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

Here's their mission statement:
http://www.tjhsst.edu/abouttj/plans/mission.php

and, actually, a group of people in Loudoun County is looking to start a science and tech charter school similar to TJ to provide another option to the students who can't get into TJ due to space constraints.

I think the article I linked that said that this has not allowed more under-served minorities into the school was really telling.

So they have decided that they want high achievement, not potential for high achievement.

High achievement can *always* be gamed.

i dont think they intended to create a gameable system. I think they underestimated the tenacity of the tigermom.
I think the were trying to be more fair and just ended up being unfair in a different way.
whenever you have to disperse a limited resource the criteria for chosing will inevitable skew in some direction. sometimes it just doesnt happen in the ways the planners predict.

Yes, which is why I keep mentioning nutrition and medical care. But for schools...I agree with La Texican when she said "if the school's so great they should make copies of the school, not change it."

You need to train the parents in tigermomming.

Nutrition won't do it.

You have to dig deep into the family structure and make psychosocial changes.

True, but nutrition would help. So would prenatal care.

Good prenatal nutrition and childhood nutrition are the most easily changed aspects of IQ. Most controlled studies show a disparity of 20+ IQ points between poor and good nutrition.

The next is expectations set by the parents and by the culture the kids are raised in. Mom_of_1 hits it right and having played on "select" teams when I was young, I know what the "expectations" are in the black community. They suck. And it sucks on the Rez and it sucks in the Barrio, too. My friends knew the playbook inside and out and could diagram the other teams' plays right after the game, but few of them could read and many were actively hazed if they so much as showed in interest in books. They stories I could tell. I am bitter to this day about what happened later in life to some of my childhood friends. That is not IQ, its expectations.

Most of the Flynn Effect is due to nutrition and expectations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Finally, its the schools. A well fed kid with parents who will support them can make it. But add in a good school with a solid teaching cadre and curriculum, and nothing will stop them.

But if nutrition sucks and parents don't care, then no school can make a difference for most.

I agree genetics comes into play. But its only clear that the Ashkenazim really stand out here among well fed and educated elite.

As for "opportunities" I am not so sure any more what that means. You cannot escape your boundary conditions and you cannot escape the fact that there are real costs to going down the wrong path.

Val's comments about working with kids of limited ability are reality and we have to accept that. In order to give them real opportunity in life, we have to educate them with realistic goals in mind.

As for the OP. The tigermom comment brings up the real concern. Living in DFW I see that little johnnie plays soccer four nights a week while Li and Krishan study. After ten years one is REALLY good and soccer and the other gets into Harvard. Again, its expectations.

TJ is a great school and for those who begin with the end goal in mind, TJ is just another step to take. If you start thinking about TJ in the 8th grade when others started thinking about it in the first grade, that is a lot of ground to make up. It probably won't happen. You just cannot walk onto the varsity squad at top HS and play starting quarterback having never played football at a high level.

prenatal care, parent support, early childhood education interventions. preK, early structured reading instruction for all kids. and i agree with better nutrition and less toxins.

wouldnt it be great if all kids had a free Appropriate public education!

by the time the kids were in your program Val it was too late to do much accelerating into college without intense specific one on one attention to individual needs and major boot strapping. most kids arent up for it. if you wnet back and reassed your group after whatever interval its been, you might find that there has been a delayed effect. even it it wasnt 4 year college and STEM PHDs.

My son's school was the birth place of a "I have a dream" class 13 years ago. Those 60 kindergartners are graduating from high school tomorrow. Of the 60, 3 graduated early, 5 got GEDs and the remaining 52 are all walking tomorrow. Many of them are using their Dreamer money for technical certificates at the community college, but, we are in a city with a 70ish percent graduation rate for low income children of color, of which 85% of the Dreamers are.

Clearly, catching them early, providing them and their families with support and giving them hope that college is actually an attainable goal financially does wonders.