[animal_spirits]

My anecdote is a few years ago the diving boards on the north side of Green Lake in Seattle were closed because the south side of the lake was "poorer" and couldn't maintain theirs, so to make things even they closed the north side diving boards. At least, this is what the lifeguards explained to me.

[nothercastle]

Basically this. The easiest way to obtain equity is to just to match everyone to the lowest level of service. The schools are trying to do the same thing.

[willsmith72]

How are the schools trying to do the same thing? Got some links?

[animal_spirits]

Seattle is closing cohort schools, which are essentially schools that allow gifted children to skip ahead in curriculums.

> The district counters that the old model of cohort schools for highly capable students is highly inequitable. For decades, highly capable programs across the country, like SPS’, served a small number of Black, Latino, Indigenous, Alaskan and Pacific Islander and low-income students and taught more white and Asian students. In the 2022-23 school year, 52% of highly capable students at SPS were white, 16% were Asian, and 3.4% were Black.

https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/why-seattle-publi...

[nothercastle]

That’s the big one but this also happens in lower level classroom environments. School and teacher achievement at the inner district is graded on how many kids meet the minimum bar. Any kid that meets the minimum bar can simply be ignored in the classroom and teaching resources are focused on the lower 50% so high achieving kids get mostly ignored

[willsmith72]

Wow, our selective schools in Sydney Australia are also highly unbalanced, over 80% over from non english speaking backgrounds (mostly Asian heritage). I've never heard political or social will to get rid of them though

[animal_spirits]

It is, in my opinion, the natural outcome of striving for equality over liberty, which is top of mind in Seattle’s political climate. While it can come sincerely, the actual result of these pursuits is that those with the means and the abilities to advance are retarded to that of the lowest common denominator.