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.

We just ejected from Seattle Public Schools for this reason. My daughter, as a gifted student, was basically ignored by her teachers for the last 3 years because she was smart, and therefore they didn't have to worry about her. But, by ignoring her, she atrophied. Her standardized testing scores dropped every year. She no longer cared about learning. It truly is a regression to the mean.

You can also learn outside of school, too. Expecting the school to cater to every student just isn't going to happen. Even at the swanky private ones.

I was certainly capable of teaching myself in high school and skipping multiple years in certain subjects; why not just do that? Or find some other topic to learn about that isn't taught in school, like programming.

As a former "gifted" child—which I thought was code for "autistic" and not actually a compliment at the time, so it surprises me people willingly refer to their child as such—public school never catered to me, but I wouldn't have traded that environment for private school or homeschooling if you paid me. In my experience all that people talk about how private and homeschooling affects your ability to socialize with normal people is true.

> You can also learn outside of school, too.

As someone who spent time in all three, I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school. Sure, "learning outside" is always available, but that doesn't regain the time served in government mandated kid-prison.

> In my experience all that people talk about how private and homeschooling affects your ability to socialize with normal people is true.

In my experience, people are surprised that I spent 2/3 of my pre-college education in various forms of homeschooling. "You're so well-adjusted", is a frequent refrain.

> I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school

No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill.

> "You're so well-adjusted", is a frequent refrain.

Sure, some people make it work. I don't think this invalidates the broad observation that private and homeschooled people are frequently socially... off. I myself had a homeschooled kid in our town who transitioned to public school for high school and made a very gregarious time of it. Then again, his parents also had him integrate tightly with athletics for the decade before this over precisely the concern about socialization we're discussing. Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this. I'm just saying you can't expect to completely avoid normal people and then slot into them later in life.