[Afton]

To be fair, it is less about "keeping top kids down" and more about "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids". Put that way it seems less malicious, and more like probably the right thing to do over all, while still being extremely frustrating if you are, or are the parent of, a 'top kid'. I know that in Seattle, I've been very frustrated with all the talk and promise of our school to provide enrichment to kids like mine who are able to learn quickly and are ready for more advanced learning opportunities, only to discover that it is haphazard, often in name only, and there isn't time or interest in providing more.

But it's not because of some drive for 'equity'. I've talked with teachers (as friends, not in a school setting). They're doing what they can with the resources they have.

[dxbydt]

> "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids"

So why does the richest country on the planet have "very scarce resources" only when it comes to educating its kids ? Of course, that very same public school has a stadium that is easily several times larger than facilities provided for Olympic level athletes in a poor country like India. That same school has a music program with a huge ballroom, recording studio, fancy musical instruments...bass sax, harps, bassoons and contrabassoons, double bass, violas...like literally, even a top of the line Bollywood studio doesn't have half of this. USA has chosen to prioritize just about everything other than basic classroom stem education. Then when you ask the math teacher why the kids don't know their logarithms and trig tables, he is like...well we have calculators and chromebooks. I have spent multiple years trying to engage with school board officials in public schools here in the mid-west. The most reasonable, unemotional, takeaway after all this engagement is that Americans are simply not interested in classroom education. They don't have teacher, don't have the time to teach, don't care for books or chalkboards...its simply not their thing. That's fine. I do hope all of this hyper-investment in music and sports produces some world class track and field athlete who can run a mile under three minutes while playing the bassoon.

[com2kid]

> That same school has a music program with a huge ballroom, recording studio, fancy musical instruments...bass sax, harps, bassoons and contrabassoons, double bass, violas...

Seattle has cancelled a bunch of their music programs as well.

A couple years ago they also cancelled, a very successful, STEM program in schools that primarily served economically disadvantaged students, because the school district couldn't afford to pay their portion of the program's cost.

There was a court ruling in Washington state a decade or so ago that said the state government has to fund schools and that school districts and cities are forbidden from raising more than a pittance of additional funding for teachers and academic activities.

This was good for the first few years, all schools in the state finally became fully funded, not just the schools in rich areas, but recently the state has been underfunding schools and now every major school district in the state is having financial problems.

[in_cahoots]

Which poor public schools have any of those amenities? Most of the schools I’ve seen are in old buildings, with no air conditioning. The fancy ones may have a space for the band and a theater, while the poorer ones barely even have a playground. I’ve never seen a school with a recording studio, let alone a ballroom.

[chongli]

and more like probably the right thing to do over all

It’s only the right thing if you assume equity as a starting position though. We already know, rather robustly, that the weakest and most disruptive students can consume far more than their share of limited resources and produce correspondingly limited outcomes.

Another theory goes that we should provide more resources to the best and brightest students so that they go on to become great leaders and experts in their fields and then improve society for everyone. This may be called the “rising tide lifts all boats” theory. It was the predominant one in the US for much of the 20th century and earlier, and it arguably led to the US’s position as a global leader in science, technology, and industry.

[sangnoir]

> Another theory goes that we should provide more resources to the best and brightest students so that they go on to become great leaders and experts in their fields and then improve society for everyone.

I'd call it "trickle down" theory. Or "horse-and-sparrow theory" (feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat)

[chongli]

I'd call it "trickle down" theory. Or "horse-and-sparrow theory" (feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat)

What you’re missing here is that we’ve been sold on this idea of “one size fits all” education as the only just model. This means forcing the weakest, most disruptive students up to a standard (especially in math and science) they can’t realistically meet. Instead of allowing these kids to find their true calling in some skilled trades such as plumbing, electrical, welding, or construction, we force them to go to university where they’re guaranteed to fail (or drop out trying). And in the process we saddle them with a mountain of student loans!

[com2kid]

This has been the strategy used by families around the world for thousands of years.

Have some kids, pick the one that seems like they'll be the most successful, put all of the family's limited resources into that one kid. If that kid goes on to become successful, they are expected to help lift up the rest of the family.

Another view is that I've paid back in taxes alone, many multiples of what my education cost the city.

> feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat

Yeah well the current strategy being employed is starve all the horses and leave the bodies in the field to rot.

The harsh truth is bell curves exist. Some people are just better are things than others.

Imagine a scenario with three classrooms:

One classroom is full of kids who can be taught 3 years of a subject in one year

A second classroom has kids who can be taught 1 year of a skills in a subject in 1 year.

