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California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

(www.latimes.com)
412 points tafda | 5 comments | 26 Nov 24 16:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.74s | source
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csa ◴[26 Nov 24 17:25 UTC] No.42247695[source]▶
It’s not just California, but California may be one of the more egregious state neglecters.

The push at the state level for policies that focus on equality of outcomes over equality of opportunities will not end well for the gifted and talented communities.

Whenever I hear these people talk about their policies, I can’t help but recall Harrison Bergeron.

Focusing on equality of outcomes in a society that structurally does not afford equality of opportunities is a fool’s game that ends with Bergeron-esque levels of absurdity.

Imho, the only viable/main solution is to acknowledge that we all aren’t equal, we don’t all have access to the same opportunities, but as a country we can implement policies that lessen the imbalance.

Head Start is a good example.

Well-run gifted and talented programs in schools are also good examples.

Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society.

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1. Simon_ORourke ◴[26 Nov 24 17:38 UTC] No.42247846[source]▶
> the gifted and talented communities.

As in gifted and talented individuals who form a community, or all these folks from this ethnic background you think are talented? Because if it's the former then I'm surprised they've got a community going, and if it's the latter you would be better served getting the calipers out and go measure some skulls instead to promote that nonsense.

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2. ctoth ◴[26 Nov 24 17:50 UTC] No.42247982[source]▶
> As in gifted and talented individuals who form a community, or all these folks from this ethnic background you think are talented? Because if it's the former then I'm surprised they've got a community going

"A recent analysis in Nature caused a stir by pointing out that the vast majority of Nobel Prize winners belong to the same academic family. Of 736 researchers who have won the Big Recognition, 702 group together into one huge connected academic lineage (with lineage broadly defined as when one scientist “mentors” another, usually in the form of being their PhD advisor)."

> getting the calipers out and go measure some skulls

Please, just stop.

[0]: Yes, scientific progress depends on like a thousand people https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/yes-scientific-pro...

[1]: How to win a Nobel prize https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-024-02897-2/index.ht...

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3. wyldberry ◴[26 Nov 24 17:51 UTC] No.42247997[source]▶
Gifted and talented communities are all the persons who meet a criteria to join said community. In children this is often scoring beyond grade-level in tests.
4. ivalm ◴[26 Nov 24 17:53 UTC] No.42248019[source]▶
If you do merit based acceptance into programs then obviously it will have a different demographic makeup than population at large. We can discuss the causes of this elsewhere, but obviously test/school performance varies significantly by ethnicity today in the US.
5. stonesthrowaway ◴[26 Nov 24 18:17 UTC] No.42248309[source]▶
> [0]: Yes, scientific progress depends on like a thousand people https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/yes-scientific-pro...

I agree with your overall message but it's those thousand people and the hundreds of thousands ( maybe millions ) of people who make the scientific progress possible. It takes a community and an infrastructure to turn a scientific discovery into scientific progress.

Like it took thousands or millions of people to take the discoveries of von Neumann, Church, Turing, etc into something worthwhile.