force equal outcomes" seems a pejorative way to describe that particular issue.
In expressing your perspective, you appear to be a person who may not have experienced being denied appropriate instructional level, curriculum placement, pacing and intellectual/academic peers... while being told to wait for others to catch up, being required to tutor other students, being assigned extra homework, and being criticized for speaking the truth that you have learned nothing new in school that day, week, month, or year. Unfortunately, these are all-too-common experiences among gifted pupils.
The push to get more attention on the needs of gifted kids is valuable and important but it's history, to my limited knowledge, was never about forcing equal outcomes.
This seems to be a confused statement. The push by
whom to get more attention on the needs of gifted kids? Advocates for meeting the needs of gifted pupils are not forcing equal outcomes. Forcing equal outcomes comes about by rewarding teachers and schools for reporting a
narrow range of variation in achievement measures for all students. Disincentives are provided for teachers and schools reporting a
broad range of achievement: Upon analysis of the extensive data collected, teachers may be dismissed for failing to close gaps sufficiently. Similarly, schools with persistent gaps may be given poor report cards, ratings, and ranking. Funding may be decreased.
It was about the inability of the school systems to recognize that gifted kids needed more and a fundamental misunderstanding about the negative impact of inadequate stimulation.
At a point in time, there may have been an innocent lack of knowledge. With growth of the internet and broad dissemination of information, there may now be
pockets of willful ignorance, however there may be
widespread lack of will to meet the well-known
needs of
gifted pupils.
Framing it as an intentional attempt to skew outcomes in favor of less intelligent students is unfair and probably inaccurate to some degree.
I speak the truth. You may wish to read up on data collection, uses of the data collected, school rating/ranking. You may also wish to seek out teachers who've witnessed the change in their grading instructions and in their performance review criteria. The original pages of the Common Core standards are also interesting reading. Although the most telling information has been wiped from the official website, with a bit of sleuthing copies can be found on the internet archive.
As you noted, we should all familiarize ourselves with these subjects. On my side, I have familiarized myself with this issue. I've even taken the time to bone up on education law in my state including litigation regarding advocacy for gifted kids. I've come to get some idea of who wins and who loses those cases when they go before a judge.
Please do share...
I was asking my question because what is often the responsibility of the school district - to educate all of their charges - appeared to be restated as an intentional attempt to force equal outcomes.
You may wish to read up on data collection, uses of the data collected, school rating/ranking. You may also wish to seek out teachers who've witnessed the change in their grading instructions and in their performance review criteria. The original pages of the Common Core standards are also interesting reading. Although the most telling information has been wiped from the official website, with a bit of sleuthing copies can be found on the internet archive.
Most of the practices being criticized are decades old to my understanding and intrinsic to the shortcomings of mass education, not the specific type of social engineering that is being suggested.
It is the mandated collection of data, the use of collected data, the rewards/punishments based on student achievement gaps detected in the data, and the resultant, systematic planned and organized use of the practices to cap the growth of students at the top which are being criticized.
Anyhoo, I think the critique of the system's failings have been overly broadened to suggest motivations that aren't as prevalent as suggested.
You may wish to read up on data collection, uses of the data collected, school rating/ranking. You may also wish to seek out teachers who've witnessed the change in their grading instructions and in their performance review criteria. The original pages of the Common Core standards are also interesting reading. Although the most telling information has been wiped from the official website, with a bit of sleuthing copies can be found on the internet archive.
But I'm not in the education field so it's just one parents opinion.
While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, after developing your knowledge base in this area, your opinion may change.
I wish all the best for you and your child. At just 4 years old, he has not experienced much of the educational system.
