NYC: gifted and talented no more
New York City will be phasing out its gifted and talented program in the public schools.
I’m surprised it lasted this long.
I am a product of this program (or an earlier but similar program) in the NYC public schools. Without it, I really don’t know what I would have done. Many years ago, back when I was still a Democrat, I was very alarmed when people talked of doing away with such programs (and yes, they were already talking about it back then). My personal experience was that they are absolutely vital and that they are instrumental in keeping the more academically inclined kids from going crazy from boredom, as well as helping them learn in order to go on to achievement later on.
But the programs weren’t in line with racial “equity” – meaning that representation of minority students has not been exactly in line with each group’s percentage in the general population. Too many Asians; not enough black kids. So all the gifted and talented must suffer – including those black children who were rescued by such programs. And believe me, they will suffer.
This is garbage:
Instead, the city will train all its kindergarten teachers — roughly 4,000 educators — to accommodate students who need accelerated learning within their general education classrooms. The city does not yet have an estimate for how much the training will cost, though it is expected to be tens of millions of dollars.
So the plan is for these children to somehow still be identified, and to be given special treatment in regular classes. That will make it harder for teachers, cost more money, not meet the “gifted” children’s needs at all because it won’t be nearly adequate, take away the teacher’s attention from the other kids in the class, and make everyone feel rotten.
De Blasio (like his wife, who has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, unspeakably awful) is not content with merely having, almost single-handedly, nearly destroyed Gotham, but is now aspiring, according to some reports, to run for governor of the Empire State; he would probably prove to be even worse than Cuomo and Cuomo’s inept successor, Kathy Hochul. There would seem to be no shortage of Democrats who are both highly incompetent and highly ambitious.
The “ D” in “ Democrat” stands for “ Lowest Common Denominator”.
States like Virginia have enough in their education budget to throw out all the old textbooks and replace them with CRT-correct new textbooks, which we are told, are poorly prepared, poorly proofread, and poorly printed. Does NY fall into this same category: throwing out what works for politically correct educational material?
If so, this is just another example of our young students suffering in order to bring down the educational level to the lowest common denominator. And that would certainly explain the decision to do away with the gifted and talented program.
The race to the bottom must be getting pretty close by now!
j e,
Fortunately I seriously doubt De Blasio has much of a chance of ever becoming governor of NY. He’s not even particularly well liked among Democrats. But because he’s an idiot without any sense of shame or regret, I’m sure he’ll attempt anything. Remember he even tried to run for president at one point?
“Tens of millions of dollars” to train 4,000 teachers. Call it $40 million and you’re at $10,000 per teacher. Teach them in groups of 10 for a four week course and the “instructor” (or his/her/its firm) walks away with $25,000 per week. Repeat 400 times. Someone’s going to do quite well–I wonder what the chances are that they’ll be politically connected to the politicians and their union supporters? And of course, Neo’s 100 percent right that they’ll teach to the stupidest/laziest person in the class regardless of the training. I guess we have reached banana republic status!
The difference between humans and animals. Animals would never allow the dumbest of the herd to lead them.
… the city will train all its kindergarten teachers …
At least those teachers will receive a lot of extra pay. The real customers of the system will be served. The children are just an excuse for the system’s existence.
Fortunately I seriously doubt De Blasio has much of a chance of ever becoming governor of NY. — Nonapod
An occasional guest of Tucker Carlson, who I don’t know at all, addressed this recently. He claimed that De Blasio running for the governorship was all about the running and not the winning. He humorously said it wasn’t a Quixotic quest because because De Blasio has no principles.
He said that you can’t raise campaign cash if you are not running for an office, and De Blasio has a whole coterie of people including himself that feed off of campaigns.
I’ve mentioned this aspect before regarding Bernie Sander’s numerous campaigns. You would think that with all the campaign finance law we have, they would at least prevent the campaign from becoming a profit center for the candidate. Apparently not.
Society will miss out… but not as much as one would think (given outcomes)
Stuyvesant, Bronx Sci, and Brooklyn Tech…
We used to run circles around regular teachers…
Says one stimulated teacher: “It’s a privilege to be here; it’s constantly exhilarating. The problem is that so many of the kids are brighter than we are. We know darned well our IQs don’t match most of theirs.”
[above from article below]
TIME
Education: Training for Brains Monday, May 05, 1958
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,863333,00.html
Harvard finally won i guess… as you can see, its been a battle since its inception because it wasnt limited but was public and required no fees but just hard work, talent/ability, drive, all in one and more.
Sad to see it go after such a prestigious run…
maybe if certain groups which average low IQs adopt cultures that emphasize education such as Confucianism and after 2500 years of selective breeding, they can dominate those classes
Little doubt de Blasio is doing the bidding of the apparat. Just think of something commonsensical, and you can be assured the school apparat is against it consequent their witless social ideology. Reform of the schools should begin with shuttering the teachers’ colleges, as they are collecting pools of vicious rubbish. Then its on to firing all the administrators.
