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.

I don't have much experience with how education works in California, or in the US in general. But there is one universal issue with special programs for gifted kids: parents. It's hard to distinguish gifted kids from average kids with ambitious parents. If you let ambitious parents push their kids to programs they are not qualified for, they can easily ruin the programs for the actual gifted kids.

Gifted programs work best when people don't consider them prestigious or think that they will improve the life outcomes for the participants. When they are more about individual interests than status and objective gains.

In Ontario, access to these programs was gated by an IQ test given to all students based on the outcome of a standardized test (this was ~30 years ago, no idea what they do today). I'm not saying it was perfectly objective or equitable but it was a start at trying to make it objective. Are programs not doing something similar in California or elsewhere in the US?