NYC eliminating gifted and talented program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. There are pieces to that. 1) whether the kids who have better academic abilities deserve to be educated according to their abilities, and 2) whether the existing system selects the right kids for that education. My answers are yes to the first and not so sure to the second. The test they used fir 4 years old appears to be quite teachable (I personally know several people who put their kids in year-long prep program) while not particularly discriminate at the high end - too many kids are scoring at super high percentiles. So, that had to be reformed.

Unfortunately, knowing the political landscape in NYC, I am pretty sure they threw out the baby with the bath water.

Does selection need to be that rigid? Can’t there be fluid streaming in the same school where every year or semester kids can test into the top class? Isn’t that why we have community colleges and top colleges across the country take in transfers, because some people are late bloomers ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The qualities of gifted and talented are by definition are present at birth and are equally distributed across race and socio-economic factors.

If your program actually selects for environments factors that favour middle class and predominantly white kids then you don’t fit the title and deserve to be abolished.

When these programs select low income Black, Hispanic and any kid with EFL at the proportion that they are present in the community then I will take them seriously.

This is a nice sentiment, but it's belied by the evidence. It's common wisdom in the social sciences that IQ or "g" (general intelligence) is highly correlated with maternal education level.

All four of my grandparents where only educated to 6 years old in Sri Lanka and now all 6 of their kids have post graduate degrees. So that’s bull. Give our least privileged citizens the resources and community driven high expectations that my parents got and the sky is the limit. It’s not expensive, they literally only needed textbooks pencils and paper. My dad still has his and used to tutor me from it.

You are skipping a story in between because your grandparents with a first grade education didn’t tutor their own kids. Who helped them along the way?

[Anonymous]

Wow, Hunter College Elementary School is going to be even more ridiculously difficult to get into now.

[Anonymous]

My only beef with any sort of GT program is that it encourages rote memorization culture, which also comes with cutthroat competition and stress for all in involved. It’s not healthy, at least not for the US and its culture.
However what is the alternative? Grouping together kids of broadly differing ability and what’s most important - differing motivation which mostly comes from family which in turn is part of a certain culture-‘it never seems to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. There are pieces to that. 1) whether the kids who have better academic abilities deserve to be educated according to their abilities, and 2) whether the existing system selects the right kids for that education. My answers are yes to the first and not so sure to the second. The test they used fir 4 years old appears to be quite teachable (I personally know several people who put their kids in year-long prep program) while not particularly discriminate at the high end - too many kids are scoring at super high percentiles. So, that had to be reformed.

Unfortunately, knowing the political landscape in NYC, I am pretty sure they threw out the baby with the bath water.

Does selection need to be that rigid? Can’t there be fluid streaming in the same school where every year or semester kids can test into the top class? Isn’t that why we have community colleges and top colleges across the country take in transfers, because some people are late bloomers ?

PP. Absolutely. As I said, I don't oppose the philosophical idea of G&T, but I do have issues with the selection process.

BTW, theoretically, kids could test into the current program up to grade 3, but the program wasn't able to accommodate all the students anyway so the spots weren't guaranteed. I don't know how many of those who tested in after age 4 got the placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The war on things Asians like escalates.

tell me about it- the tax system already mines asians while leaving wealthy whites untouched, now they want take away a route to a better education b/c "equity"

And yes a tax system that relies primarily on 150k to 1M W-2 salary earners to fund the government is racist towards asians b/c Asians make up a disproportionate percentage of that population.

[Anonymous]

Public school parents once again rudely awakened by political reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a direct attack on academically successful Asian kids. However, won't hurt people with money who can send their kids to private.

This. It impacts families with immigrant parents who didn't have the opportunity for education in their home country. It hurts kids who have families that put an emphasis on education and came to the US to seek that out. Families with money have choices. These families don't. It's upsetting.

...and they will still vote for the people that discriminate against them when it comes to education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The qualities of gifted and talented are by definition are present at birth and are equally distributed across race and socio-economic factors.

If your program actually selects for environments factors that favour middle class and predominantly white kids then you don’t fit the title and deserve to be abolished.

When these programs select low income Black, Hispanic and any kid with EFL at the proportion that they are present in the community then I will take them seriously.