The third classroom is kids who are remedial and if great effort is put in, they'll be taught one year of skills in two years.

The no-shit-sherlock strategy is to assign a teacher to each classroom.

What we are doing instead is one of two strategies:

1. Mix all the students together, and watch as the kids who would be advanced drop out of school due to boredom, and the kids who need remedial help drop out because they aren't learning anything.

2. Fund classroom 2 as normal, take resources that would've been spent on classroom 1, and give it to classroom 3, causing incremental improvements, and again failing the kids who would be in classroom 1.

Both strategies are downright stupid and inefficient.

Not only that, these strategies also cause funding problems. Now the parents of kids who would have been in classroom 1 pull their kids out of school, causing a reduction in funding for everyone. Next, parents who would have kids in classroom 1 don't even move to the city, causing a reduction in the overall economy for the city, so now there is even less money for social and academic programs to help disadvantaged students.

To be clear, I'm not naming the subject here because students should be independently evaluated on each subject. Someone may need remedial math help but be great at writing.

[sangnoir]

Barrels of ink have been used to debunk various flavors of Social Darwinism by better thinkers and writers than I.

I wouldn't commit a kid who struggles with math in 3rd grade to a life in the trades. I suppose HN has an over-represention of former gifted student commenters- but being intelligent doesn't make one better than others, or better suited for greater expectations, more deserving of resources, or more likely to succeed. Intelligence is just one aspect out of the many you can measure a human by - resilience, resourcefulness, grit, propensity to self-destruction, proneness to addictions, self-delusion, confidence, being an insufferable dick, laziness, are among the things I've seen people exhibit to their own detriment (or success) - regardless of what their baseline intelligence was. Society does better when it nurtures all the positives, and not just putting all eggs in the "very intelligent" basket.

The smartest students I knew are doing very mundane jobs that can be (and are) done by far less smarter folk - the one in academia is trying to leave. I'm less smart, but I pay more on taxes than most of them - one exception is the executive at a dating app. She's probably a genius as she never had to study at all: but that's not exactly a role that moves society forward, is it?

Edit: oh, and Elon Musk was a B student.

[chongli]

being intelligent doesn't make one better than others

The only issue here is with the attitude that a career in the trades is somehow inferior to getting a degree. It is not. I have many friends and family who work in the trades. They are intelligent, hard-working, resourceful people who take tremendous pride in the quality of their work. They both produce and repair useful things (houses, cars, factories, and countless other pieces of equipment). They are the backbone of our society.

They also happen to earn a lot more money than many other people I know who have degrees and work those "mundane jobs" you mentioned. Why? Because there's a huge shortage of labour in the trades and people who enter that career have far more bargaining power than they did back in the early-mid 20th century. It's also reflected in the way we simply don't build the way we used to. China built an incredible high speed rail network all over their country in just a few decades at minimal cost. The US can't even manage to build one high speed link between San Francisco and LA without spending more than the GDP of most countries on the project while facing countless delays.

It's one of our greatest shames that we in the West have developed such an elitist culture that we look down on the people who build things.

[sangnoir]

> The only issue here is with the attitude that a career in the trades is somehow inferior to getting a degree

I made no such claim - the word I used (commit) was chosen with care, and is neutral.

> They also happen to earn a lot more money than many other people I know who have degrees and work those "mundane jobs" you mentioned.

While trades are a decent choice; let's not overly romanticize them. The ones making decent money are those who are self-employed (basically effectively consultants) and those in unions with a monopoly (like the longshoremen). The working stiffs aren't doing that great, especially if the work is hard on the body, then it means their career is going to be much shorter than the average desk jockey, and they will have considerable health costs later.

[com2kid]

> I wouldn't commit a kid who struggles with math in 3rd grade to a life in the trades.

Students should be re-evaluated every year. I've been at the bottom of classes and the top of classes in the same subject!

Also as others have pointed out, please stop crapping on the trades. I've met plumbers who are damn good at math calculations (needed for complex hydroponic heating systems!). Not to mention plenty of people in the trades learn to run their own businesses, with all the different skills that requires.

> but being intelligent doesn't make one better than others, or better suited for greater expectations, more deserving of resources, or more likely to succeed.

I didn't say any of that.

I said that right now schools are allocating 0 resources to students who are gifted, which is just as messed up as allocating 0 resources to students who need extra help. And as a reminder a child can be in both groups at the same time.

[sangnoir]

> Also as others have pointed out, please stop crapping on the trades

I never "crapped" on the trades like you imagined I did, they are a perfectly fine career choice.

