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.

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward

And those people do not even have to be geniuses or top students. Our society moves forward on the back of millions of ordinary people, yet those ordinary people, me included, would benefit most from a rigorous education system.

lol, when people talk about these things they’re talking about the Lowell High kids that want to go to Yale, not normal people like me. Let’s be real here.

I'm not. All I want is that students get trained rigorously. The last thing I want is as what NYT used to report: a straight-A student who dreamed to be a scientist couldn't even pass the placement test of a city college. That shows how irresponsible our school systems became.

You said a few weeks ago that

> As many countries demonstrated, wealth does not buy good genes. Talented kids stand out, as long as we have a decent public school system, which places a high academic standard and holds teachers accountable. That's how East-European countries and Asian countries produce high-quality students.

What implications does this have for all students getting trained rigorously in the public school system? People that also speak of genes like Charles Murray say this is a fool's errand and that we should effectively just throw them off the ship.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42118967

I'm not sure where the contradiction is. The key to me is "which places a high academic standard and holds teachers accountable", which I equate to "rigorous training". I guess the difference is on how we define "talented". To me most kids are just educable, which means they don't constantly push themselves, they don't take initiatives to dig deeper, nor do they proactively find resources to do more. Or they struggle without careful guidance. Yet they can make leap and bounds when they experience a rigorous program. These kids need nurturing from the teachers. At least that's my personal experience: I was content with my performance, until the problem sets showed that I was not really as good as imagined. Also, I believe that training makes a big difference to people of similar level of talent. That is, wealth can't push a kid who struggles with Algebra II to understand calculus, but may well help a student with sufficient talent to stand out. My personal experience: I went to college, didn't have the drive to push through the tomb of Demidovich. And then my friend got me a much shorter book for challenging problem sets in Analysis. With his help I finished the book, and man, what a difference it made. I stayed top of my class and became a TA on calculus in my sophomore year.

> I guess the difference is on how we define "talented"

Yes, and how we define "bad genes". I'm someone that you definitely wouldn't consider "talented" (since I've never worked at Google etc) and probably have "bad genes", what should be done with people like me?