[hackerfooze]

I disagree.

In general what you'll find is that most of these advanced classes are dominated by certain economic groups. Public funds are advancing people with more resources when all they actually need is to pass state college entrance exams. It's not that children from low income families can't do the math, it's that they're at a huge disadvantage when their parents are often working, can't hover over them to make sure they figure it out, and can't afford Kumon. If you agree with a progressive tax rate (which not everyone does), surely you understand that this is a bad thing.

I personally think all middle and high school should be bare minimum. Kids should be able to test out of classes when appropriate. The extra funds can go toward paying competent teachers for the less advanced subjects. If some parent wants their child to be advanced, they can use their own resources to help them test out of classes and take whatever APs they need.

Also many of the comments on this topic here and on Twitter to me reek of solipsism. Every upper-class parent wants the best for their child, and every hacker thinks the story of their journey into math and CS is the most important one.

[eitally]

In addition this, at least in California, kids can dual-enroll in community colleges to take supplementary or more advanced (or even vocational) courses that mostly do transfer for college credit when applying to UCs & CSUs.

I sometimes wonder if this is how the German system came about, where there's a hard split in high school / gymnasium between the academic track kids and the vocational track kids (and there absolutely is not any shame in taking the vocational route).

[rco8786]

So shouldn't the solution be to get kids from lower economic groups into those classes? Rather than stop teaching anyone?

The solution you're proposing takes away any chance of accessing these advanced classes for lower economic groups, and keeps the economic inequality moving.

What happens when the low income kids test out of the remedial class? Oh well, they're just done with school then?

> Every upper-class parent wants the best for their child

I'm not sure how to read into this. Why did you purposefully qualify this to only upper-class parents?

[hackerfooze]

No, that would be focusing on the advanced poor kids who need less help.

I'm OK with that and no it doesn't keep inequality moving.

Yes, done with school. Read a book, or go to work, or just hang out.

Read whatever you want, you're just concern trolling.

[rco8786]

I'm genuinely not. I'm honestly fascinated by your thinking. It appears we have similar goals, yet I cannot wrap my head around your logic. There must be some deep, first/zeroth principles that we disagree on or something.