This is a nice sentiment, but it's belied by the evidence. It's common wisdom in the social sciences that IQ or "g" (general intelligence) is highly correlated with maternal education level.

All four of my grandparents where only educated to 6 years old in Sri Lanka and now all 6 of their kids have post graduate degrees. So that’s bull. Give our least privileged citizens the resources and community driven high expectations that my parents got and the sky is the limit. It’s not expensive, they literally only needed textbooks pencils and paper. My dad still has his and used to tutor me from it.

You are skipping a story in between because your grandparents with a first grade education didn’t tutor their own kids. Who helped them along the way?

DP. Once upon a time schools actually taught kids something besides socio-emotional stuff. Shocking, I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

All four of my grandparents where only educated to 6 years old in Sri Lanka and now all 6 of their kids have post graduate degrees. So that’s bull. Give our least privileged citizens the resources and community driven high expectations that my parents got and the sky is the limit. It’s not expensive, they literally only needed textbooks pencils and paper. My dad still has his and used to tutor me from it.

You are skipping a story in between because your grandparents with a first grade education didn’t tutor their own kids. Who helped them along the way?

They had state education until what was then called O levels, British exams taken at 16. They then got scholarships based on those exams to private school for A- levels until 18 and then University after that. My two parents met at the private school and then studied medicine together. There where issues in the country, don’t get me wrong, a 20 year civil war plagued it. But they served my family well.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in New York and benefited from some of these programs as a white child of a very poor immigrant family. I was a minority at the school I attended back in the day.
Anecdotally, my friends who have the means to do so are leaving NYC. We all want the best education for our kids, and NYC is just not it any more. As someone up thread said - it's the non-wealthy motivated parents who lose, because they can't afford private school and will now lack access to G&T. Yay NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in New York and benefited from some of these programs as a white child of a very poor immigrant family. I was a minority at the school I attended back in the day.
Anecdotally, my friends who have the means to do so are leaving NYC. We all want the best education for our kids, and NYC is just not it any more. As someone up thread said - it's the non-wealthy motivated parents who lose, because they can't afford private school and will now lack access to G&T. Yay NYC.

The fact that they could expect access to something designed for a small portion of kids with innate abilities is a great demonstration of how flawed the system was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a direct attack on academically successful Asian kids. However, won't hurt people with money who can send their kids to private.

This. It impacts families with immigrant parents who didn't have the opportunity for education in their home country. It hurts kids who have families that put an emphasis on education and came to the US to seek that out. Families with money have choices. These families don't. It's upsetting.

You might be interested to know that the program under discussion relies on a test administered at 4 years old, and disproportionately attracks UMC white families. This is not the competitive test-in high schools - it's an elementary school program.

DP. Why are they scrapping the program instead of fixing (changing) it?

Because tracking kids at age four is absurd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The qualities of gifted and talented are by definition are present at birth and are equally distributed across race and socio-economic factors.

If your program actually selects for environments factors that favour middle class and predominantly white kids then you don’t fit the title and deserve to be abolished.

When these programs select low income Black, Hispanic and any kid with EFL at the proportion that they are present in the community then I will take them seriously.

This is a nice sentiment, but it's belied by the evidence. It's common wisdom in the social sciences that IQ or "g" (general intelligence) is highly correlated with maternal education level.

All four of my grandparents where only educated to 6 years old in Sri Lanka and now all 6 of their kids have post graduate degrees. So that’s bull. Give our least privileged citizens the resources and community driven high expectations that my parents got and the sky is the limit. It’s not expensive, they literally only needed textbooks pencils and paper. My dad still has his and used to tutor me from it.

You are skipping a story in between because your grandparents with a first grade education didn’t tutor their own kids. Who helped them along the way?

It's not easy to move to America from overseas, especially from a poor family. Family probably smart AF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a direct attack on academically successful Asian kids. However, won't hurt people with money who can send their kids to private.

This. It impacts families with immigrant parents who didn't have the opportunity for education in their home country. It hurts kids who have families that put an emphasis on education and came to the US to seek that out. Families with money have choices. These families don't. It's upsetting.

Yep, no impact on well off white ppl and no one cares about Asians, even the recent immigrants who are not affluent.