No, an independent school is not the same thing as a private school. It is a school that has a different curriculum to the national one.
And the curriculum at that independent school is the one I do advocate for nationally, so where’s the hypocrisy?
How did your kids get into that independent school? Can any kids go to it? Or do you have to pay more? Is there an application process? Or perhaps you need to have the skills to work the system, which minorities and immigrants don’t have.
Either way, your privilege is showing.
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but don’t really want to discuss it in this thread. I have opinions about the “minority culture” argument, but don’t see it as particularly helpful here.
It’s a fair point, as well as the one regarding the impossibility of removing SES-bias in our outcomes, but I do think that there is a decent amount of evidence that tracking by ability/aptitude/test scores at a young age (read: pre-10th grade or so) has negative impacts across the board, and particularly for disadvantaged students. I think it’s worth trying to come up with systems that limits the impact of that while still allowing for acceleration where it’s advised.
I do think at some point in your post you blur the lines between equity and equality. There is a reason the focus is on equity - it is widely understood that equality of outcomes is just not possible (or even desirable) given the differences in backgrounds, family support, underlying ability, etc.
But I do think it’s fair claim that pulling out certain kids and grouping them with other kids that are “like them” (in theory based on ability, but often that’s just a proxy for background) can be harmful both to those students and the students “left behind”, and fails the test of giving all students equitable opportunities to learn.
Related to that, I did find in reading articles about the issue that in Vancouver there has been a reduction of students in the gifted program, there are several explanations about it, but some point to less resources available to ID gifted students to the observation that several of those gifted had other issues: being gifted does not mean that a student is gifted in all subjects. Just this item demonstrates how simplistic is the complaining by the OP here.
But I digress, the point here is related to what you pointed out, resources are not infinite, and with the reality of fewer students being involved in gifted programs, it points to one reason why this is ending: Since there are fewer students using the program the cancellation of the old gifted program should be considered when other ways to help gifted students can be added. (And past discussions showed that other options or solutions being considered are chronically ignored by the OP and many right-wingers)
If one puts the conservative thinking cap they use nowadays, one would conclude that continuing with the current system that then the critics that want to keep the program are irresponsible because they want to continue with a program that becomes wasteful when fewer students use it now.
Of course that is if they were consistent, in reality the issue is complicated, but this is also one issue where the simple solution conservatives are calling for (keep the program) is not the best one.
No, I doubt many of them even have a Masters. It has good teachers, though. So do lots of average schools.
It’s amusing watching this caricature of what I’m actually promoting. When the average school runs the curriculum I favour, then I’d have no problem with my kids attending an average school.
We fall into its catchment area, and we passed the application process.
Ones who live in the catchment area and who pass the application, yes.
Note that that includes special educational needs kids, who are mostly in class with the other kids.
No more than the good government schools in the same catchment, no. And there is financial aid for those who can’t afford the full fee.
Yes, quite a comprehensive one.
Yes, you have to have some skills. But minorities and immigrants seem to have them just fine.
How do I know this? Because the school is - OK, this is tricky, because “minority” doesn’t have the meaning here you’re trying to convey. Let’s just say the school is - far from mostly-White, with a sizeable immigrant cohort as well, and leave it at that. It’s mostly historically-disadvantaged groups who make up the student mixture. In the USA or Canada, they would be “minorities”. Here, they’re not.
Note that that includes my non-White kids.
I’m well aware of the privileges I enjoy. I have no problem with properly appreciated privilege. Which is why I pay for my and my kids’ privilege by working for the betterment of underprivileged kids, including (but not limited to) actively advocating for changes to our national education system, paying actual money towards educating some of them, and, last and least, speaking out about shit on the internet.
It’s elitism I have a problem with. The language of “better than” or, as dickhead Zoster put it in another thread, “slow-witted” vs “best and brightest”
Sounds a lot like the charter schools that US Republicans love. How do kids get into this school? Are there many low SES kids there? Many with neglectful parents or special needs, or children of immigrants?
As several people have observed, selecting for kids of involved parents with high SES gives a rather similar population to honours classes anyway.
Lame and offensive.
Some people are smarter than other people. When we are limiting this assessment to something specific and measurable such as ability at advanced high school mathematics, the effect is even more pronounced. How societies and school systems account for this spread of abilities is a legitimate area of opinion; that it exists is a simple fact.
It’s not elitism you are at war with, it’s reality.
It’s not a cleverly-disguised religious nutso training camp, so no, not like most US charter schools. More like the fraction of charters who are Montessori or Waldorf.
I think I addressed all of the rest of that in my answer to Sam, other than “neglectful” parent. Neglectful parents don’t seek out better alternatives for their kids, so that would be a “not likely”.
Like I said, the kids here come from a range of economic circumstances. They do skew higher economically, but that’s understandable given our school catchment. Still, some do come in from the townships.
Aah, so silly of me, I forgot Finland was an imaginary country.
Is there any evidence of the benefits and harms of the various systems? Seems to me they could eliminate many of the harms by making movement between streams automatic if a student is doing well or badly, and making sure good teachers are not preferentially assigned to the honours classes. The fact they are instead eliminating the entire system is surely based on politics, not evidence.
The evidence I found shows that the gifted program was servicing fewer students than before. That tells me that there are other reasons for ending the program, not just politics.
What ‘European’ model are you talking about anyway? AFAIK both France and Germany split kids between separate vocational and academic schools relatively young, which is much more divisive than simply having honours classes.
I’ll do you one better - in my state the solution to this problem is to eliminate all compulsory restrictions on who can enter the honors or AP classes. If you think you can handle it, you can sign up. I’m sure that if someone who struggled with Algebra 2 wants to take BC Calculus, the guidance counselor might try to talk them/their parents out of it, but if they insist they have to be allowed in.
I’ll give you one guess whether the total lack of anyone being forced into the lower-tier track has done one drop of good in getting the anti-excellence zealots to back down on removing the AP and honors tracks.
Sure, there is plenty of research. Unfortunately it’s somewhat dated, and there will always be ways to quibble with the conclusions.
Here is one study that showed negligible overall gains from tracking, with smaller positive gains for the “high” group and larger negative results for the “low” group. It’s the abstract only since I don’t have access to the full paper. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/01623737014003205
Here is one from Britain that showed similar results - gains for the “high” group and losses for the “low” group. Effects of Ability Grouping in British Secondary Schools on JSTOR
A longer-term study from 2009 shows:
Cite: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1756-5391.2009.01032.x
Similar results here:
with the added emphasis on mandating high-rigor curriculum in the detracked classrooms.
Shockingly, even in Finland, different students have different abilities at math:
Some 85% of students in Finland attained Level 2 or higher in mathematics
In Finland, some 11% of students scored at Level 5 or higher in mathematics
Mostly the Finnish, as that is the one I have the most admiration for, and a tiny bit of experience of.
I don’t see how, in principle, as long as the vocational and academic streams are equally funded.
And in comprehensive school, they still attend the same classes as the other students. Shocking, I know.
The fact that the slow-witted and the best and the brightest are forced into the same classes does not preclude the existence of these groups, which is what you were supposedly arguing against.