[jltsiren]

That approach eventually failed, because the great leaders and experts went on to improve the society for themselves, at the expense of everyone else. Focusing on those who would be successful anyway made sense when the middle class was still expanding. Then the expansion stopped, social mobility decreased, and the zero-sum aspects of the society became dominant.

[mitthrowaway2]

One unfortunate consequence is that underchallenged "top kids" can quickly turn into "bottom kids" themselves. (Especially, but not only, if they are bullied by their peers for appearing too engaged with their studies). This is a devastating loss.

[theamk]

I think you've got lucky.

In our public school, there are multiple math classes already with people randomly assigned to one of them, and both advanced and regular classes are taught by the same teachers. So there is very little extra cost to have more advanced math classes - shuffle kids around and allow teachers to teach one of the classes faster. And yet we only one advanced half-class, despite dozens of students wanting to go there.

Why? Our school management is explicitly against that. I've talked to them directly, and they admitted that they are very much against any "out of the grade" behavior, the teachers are not allowed to give more advanced material. It was all in the name of equity of course.

[dartos]

I don’t think anyone is trying to keep bright kids down, but you need to ask.

Is it worth it to spend monumental effort trying to get not very bright children to meet some minimum requirement

OR

is it more worth it to just encourage and lift up brighter students.

I don’t think there’s a clear answer, but what we have isn’t it.

[phil21]

> I don’t think there’s a clear answer, but what we have isn’t it.

The answer is entirely clear but it's uncomfortable.

Society is moved forward by the top percentile, not by even the "average". You can only help those who wish to help themselves, and expending massive resources on kids who are not there to learn (or cannot) has had predictable results.

Some evil folks in history have used this exact strategy of crippling the "top kids" of a group for their genocidal plans. It's highly effective.

The best thing you can do is make sure those "top kids" are identified early and tracked into the proper classes regardless of socioeconomic background. Yes, this means segregating students based on ability earlier than later. Doing this ends up helping those "bottom kids" once they reach adulthood since society is better overall for everyone.

[theamk]

Unless your school is so small that there is only one math class per grade, it is entirely possible to do both.

[BeFlatXIII]

As one of those frustrated top kids, it taught me a well-earned contempt for my neurotypical peers. Frustration at spending the resources on them when it didn't seem to move the needle.

[snapcaster]

But you turned out fine right? you're mad you're not even further ahead than the normies or what?

[tqi]

"let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids... They're doing what they can with the resources they have."

I'm not convinced that resources are actually that scarce (the US has the second-highest amount spent per pupil among OECD countries). I think your teacher friends are doing the best with what they are being given by school boards, which is different. In many cities, the school board is considered a key stepping stone into bigger and better offices (city council, boards of supervisors, mayor, etc), which means it often attracts folks who are trying to leverage their positions to take stances on issues that have nothing to do with education. I think attacking gifted programs / tracking is one example of this, which are cast as perpetuating inequality, despite evidence that they help students across the board.

[com2kid]

> I know that in Seattle, I've been very frustrated with all the talk and promise of our school to provide enrichment to kids like mine who are able to learn quickly and are ready for more advanced learning opportunities, only to discover that it is haphazard, often in name only, and there isn't time or interest in providing more.

Seattle used to have one of the nation's best gifted programs. Back in the 90s it was ran in a racist fashion, gifted schools only existed in wealthy neighborhoods and poor and minority families had to fight like hell to get kids into the gifted program.

The easy solution was to offer gifted classes in schools throughout the city, and to offer free gifted program testing to all students in the district.

Washington state actually recently passed the later into law, all students can get tested for free during the school day, removing one large barrier to entry. The law was passed just in time for the Seattle School District to dismantle the city's gifted program.

On top of this, the city got rid of their bussing program, moving back to a neighborhood schools model. While this saved the district money on bussing, it is also a return to a racist system that was dismantled for good reason generations ago. Is it actual segregation? No, but you don't have to squint very hard to see how it looks awfully similar...

> But it's not because of some drive for 'equity'. I've talked with teachers (as friends, not in a school setting).

The school board's removal of the gifted resources was driven by "equity".

That "equity" drive has also seen the test scores of disadvantaged minority students continue to decline. Not only that, now the kids who have a real opportunity to escape generational poverty, are no longer being given those resources.

I say this as a kid who grew up in Seattle in the 90s to a family that was working class poor, and as someone who benefited immensely from Seattle's once great gifted program.

[ndriscoll]

The top kids don't need more resources. They need to be segregated from the bottom kids, which can be done with the same number of teachers by tracking.

[boomchinolo78]

I mean there are alternative models. Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore famously opposed the "helping the bottom kids at expense of the top ones". Is it really the right thing?