Tracking is the only way to avoid massive inefficiency in the delivery of educational resources. That the apparat does not want to do it is an indicator that imparting knowledge to the young is not a priority.
This action will harm boys the most as boredom is probably the chief factor in their behavior problems in class. The chance that that is a feature, not a bug, is significant.
“When children pay union dues, I will care about Children” Albert Shanker, AFT president.
Stop calling Herr Wilhelm , DeBlasio
The wealthy and elite will send their children to private schools as the Obama’s did with their two girls. They will know years before they graduate that safe sinecures await them.
Whereas, dumbing down those moving through the public indoctrination centers is a necessary component to the one-party State.
NYC is as always, simply at the forefront of progressive public policy.
Here you should probably follow the money- who is getting this “tens of millions of dollars” for the training these people?
It’s terrible for the children and, of course, for society in the long run. It truly is amazing how many adults genuinely think the economy is a nothing but a printing press making as much money as needed. That a less productive workforce results in a less productive economy and that results in less money and more problems is like quantum physics to them.
But stuff like this has to happen. A lot of people have been playing with fire and they’ve got to get burned. It’s the only way they’re going to learn,
Mike
Ah… but these selective schools have served their purpose. Having over the last several generations seen their intended client base reach multi-generational wealth levels sufficient to fund the best private educations, why *not* pull up the ladder and virtue signal at the same time? It’s a no-brainer. And the Big Brains just don’t need to care now.
@avi:
Re: Selective Breeding for academic excellence x Commercial Nous
Look!… Confucian Ponies! 🙂
But I’m glad we’re on the same page… sort of.
neo, like yours apparently, my school district in Chicago wasn’t very stellar, but we did have advanced placement classes in High School and different tracts in grammar school. And, by and large, I think those of us on the upper level tracts typically got better instructors, or, at least, instructors used to challenging students who wanted to push themselves.
Like you, I too can’t imagine what would have become of me if not for those programs.
When the Left’s ideas fail why is their answer always to eliminate the statistics that indicate their failure?
Rice farmers can’t hit Chairman Mao’s quotas? The problem must be the rice farmers.
whatever schools the top students go to will be the top schools in the city
.Weequahic High School went overnight from the best school in NJ to the worst.
what happened? Did the building change? did the teachers change? did the budget change? did the principal change?
no it was something else.
“no it was something else.”
It was this:
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/087/179/830/original/18059158e0c4794d.mp4
It always is.
I believe the term of art is ‘Our Misfortune’ :).
To wit:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10069931/Arlington-shooter-Timothy-Simpkins-pulled-gun-backpack-classroom-brawl.html
He’s out on bail. Not put down humanely. Out on bail.
It was a toss up whether I posted this here or in the Chauvin thread.
We live in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Austin Texas. When our son was in fourth grade, he was “Identified” as G&T. Then, in fifth grade, we found out that the school had no G&T program, but “trained all the teachers” in G&T teaching. (On the teachers’ own time, BTW.) We had a meeting of the G&T parents, at which the principal explained that “we strive to provide a challenging curriculum to all our students.” Yeah, sure. He was was bored silly. We pulled him out, tried home schooling for half a semester, a period fondly remembered as out nine weeks in Hell. Then we found an affordable private school. Eventually, he was valedictorian of his high school senior class, and placed out of about half his college.
He is thirty six, now, owns his own business, paid off his house at age thirty, and his wife home schools all four of heir kids.
They’d like to keep us down, but they are fighting an uphill battle, bless their hearts.
It will only affect kids whose parents aren’t wealthy enough to send them to some of the prestigious private schools. To rework an old saying, if you’re so smart, why aren’t your parents rich? 😉
‘This action will harm boys the most…’
A feature, not a bug…
My son was bored stiffless in school. I didn’t even know that he was put in a twice a week G&T after lunch program until another mother told me – BTW, what the hell kind of organization doesn’t keep a parent updated on that? One that doesn’t give a damn about parents, that’s what.*
When I pulled him out to home school (after the G&T program was cancelled) the principal begged me – practically in tears – not to take him out, I honestly think he helped keep the school’s test scores out of the basement.
But I remember tracking when I was in high school in the early 70’s – it was both class and and racially biased. Very few MexAm or Black kids. Whites and Asians and their parents were professionals. So I can see why some have a visceral objection to tracking. It can be used to reinforce the status quo.
Apropos of that, I volunteered every day in my daughter’s kindergarten class as a reading tutor. One kid I had came in with no prior knowledge of the alphabet or basic numeracy. He told me there was no one at home to read with or to him. But in a month he was reading above grade level. Blazing fast learner. His mom (nice woman , BUT, covered with tatts! I know, I know, class!) is a checker at my local market so we exchange news about the kids when I’m in her line. He’s gone to the state U and done alright. Point is, in the 70’s he would have been put on a straight vocational track because of his socio economic status.
