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

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.

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

It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing.

Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. It's a ridiculous self-own.

This is perhaps the sole political topic I will die on a hill for.

> spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back"

If only. The school system is actually terrible at helping the most disadvantaged and marginalized students. These students would benefit the most from highly structured and directed instructional approaches that often have the pupils memorizing their "lesson" essentially word-for-word and getting prompt, immediate feedback on every question they answer[0] - but teachers who have come out from a proper Education department hate these approaches simply because they're regarded as "demeaning" for the job and unbecoming of a "professional" educator.

Mind you, these approaches are still quite valued in "Special" education, which is sort of regarded as a universe of its own. But obviously we would rather not have to label every student who happens to be merely disadvantaged or marginalized as "Special" as a requirement for them to get an education that fully engages them, especially when addressing their weakest points!

Modern "Progressive" education hurts both gifted and disadvantaged students for very similar reasons - but it actually hurts the latter a lot more.

[0] As an important point, the merit of this kind of education is by no means exclusive to disadvantaged students! In fact, even Abraham Lincoln was famously educated at a "blab school" (called that because the pupils would loudly "blab" their lesson back at the teacher) that was based on exactly that approach.

Can you please provide some evidence that this kind of scripted and recitation-heavy instruction is beneficial compared to other approaches?

I've only seen pretty limited, pretty confounded evidence for it. A lot of studies I've seen are studies of students in charter programs, but these studies tend to ignore pretty big selection effects (e.g. comparing students to the general student population, when studies have found that students entered into charter lotteries who are not selected do about as well as those who get to go to the charter school).

I definitely use recitation in my classroom where there's a body of knowledge, but I typically reserve it for situations where it's clear that there's less need for deeper critical thinking or application of concepts.

As we look forward, it seems like there's a lot less value in having a broad body of knowledge and much more usefulness in being able to fluidly apply concepts in comparison to 19th century practice. Further, blab schools were really pretty demanding of attention span and cooperation and relied pretty heavily on corporal punishment to make them work.

I have pretty limited, indirect tools to get students to put in high effort. There's the gradebook and their general desire to do well, which isn't a terribly effective mechanism even though I am teaching an affluent, motivated group... and there's whatever social pressures I can foster in the classroom to encourage students to value performance.

> deeper critical thinking or application of concepts.

These things come after one has the basics down pat. Modern "Progressive" education rejects this point altogether. It's whole approach is entirely founded on putting the cart before the horse.

> Further, blab schools were really pretty demanding of attention span

Attention span is a function of engagement. As it turns out, hearing the lesson and blabbing it back until one has memorized it fully is a pretty engaging and even "gamified" activity, especially wrt. the most marginalized and disadvantaged students for whom other drivers of high effort mighy be not nearly as effective, as you hint at.

I asked for sources, not a quibble on a sub-point.

I disagree. I like rote and rigor, but I think it's a mistake to ignore developing problem solving and intuition early. A lot of programs overshoot, but figuring out how to make decent guesses and test them is important (as is getting lots of practice on well-defined problems).

edit: it looks like you're editing your comment. You added:

> As it turns out, hearing the lesson and blabbing it back until one has memorized it fully is a pretty engaging and even "gamified" activity

I disagree here, too. ;) I mean, yes, it can be, but we have other tools in our toolbox. The hammer is useful but has diminishing returns as we try and apply it more and more.

> developing problem solving and intuition early.

There's no reason why these things couldn't be developed in a more "structured" approach than the default (avoiding the overshooting you mention). The quick feedback cycle for every answer is really the most critical point.