How can society measure our academic abilities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think I am having trouble with the assumption that life is so clearly linear -- survive the sorting in 1st grade and 3rd grade and 6th grade and 8th grade and 12th grade and then you arrive at the magical golden ticket of attending MIT and getting a graduate fellowship and making a million dollars -- or whatever.
Are there other places in the world where that is actually true? Is it actually true in China or India? This is a legitimate question. I honestly don't know if it is.

the notion that there is only one way to rise to the top, and only one way to be successful, or that success actually means the same thing to everyone.

DOes no one ever fall off the ramp, or decide at some point not to go along or not to follow the program or whatever? There was a fifth grader in my daughter's SAT prep class who was being prepped to get into the Duke TIP program by scoring really high on the SAT. IT seems like kids are pretty malleable when they're in fifth grade and maybe you can get them to do whatever you want and give up their Sundays to REPEAT an SAT prep course for a summer program -- but don't any of these kids ever rebel? Wake up and discover that they really want to be an organic farmer? Or does that only happen in America?

You really should get out more. Once COVID is over, I highly suggest that you and possibly your family travel outside of the US and see the bigger world. It is easy to judge others from your American-centric vantage point when you don't know what is beyond your front yard. Your posted started with seemingly well intended, but ignorant, nevertheless, questions. I am happy to educate. However, you ended the post with such distain for how other culture live and thrive, whether by choice or not, you just aren't ready to receive that education. And do remember, other cultures also include those diverse communities living here in the USA, like that 5th grader. So please do all of us a favor, don't judge.

BTW, have you ever tried to strike up a conversation with that kid's family and try to understand them as people first? and why is your daughter in SAT prep? Guess what, you are on this prepping ship just everyone else. Please, don't bother responding. Your opinion is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

" Asians have a quota for everything. So they need to compete for a more limited number of slots for everything. "

There is good reason for the resentment that Asian expatriates bring down upon themselves here in America by dominating instead of assimilating.

Note that being an expatriate is the antithesis of being an ex-patriot.

Why didn't the Asians who fled Asia for the greener pastures of America instead stay home and fight in place for the futures of their little geniuses?

Why don't we hear even a peep of protest from Asian expats about anything but perpetuating their dominance of TJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:" Asians have a quota for everything. So they need to compete for a more limited number of slots for everything. "

There is good reason for the resentment that Asian expatriates bring down upon themselves here in America by dominating instead of assimilating.

Note that being an expatriate is the antithesis of being an ex-patriot.

Why didn't the Asians who fled Asia for the greener pastures of America instead stay home and fight in place for the futures of their little geniuses?

Why don't we hear even a peep of protest from Asian expats about anything but perpetuating their dominance of TJ?

I think they are complaining about lottery, not about having more opportunities for URMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:" Asians have a quota for everything. So they need to compete for a more limited number of slots for everything. "

There is good reason for the resentment that Asian expatriates bring down upon themselves here in America by dominating instead of assimilating.

Note that being an expatriate is the antithesis of being an ex-patriot.

Why didn't the Asians who fled Asia for the greener pastures of America instead stay home and fight in place for the futures of their little geniuses?

Why don't we hear even a peep of protest from Asian expats about anything but perpetuating their dominance of TJ?

I think they are complaining about lottery, not about having more opportunities for URMs.

One dominant trait about racists is that they are dense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no way to measure pure aptitude that can't be "broken" through prepping. The creator of the CogAT recommended providing prep materials to everyone so that the playing field would be leveled at least somewhat.

By the time the kids are 13-14 and applying for TJ, gifted is as gifted does. It's absurd to use aptitude tests rather than achievement tests and actual accomplishments. If they want to increase URM participation, the best way is to provide more services in K-8, as well as free TJ prep courses for middle schoolers.

I totally disagree with the PP who said: "I don't support the reforms but they did get one thing right. The test should measure through Algebra 1 only because that is what is taught in school and no further". Kids who are smart can easily test into Algebra I in 7th grade using only what is taught in FCPS. They should get a boost in TJ testing or acceptance over the kids who weren't smart enough to qualify for Algebra in 7th. TJ testing should cover all of Algebra I Honors as well as half of Geometry I Honors, as that is the top track accessible to smart FCPS kids who aren't necessarily supplementing outside of school.

Why limit it to what FCPS offers by grade? Meet the students where they are with an appropriate education, wherever that is. If the total, holistic, measure of the student, including his or her family support, willingness to study and put in work, places them beyond what FCPS has traditionally limited students to, why shouldn't they be given the opportunity to push forward elsewhere?

And if there's some reason for FCPS to *limit* what some of the best and brightest are allowed to do, in the name of equity, or some perceived subjective value judgement, they're not meeting their obligation to maximise the potential of all learners. In such case, the funding allocated for these extra-ordinary students should be given to the parents to allow them to seek out a more appropriate educational environment.

As for the psychometry of intelligence -- IQ tests. That's the closest thing we have to measuring 'g', the absolute measure of intellectual ability. Where we have an IQ/achievement mismatch we have a failure of the educational system.

Achievement, even achievement advanced for the grade level, can happen with fairly mundane intellectual ability and a lot of hard work. These students should be lauded, but they don't really require special facilities or special teachers...they just need to be allowed to accelerate "normal" advanced curricula.

As for the profoundly gifted -- they can barely communicate with the average student without consciously slowing down. Empirically, they often have trouble relating to and building friendships with neurotypical people, and if required to engage with a classroom traveling at the speed of the 115 IQ kids...will be phenomenally bored. They WILL NOT REACH THEIR POTENTIAL.

Ultimately, we should cast a wide net with universal "gifted" testing for the ~1SD+ innate ability children for local acceleration, with increasingly expensive and intensive testing for +2SD, +3SD, as well as the handful of +4SD children in FCPS. IMO, +2SD should be the cutoff for peer-group cohorts, as they start to have trouble communicating with and relating to the average student. There are a few hundred of these students per grade, and many of them are bright and social enough that they'd prefer local schooling. There's probably only one classroom per grade of students at +3 or 4 SD in all of FCPS, and they'd all have different levels of asynchronous development.