So the author is making two egregious errors:
1. Conflating being in school for regular hours with receiving an appropriate education.
2. Assuming that ability maps effectively perfectly with income.
The rant about promoting environmentalism was a comedic coup, because clean air and water are clearly only appropriated by those who espouse their protection...?
It was a real slap in my face to learn about White Privilege in grad school. Our school was very social justice oriented, and we students had to learn how to handle the shame of having our previous notions of poverty and to deal with the fact that most of us (not all)had so much material wealth.
I see the children in my DD's school struggle with all the points mentioned in the article. Many of the kids started out so sweet in kindergarten and now, older, turn angry, sullen. Our school is a real mix of socio economic levels.
The problems these children face are scary and all-to-real. It sounds, though, that ways to scaffold their home lives would be what's most needed to help them succeed academically. Not easy to solve for... but worth trying.
I'd love a way to fix all kids' home lives AND increase funding to education all around. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be political will to do either.
I believe that all of the things people are so worried about in education, all the charter schools and testing and leaving behind and racing to the top are trying to fix a problem which is not an educational problem, it's a poverty problem. If wages were higher, health insurance was universal and welfare was both universally available and not for such a limited time then the educational problems in the US would fall away. Then they could stop with all the crazy testing and second guessing of teachers and all the homework.
But that will never ever happen, because people care more about punishing poor people than anything else.
We have universal healthcare and welfare and it doesn't stop us having a 10 to 20 % tail of failing students and an increasing incidence of poverty diseases such as TB and rheumatic fever. We don't have high wages though so maybe that is the deciding factor - if both parents work long hours at poorly paid jobs there is little time with the kids. Kids who go to after school card every day miss such things as dance and swimming even if there was enough money.
But she should be railing against priveledge not gifted programmes. Average children from a secure home whose parents inverest in their education will do much better than a brighter child who can't study because they are in charge of their siblings or there is nowhere quiet enough and whose parents can't or don't support them.
I am increasingly concerned with how the increasingly polarizing rhetoric around race is being interwoven with the politics of hate and envy for the gifted.
I poked around the Daily Kos site for a while and thank God that I can read it from a safe enough distance where I do not have to worry about what contagious diseases I might catch from such spittle flecked rants or where I will not stand out for NOT having a tin foil hat - LOL
Somehow we need to get away from taking away or giving to people, and make education and opportunity something anyone can EARN. Even video games know that you have to earn your bonus points, coins, unlocked level, etc in order to keep the motivation going.
When we see it as, "yeah, you are giving me an education, but you aren't giving me the same opportunity as that rare kid I saw on the news", something is wrong.
I see in real life the problems that kids have when the kids in the family are not cherished, and their education is not valued. And I also see system wide problems in the schools that penalize kids who are not organized, who have chaotic lives, distractions of poverty. Like that assignments are submitted online and if you don't have internet you can "go to the library". Like that pretty projects that were built in clean homes with plenty of space and expensive materials get better grades than projects that could not be paid for. Yes, the school system is unfair to kids in poverty and kids with dysfunctional families. That should be addressed. And there needs to be prizes along the way for those that can make it through their struggles-- like jobs. We have made it so very few jobs are available before 18. (I started work at 14, and most of my friends were working by 16. Now, most places won't take people til 18). We need to help kids develop the coping skills to be able to look at their situation and see a choice other than going to prison to join dad. After school programs attempt to address this, as does extended day. But they require parents to sign up and often to pay. The kids can't be the ones to say, "I need this so I have a place to do homework with internet access". The kids need to have more control over their lives, and a vision.
I don't think this blogger realizes that while nothing happens without opportunity, the "gifted" kids she resents, worked hard to take that opportunity and run with it. The kids she is talking about-- which are NOT the whole class-- need help. She needs to step up and advocate for them as she is sort of doing. And the kids need to take the opportunities they have and use them. It's not fair. Some kids are smarter, richer, more motivated, or more lucky than other kids. This is true at any school. We ought to be holding them up as examples rather than pretending that their hard work is unfair and stealing from everyone else. If we devalue the hard workers, we don't have those "prizes" along the way, and we will have fewer hard workers. Which I think already happens. It's not "cool" to be successful in school. It's more cool to succumb to advertising and have the best shoes, the best jacket, cable TV, and the coolest smart phone. And those that can't afford them feel deprived and motivated to get those status symbols.
My children attend a high-poverty school, so I relate to the pain and frustration of this author. I think things just got a little muddled in the delivery and things were lobbed hither and yon. The most salient point was the one about the student who got to miss school to work on his invention, IMO.
My younger child is in the "general ed" section of his school right now and I keep an eye on things, because he is given some particular privileges and oportunities due to his abilities that could be seen as unfair. He also happens to be socioeconomically very different from 90% of the kids in his class. It's tricky.
I mean, it's just a confused piece, because in one breath she's talking about home life and kids coming to K unprepared (you could use this moment to talk about universal pre-K, neighborhood programs like Harlem Children's Zone and nurse-family visitors) and in the next it's all because of gifted programming. ?
I had a hard time reading the piece. There was a lot of muddled thinking in there.
I am not even sure the kids she ranted about were even the most privileged. The kid with the full ride to private school, for example.
I do believe it is toxic to think closing the achievement gap is the sole responsibility of the education sector. On the other hand, school needs to have value added. They are not all the same. Teachers aren't all high quality.
The article was uncomfortable for me to read because I was one of those high-poverty kids. I would have loved to have a teacher who slipped me some extra food.
I am not even sure the kids she ranted about were even the most privileged. The kid with the full ride to private school, for example.
I think you focused too hard on "full ride" and missed the parts about "private school" and "traveling the world by private jet." Regardless of whether the parents are actually paying for it, somebody is. Those are privileges which are inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of students... the gifted included. So her point is well made.
This column reminds us that most of the people designated as poor in America today live better than most Americans did throughout history, even through relatively recent times.
When Bread Bags Weren't FunnyBy Megan McArdle
Bloomberg View
January 29, 2015 2:37 PM EST
Since this topic includes political and social issues that diverge from the topic of gifted education, it has been locked. Thank you and have a wonderful weekend, everyone!