Says the man who remembered a cartoon from 1927 
ETA: Not that I’m implying you were there. Be fantastic if you were though.
And if he’d deposited a dollar in a bank account at the time.
Whereas I see nothing at all resembling them, there.
Harrison Bergeron is a really good story, but kinda problematic. Vonnegut was no conservative, but wasn’t exactly a liberal, either. It seems unlike him to write a story that would make Ayn Rand jealous, but there it is. I can’t see Vonnegut as being against equality of opportunity, but plenty of people seem to use the story to argue that. I would guess it was supposed a screed against conformity, but who knows?
I see “Social Justice Warriors” frequently accused of wanting this, usually without basis. Nobody is hobbling the exceptional.
Or he was just exploring an idea.
Really? Nobody?
Yup, that is indeed one of the many examples of SJWs being accused of this.
That is, of course, a clickbait headline. The actual body of the Op-Ed doesn’t say anything about a “War on Gifted Kids”.
It’s a brief and shallow discussion of current attempts to reform gifted and honors programs. The writer actually applauds efforts to expand access and provision of additional test prep and other resources to create more “equality of opportunity”. What he’s criticizing is supposed attempts to simply eliminate gifted and honors programs (although he’s rather short on the details of such efforts).
Going back as least as far as when I was in gifted and honors programs in the 90s, there’s been a live debate among parents, teachers, administrators, and researchers about the extent to which such programs genuinely provide a better educational experience to participants, and the extent to which they’re gatekeeping mechanisms to perpetuate privilege, or even continue segregation under a new guise. There’s a real argument that putting the resources for gifted and honors programs into the “mainstream” classes creates a better learning environment for everyone. I’m not personally entirely convinced of that, but it’s not a ridiculous argument.
In any case, at the absolute worst, “defunding” honors and gifted programs just means “gifted” kids get the same education opportunities everyone does. It’s a far cry from hobbling them, much less a “war” on them.
The New York Times has run a continuing series of articles on the bizarrely low number of black students being admitted to the Bronx High School of Science (3% are black while 66% are Asian) and other super-prestigious high schools in the city.
The reason appears to be the lack of feeder schools and outside resources available to younger black students. Some people are calling for the elimination of the current testing or the imposition of racial quotas or dropping the schools entirely. That is From’s article in a microcosm.
As an outsider, it looks more like a racial issue than a gifted student issue, but I can appreciate that the two are thoroughly mixed in society. I have no idea which side is right or even if there can be a right side, but From is reporting something real. Whether the issue is a leftist war is doubtful. It’s more an issue inside the left, with various non-white groupings vying for placement in an increasingly minority-majority world. The right is already making a huge attack on affirmative action in college admissions, and they’ll latch into this soon enough.
There have been accusations that the Olympics judging is biased against the truly exceptional - but I don’t think they (the judges) are what are called “SJWs”
There’s a sense in which this is not true though. Would you say a student with learning difficulties who is placed in a standard class, with no support whatsoever, is getting the same educational opportunities as everyone else? In a literal sense it’s true, but this particular student is at best going to struggle and perform below their potential, and at worst get no benefit whatsoever, because mainstream education is tailored to the majority. Yet the same thing is true of the gifted student, and for the same reason. At best they will not be challenged and will perform below their potential, at worst they may be sitting through lessons on things they can already do, getting no benefit from their education.
It’s true that to those groups that have in the past enjoyed an advantage, losing it can appear to be a punishment.
I wouldn’t know.
Actually, I think this is a good example of equity. Too many people understand it as meaning equality of outcome, thanks to those memes about kids trying to see over a wall. But here we can see that equality is providing everyone the exact same education, equity is providing everyone the education that allows them as an individual to best develop, and the result is not that everyone reaches the same standard (equality of outcome), but that everyone is better educated.
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Except that, as the linked-to article discusses, the system doesn’t provide “everyone” the education that allows them as an individual to best develop; it provides that to those who already have a major advantage while others have restricted access at best. Which is entirely the point.
In addition, education is in many ways a zero-sum game. In an ideal world everyone would have the educational resources they need to achieve the best individual outcomes. In reality, giving more to one group often means giving less to others. If you argue that not providing advanced programs is unfair to Timmy, it’s only fair to also note where providing those advanced programs means not providing learning support to Tommy who is struggling to meet basic requirements.
I’m not saying the current system actually is equitable. Just that the concept of providing education tailored to different ability levels or learning styles (or goals?) rather than identical education for everyone would be an example of equity vs equality.
If you want to talk about the fighting-over-resources aspect, I think the spin-off thread would be a more appropriate place.
So do you think not having special honors and gifted programs amounts to positive hobbling of gifted students, as in the Vonnegut story under discussion? Do you think it amounts to a “War on Gifted Kids”, as stated in the headline?
I agree that a debate on gifted and honors programs and access and education belongs in its own thread. But do you think “Harrison Bergeron” is prophetic with regards to efforts to reform and expand access to gifted and honors programs, or to efforts to eliminate them and re-direct those resources to “mainstream” classes?
Whence comes the concept that honors classes get “special resources”? It’s not like the honors classes get all the computers and the regular classes go without. They have the same resources; they’re just given more challenging material. At most, it might mean that they use a different textbook, but that textbook won’t cost any more than the textbook in the regular class.
In most cases, they do get a lower teacher-student ratio, which is not nothing.
Although … this is drifting away from discussing SciFi, isn’t it?