[rangestransform]

> we in the 21st century are more bound to the success of our weakest links

only because they can vote

> Gifted children will get the stimulus they need at home via independent study or from their family

This is definitely not true for poorer gifted students:

- whose parents may not even know anything about the field that the student is interested in

- whose parents may see higher education as a waste of time or have other anti-intellectual views like a sizeable chunk of the US

- who may have ADHD (pretty likely actually) and need some kind of external structure to pursue something to the student's maximum potential

> Splitting gifted kids apart can warp them socially for life too

Gathering gifted kids together, instead of bunching them with lowest common denominators, can result in lifelong friendships. Out of 5 friends from high school that I'm still close with, 4 are in big tech and 1 is in a prestigious PhD program, we still try to gather a few times a year even though we've been out of high school for 10 years.

[tonyedgecombe]

> This is definitely not true for poorer gifted students: - whose parents may not even know anything about the field that the student is interested in - whose parents may see higher education as a waste of time or have other anti-intellectual views like a sizeable chunk of the US

Why are you assuming that because the parents are poor they are automatically ignorant or anti-intellectual?

[rangestransform]

poorer kids will be more affected by family attitudes because they will be less likely to be in a well funded school system with sufficient support for gifted kids

[dogprez]

> This is definitely not true for poorer gifted students:

I don't think that's as big of an issue because kids have access to teachers, libraries and the internet.

> Gathering gifted kids together, instead of bunching them with lowest common denominators, can result in lifelong friendships.

Kid's together creates the opportunity for friendships. Focusing too much on academics at a young age will miss key milestones for social development. It's particularly acute for high functioning autistic kids.

[frmersdog]

>only because they can vote

Domain specificity of "weak link"-hood, as well as the compounding of innocuous, sub-symptomatic "weak links":

Carpenter Tom is a hard-worker, great husband, and community leader. And he voted for an autocrat, against his explicit interests (benefits from ACA, benefits from undocumented immigrant labor, benefits from special-ed resources for his kids) because he dislikes keeping abreast of current events (poor reading speed) and made his decision based on a misunderstanding predicated by, essentially, a game of telephone across his personal network that warped facts about the candidates.

He's a "weak link" on the subject that counts - the matter of the vote - but otherwise an upstanding member of the community. You're going to disenfranchise him?

I sympathize with the rest of your comment. I do think it's a bit naive to think that these programs help even of a fraction of the poor kids they should be reaching. They seem to mostly be a way to section off semi-affluent kids in "lesser" schools (e.g., parents who can't move for work or family reasons).

[rangestransform]

> You're going to disenfranchise him?

No, I'm just going to wish that he was more educated and informed, and that the school system 40 years ago taught him critical thinking. American school needs to get better at teaching middling students too, too many USAians I talk to are incapable of reasoning about and discussing policy. With all that being said, the way he is the "weak link" is that by voting, he is most capable of negatively affecting the most people.

[frmersdog]

Maybe? Disenfranchise him, and see how all of the good he does for his community is consumed by the energy he puts into not being the second-class citizen that you've designated him as. We're bound to the success of our weakest links because they affect our lives beyond the arenas where they're weak. In our subject's case, he's ass at voting, but society gets more out of him than just that one ill-conceived moment.