Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Gifted schools - Are they only for the wealthy?

Given that most elite privates have admissions percentages around 10%, and could probably double their rates as a result, I cannot agree with this.

The Tier 1 privates in the DFW area actively recruit among the poor and minority communities with over 1/3 of their student bodies coming from the bottom quartile economically.

They also do not accept many bright kids whose parents have tons of money.

If a school is built to handle 600 students, and is already near capacity, then they have two choices:

1) Build.
2) Keep enrollment at 600.

If they build, they need money for construction, which they would easily raise and justify through increased rates. And the parents wouldn't care, because it's not coming from them, it's coming from the state. Sure, a lot of them would be disgruntled that the savings weren't being passed on to them, but if you were already committed to paying full tuition before the voucher, oh well.

If they keep enrollment the same, then assuming they're a for-profit, they can raise profits based on simple supply and demand fundamentals. There is an increased demand for their services thanks to vouchers, there is still a limited supply of 600 seats, and they'd be stupid not to raise rates.

If they keep enrollment the same, but they're a non-profit, then they can still raise rates based on supply and demand, only they'd use that money to upgrade technology, take more field trips, and pad the salaries of the people running the place.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason why schools wouldn't raise rates at least somewhat if a boatload of money was suddenly thrown at them. And it's a time-tested economic effect in tons of markets throughout history... the US housing market being the most recent example.

Sure, this only works if you're near capacity. If you're a school built to hold 600 and you've only got 100, this isn't necessarily an issue. But since the free market has a way of punishing businesses who operate this inefficiently, I think you'll find they're the exception, not the rule.

I appreciate your arguments, but the fact is that all Tier 1 privates are at capacity and have chosen to stay there and have not risen rates despite having 10% acceptance rates. In fact, the large endowments they get subsidize the rates for everyone. What schools do instead, is become more selective in the kids they accept.

You can make the argument that "endowments" are a form of rate increase, but the majority come from Alumni, not parents.

Externally, to finish what I have observed, more schools are then opened as the demand increases. Some are really good and others are good.

Rich corporations and the large group of taxpayers depend on getting the most thorough development of talented people, so they should pay for it entirely, instead of the self-financed development primarily of the talent of the upper class, who will subconsciously or openly use their development to enhance the power of that class, especially since they owe their education to their class privileges rather than to their ability. So subsidizing all people with talent will create solidarity within the new class of talented people.
But most important of all in overthrowing the present anti-talent system is that this begs the question by assuming that not to have to pay is enough. A society that immediately and materially awards students for their achievements will awe the world. School is work without pay, and work without pay is slavery or indentured servitude.

Last year, DD's school won the Blackboard award for the best elementary school in all of NYC. It is public but I think that it works against many top tier private schools, though the facility may not be so fancy as a Trinity.

But it is the effort of parents, that we raise 500K per year to pay for the Spanish, chess and a really good music program starting in K.

We got grants for a technology lab. We are constantly writing for grants, which are above the 500K the parents raise through auction, movie nights, spring fair.

I am looking at middle school and a skip and wonder about paying the 35K for private and see what is out there. I think you can provide a great education, as long as you semi-homeschool by supplementing with the online math etc.

And all outstanding turn around publics start with parent involvement. There is a school that I think will overtake DD's in a couple of years and the principal is really pushing acceleration, which 15 years ago was a really down and out school.

Getting parents involved and fundraising is not easy but you can provide great alternatives to the tuition of privates.

Ren

My folks aren't wealthy. I was actually home-schooled because my PUBLIC school system forbade me from attending. (The town where I live has actually done this before, and is apparently still doing it, and have gotten away with it remarkably well.) It's very dark and Nazi-istic, btw:

They've actually forced parents to have their special-needs children committed to mental asylums of THEIR approval or face stiff penalties for child abuse.

The parents, mind you, not the school system.

Why do they do this?

Because it's more economically "safe" to sweep them under the rug and let them get cannibalized by the state mental health system than it is to offer services for special-needs at either end of the spectrum, be they profoundly retarded or on the total opposite side, extremely bright and intelligent but often with emotional/social difficulties. They're not getting bullied by their classmates, even. They're getting bullied by the state.

It's one of those in the red on the map here -- no, I don't live in Austria, but they sure do party like it's 1939. The ADA wasn't signed until 1990 and by that point this had been going on for over 30 years. Seriously, we're talking adult mental facilities for five-year-olds with maybe just the slightest hint of ADHD. Gifted/talented isn't a word in their vocabulary, never mind foreign taboos like, oh, "compassion" and "empathy"...

Basically if you don't conform to the paradigm your parents are charged with child neglect and forced to shove their kids off to the cuckoo's nest. I was one of the few lucky ones whose parents fought the system tooth and nail to prevent me from going up the creek and getting paddled. Unfortunately, the amount of money my family spent on attorneys to fight the school system drained all our resources for college and even health insurance.

Fortunately, however, I'm still here, which is why I'm typing this today.

A very utopian statement, but rather disconnected from reality. In the real world, the government provides a widely varying standard of education and parents have the option of replacing or supplementing that education. That is not likely to change.

The purpose of a corporation is to use legal means to maximize the profits for its shareholders. Their purpose is not to increase employment, or to be a good community citizens except to the extent that these side effects help increase profits. And as long as corporations can get the employees they need from a worldwide talent base, they generally won't intervene in public education.

It therefore comes back to parents (who are also voters) to change the public schools, or reject the public schools and go for private schools or homeschooling. I personally believe it is in the USA's best interest to profoundly improve our public school system to the level of South Korea or Finland. But while there are pockets of excellence, I have little hope of that happening nationwide.

So motivated parents will continue to seek educational advantages that less motivated parents will not. And the affluent motivated parents will have further advantages. Again, that is reality, and not likely to change.

I am also offended by the last part of your quote "especially since they owe their education to their class privileges rather than to their ability". What comprehensive educational experience do you have to make such a profound statement? I attended what could only be considered a poor high school, a good public university on a full merit scholarship, and one of the world's finest universities for graduate school. What class privilege did I benefit from?

The smartest and highest-achieving students are disproportionately affluent, and this pattern appears to be getting stronger:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/e...-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html
Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
New York Times
February 9, 2012

WASHINGTON — Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.

In another study, by researchers from the University of Michigan, the imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion — the single most important predictor of success in the work force — has grown by about 50 percent since the late 1980s.

In Coming Apart, Charles Murray cites studies showing that if you control for the IQ difference between rich and poor communities, that family income makes little difference. However, I haven't had a chance to review any of those studies.