* Here’s the funny part. The boys in that G&T program had all been in preschool together and the the same kindergarten class. At the end of that first year their (very commanding) teacher told the principal; ‘Never put these boys in the same class again, they’ll run the table!’
One is a mechanical engineer, one a software engineer and one (who started preschool speaking only Japanese) a double master’s in EE and Physics.
Michael Adams,
‘we tried home schooling (our son) for half a semester, a period fondly remembered as our 9 weeks in hell…’
LOL, I hear you!
But home schooling a girl, now that is heaven on earth.
“.….and make everyone feel rotten.”
My impression was that was the point of state mandated school? I recently took a college sociology class. On the function of school the text mentioned reading and some math skills. But really, school was about teaching conformity and social norms.
When my children were in school, getting into G&T and away from idiot students and staff was wonderful. My daughter’s 8th grade, middle Spanish class was all about not being with the dummies who were in shop class. In 6th and 7 the grades she was the Tech Ed student of the year for her grade. The Spanish teacher knew, students didn’t care about Spanish. They wanted separation from stupidity.
My impression was that was the point of state mandated school? I recently took a college sociology class. On the function of school the text mentioned reading and some math skills. But really, school was about teaching conformity and social norms.
No it wasn’t, or they wouldn’t have bothered with teaching reading, math skills &c. And it was not necessary to found schools to teach ‘social norms’ because there were other institutions and practices which already did that. That aside, professional police forces and prison services were constructed and maintained co-incident with schooling. They’re in the social norms business.
The utility of government schools was distributional. Having them socialized the cost of educating the young and provided for a baseline of educational service consumption in any given community. The corporate organization assured that the schools would be responsive to local preferences. For a variety of reasons local control has dissipated and technological advancements have long since made the delivery vehicle – public agency – less than optimal. Need a new model.
This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
Heinlein was talking rot.
1. Human capital is distributed in modest quantities all up and down the strata of society. People’s unremarkable increments of improvement in how to produce goods and services are what add up to improvements in the standard of living.
2. Throughout the classical, medieval, and early modern period, you had cycles of prosperity and decay and only glacial advances in living standards.
3. That did change after 1700, when you had rapid improvements in production and real income consequent to the pace of technological innovation. This wasn’t a global phenomenon. Up until about 80 years ago it was seen in Europe; in and among the European diaspora in the Americas and the Antipodes, and perhaps in Japan.
4. Vested interests and conventions can inhibit productive enterprise. That’s not people despising or running off the creative, but people looking after their own interests and general inertia. See, for example, an issue about which Hernando de Soto has been banging the drums, the condition of land titles in Latin America. To take another example, see the incremental development of factor markets in Europe during the modern period, or the inhibitions on development in Spain consequent to privileges granted those raising sheep.
5. You have had elements of luddism and a disdain for ‘trade’ in modern Europe. Is it really Heinlein’s contention that (in regard to the period prior to 1914) that’s anything but an occasional counterpoint to economic development in the occidental world? Just where did ‘all right thinking people’ despise the creative and productive? (As opposed to offering dismay in re some of the features of urban life?). From just where were they ‘driven out’.
6. You have had problems in the last century of varying severity, the most salient being the construction of command economies in Europe. In many places, including the United States at this time, you have segments of the vociferous class (think AOC or Bernie Sanders) who conceive of production as something that’s spontaneously generated to be seized and appropriated by persons such as themselves.
7. Keep in mind though, the country’s enemies include some of its most innovative and cunning figures. (Think Mark Zuckerberg or George Soros)..
}}} There would seem to be no shortage of Democrats who are both highly incompetent and highly ambitious.
https://www.americanheritage.com/eight-days-harry-truman
Most democrats are now harry’s “professional liberals”.
.
.
}}} I guess we have reached banana republic status!
Not yet, but give the eddimikashinal system another 10-odd years, and yup.
So they admit that gifted students still need to be identified, and they know deep down that it’s just a fantasy that there aren’t really innate differences in ability and inequality of outcome is all society’s fault… That’s interesting.
there will be a new mayor in a few months, who is a brighter and more reasonable person than de Blasio (not that that’s a high bar).
Perhaps Eric Adams will be willing to listen to Colin Seale, a “twice exceptional” black man who runs a company that teaches critical thinking and advocates for GT programs. https://www.thinklaw.us/stop-eliminating-gifted/
}}} Reform of the schools should begin with shuttering the teachers’ colleges, as they are collecting pools of vicious rubbish. Then its on to firing all the administrators.
Honestly, I think you’ve got that backwards. I think Shakespeare needs to be revised:
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the administrators.”
