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

Yes, I agree. This was what I was getting at when I said there has to be a better way. Early intervention helps. Nutrition and medical care help, too.

But there's still the reality that some people just aren't bright enough for traditional college, not to mention the social realities that Austin mentioned. Pretending that everyone can or should go to college doesn't change the fact that for a lot of people, other options are better (and are especially so because they don't involve student loans).

The problem comes when one applies those statements to groups of people instead of to individual people. I am a former special education teacher in an inner city middle school. I certainly understand that not everyone can or should go to college. But, when programs that aim to increase college access for under-served minorities are written off as pointless because "not everyone is smart enough for college", it becomes problemmatic and racist.

No one here has said that minority students should be written off as being not smart enough for college. I did not say that and specifically said so earlier. If you're making accusations, please stop.

This is the quote. The issue is that in many school systems, "many or most of the kids who need remediation" ARE under-served minorities. if you look at any of the measures of achievement used in this country, white children and Asian children ON THE WHOLE are significant out performing black children and latino children ON THE WHOLE. I personally cannot believe that racism (and racism absolutely translates into economic inequalities as well) is not a significant piece of the equation. But, you said in this comment that the unequal achievement is because the remedial students aren't as smart. I take offense to that conclusion.

Take three families that are economically equal, and whose kids are equally intelligent. The family that emphasizes academics will likely have more academically successful kids than the family that emphasizes sports, which will in turn will likely perform better than the family that doesn't care about the kids. Take another two families. If the parents love each other and stay together, they will likely have academically more successful kids than families that do not. These factors vary across race, but it is not racism.

I am torn as to what the right answer is. How does one choose between the child that grew up in a supportive environment and has then put in a lot of effort to learn, vs. the talented child that was never encouraged to learn? Affirmative action may seem like a good idea in theory but it seems to often be gamed (e.g. Elizabeth "High Cheekbones" Warren, and many Blacks at Ivy League coming from wealthy West Indies families).

I'm sorry that you're reading racism into my comments, but it's in your eyes and not my intent. In that case, I was speaking specifically about the kids at the school in Virginia, and I made that clear.


If g2mom is correct, the remedial students are most likely male and/or Asian. YOU are assuming that the students in those remedial classes at TJ are black and Latino or poor, not me. I originally said that I had no idea about the composition of those classes. I simply said that because our schools force everyone to move in lockstep, it's reasonable to assume that many or most of the 30% of kids at TJ who need remediation aren't as smart as many of the kids who don't.

Calling me a racist because I also made a general statement that some people aren't as smart as others is just looking for a reason to get wound up. Given the overall IQ distribution, most people would not be called "smart," regardless of race, ethnicity, or SES.

This sounds very nice and all that, but how about some back-up?

The best ways to help disadvantaged kids aren't really that big of a mystery. We don't want to invest in them because they're expensive and because many people would perceive them as intrusive. You invest in young, disadvantaged mothers when they are pregnant and you visit them in their homes. Then you start with their kids when they are VERY youn, and you provide families with very high-quality daycare. YOU REACH THESE KIDS WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG. That is the key. .

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=57

Nurse-Family Partnership

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HIGHLIGHTS

Intervention: A nurse home visitation program for first-time mothers – mostly low-income and unmarried – during their pregnancy and children’s infancy.
Evaluation Methods:Three well-conducted randomized controlled trials, each carried out in a different population and setting.
Key Findings: Pattern of sizable, sustained effects on important child and maternal outcomes in all three trials. The specific types of effects differed across the three trials, possibly due to differences in the populations treated. Effects found in two or more trials include (i) reductions in child abuse/neglect and injuries (20-50%); (ii) reduction in mothers’ subsequent births (10-20%) during their late teens and early twenties; (iii) improvement in cognitive/educational outcomes for children of mothers with low mental health/confidence/intelligence (e.g., 6 percentile point increase in grade 1-6 reading/math achievement).

hild FIRST
_____________________________________________________

HIGHLIGHTS

Intervention: A home visitation program for low-income families with young children at high risk of emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems, or child maltreatment.
Evaluation Methods: A well-conducted randomized controlled trial.
Key Findings: 40-70% reduction in serious levels of (i) child conduct and language development problems, and (ii) mothers’ psychological distress, one year after random assignment. 33% reduction in families’ involvement with child protective services (CPS) for possible child maltreatment, over three years.
Other: A study limitation is that its sample was geographically concentrated in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Replication of these findings in a second trial, in another setting, would be desirable to confirm the initial results and establish that they generalize to other settings where the intervention might be implemented.

Especially look at the Abcedarian project:

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=70

and Perry Preschool:

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=65

Mithawk,

I totally agree with you. The success of kids in school based on motivation of the kids, parental involvement and teacher (school). What I have noticed is that the weakest link has been the parents. The parents left the kids' education to the teachers and do not bother to check the homework, etc...(but will attend all soccer games, football games).

The matter of the fact is well-to-do families often are educated and they encourage their kids' education and not poor families often do not have proper education and they do not worry about the future. Unfortunately many minorities are poor and the cycle continues.

There are many programs in different parts of the country but the most important thing is we have to get the parents buy into the idea that the education is important for their kids. (It is really hard for an individual teacher to have impact on the kids because most of them spend only 1 year with them).

Educational success in Europe and many Asia countries is because the parents nurture their kids. I heard a teacher said some incoming kinder does not know how to read A,B,C and some kids are reading independently. You can guess who are the parents of those kids? Any government program without parental involvement will fail or cost tremendously. The parents (parents in this forum not included) need to step up.

David Brooks has a recent column on this, although he cites data from Robert Putnam that disparities extend to sports participation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/opinion/brooks-the-opportunity-gap.html
The Opportunity Gap
New York Times
July 9, 2012

Over the past few months, writers from Charles Murray to Timothy Noah have produced alarming work on the growing bifurcation of American society. Now the eminent Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and his team are coming out with research that’s more horrifying.

While most studies look at inequality of outcomes among adults and help us understand how America is coming apart, Putnam’s group looked at inequality of opportunities among children. They help us understand what the country will look like in the decades ahead. The quick answer? More divided than ever.

Putnam’s data verifies what many of us have seen anecdotally, that the children of the more affluent and less affluent are raised in starkly different ways and have different opportunities. Decades ago, college-graduate parents and high-school-graduate parents invested similarly in their children. Recently, more affluent parents have invested much more in their children’s futures while less affluent parents have not.

They’ve invested more time. Over the past decades, college-educated parents have quadrupled the amount of time they spend reading “Goodnight Moon,” talking to their kids about their day and cheering them on from the sidelines. High-school-educated parents have increased child-care time, but only slightly.

A generation ago, working-class parents spent slightly more time with their kids than college-educated parents. Now college-educated parents spend an hour more every day. This attention gap is largest in the first three years of life when it is most important.

Affluent parents also invest more money in their children. Over the last 40 years upper-income parents have increased the amount they spend on their kids’ enrichment activities, like tutoring and extra curriculars, by $5,300 a year. The financially stressed lower classes have only been able to increase their investment by $480, adjusted for inflation.

As a result, behavior gaps are opening up. In 1972, kids from the bottom quartile of earners participated in roughly the same number of activities as kids from the top quartile. Today, it’s a chasm.

Richer kids are roughly twice as likely to play after-school sports. They are more than twice as likely to be the captains of their sports teams. They are much more likely to do nonsporting activities, like theater, yearbook and scouting. They are much more likely to attend religious services.

...

Because a generation ago, two incomes were not necessary for survival in a working-class family.


And not coincidentally, working-class incomes have been stagnant for the last generation, whereas upper-class incomes have risen sharply over that same span.