}}} Stop calling Herr Wilhelm , DeBlasio
You mean The Right Dishonorable De Balsio?
}}} }}} This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
}}} Heinlein was talking rot.
You’d be dead wrong, Art, but that’s your privilege.
First off, a lot of the advances in Europe occurred thanks to a strong amount of Jewish input. One of the reasons the Axis lost WWII was because of them chasing out, or killing, their Jewish component. And America certainly prospered by making an effort to eliminate/reduce antisemitism during and the years after WWII.
Nowadays, it’s the combo of Jews+”Asians” (aka, Indians and Orientals), who are the strongly creative lot — both of whom are the most likely directly affected by this idiocy of which Neo has called attention to. It won’t “solve the problem” of inequity, because, of course, they both have what I will refer to as “Mothers of Character”, because they will push their kids to excel regardless of the situation they are in.
But if they keep up this war on intelligence, they’ll/we’ll be totally screwed if some other country gets its shit together and creates a free society for them to flee to.
And then this nation will follow suit with history, and fall on hard times… due to “bad luck”.
Heinlein’s assertion does not denigrate the average man… they also have to be diligent, hard working, and of basically honest character. But they have to have a seedcorn of ideas created by the ones RAH referred to, or else they are merely fertile, but fallow, soil.
I find your argument to be amusing, because it’s pretty clear that anyone with a lick of common sense is denigrated and there is a blatant effort to silence such voices by loud screeching, rude namecalling, and personal destruction.
Exactly how do you NOT think this very much applies to today?
Heinlein is right that there exists a small minority of people who become the major innovators–but there also exists a much larger number of people whose work and whose creativity (even if of a more limited scope) is essential in making these innovations usable and putting them to work.
‘Taylorism’, the idea that there is One Best Way to do things and that *thinking and planning* should be rigidly separated from *doing*, was invented in the United States but was eagerly adopted by Lenin. It can be observed today thru interaction with many American customer service organizations, where every word the representative speaks is tightly scripted and where she clearly has absolutely no ability to meaningfully propose changes in what is often (usually) a pretty dysfunctional system.
Political congruence (“=”). Throw another baby on the barbie, it’s over.
You’d be dead wrong, Art, but that’s your privilege.
None of what follows is a response to my actual argument.
“Perhaps Eric Adams will be willing to listen to Colin Seale, a “twice exceptional” black man who runs a company that teaches critical thinking and advocates for GT programs.”
That would be awesome. One can hope.
Somehow, there has to be a way to get the insane, thuggish and authoritarian Democrats as far away from power as possible.
OTOH, this is precisely why they are planning to hold on to power forever….
A Battle Royale seems unavoidable.
Related:
“One of the most blatant and disgusting aspects of this continued attack on high-performing students is the intentional whitewashing of Asians.
“You’ll notice there’s no mention of class in these articles. That’s because G&T programs have tons of low-income kids.”
https://twitter.com/AmaliaHalikias/status/1446496793760391168
+ Bonus:
“Trump gave billions of dollars to historically Black Colleges.
“Biden took it back.”
https://twitter.com/GolferGirl305/status/1446101028185808898
Art + Deco,
You stated,
“Throughout the classical, medieval, and early modern period, you had cycles of prosperity and decay and only glacial advances in living standards.
3. That did change after 1700, when you had rapid improvements in production and real income consequent to the pace of technological innovation.”
You failed to identify what led to that paradigm change. I think it obvious, the rise of the enlightenment period, which most notably allowed individual genius to flourish. The incremental improvements you note are refinements mostly achieved through trial and error. They are not breakthroughs in understanding or creative leaps forward.
Jordah Peterson has put together several videos which discuss this very subject.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GtqQCaYjOfI
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vHhgw0n8t0
View them with an open mind and you’ll find that they directly address and yes, refute much of your position.
david foster @ 12:29pm,
I believe the CEO of every U.S. corporation should be forced to place an anonymous, customer support call to their company annually. It often takes me five minutes to even find a number to call on a company’s website. And then the decent into the automated abyss of robotic attendants and numeric prompts.
Geoffrey Britain, Art Deco et alia,
A few times I’ve played a thought experiment with groups; “What’s the single, most important human innovation?”
Some folks defend the Magna Carta. Some the wheel. Some harnessing electricity.
I always advocate for the printing press.
Geoffrey Britain,
That first Peterson video:
“‘I’m against poverty.’ Really? And you thought that was a unique enough attribute to go to the trouble of putting it on a sign?!”
That’s hilarious! I love Dr. Peterson!
This action will harm boys the most as boredom is probably the chief factor in their behavior problems in class. The chance that that is a feature, not a bug, is significant.
Drug them. Rage them. Crack them… boys, males, masculine, toxic masculinity, a color bloc, that is. Any excuse will do, and the opportunities are diverse.
I think it obvious, the rise of the enlightenment period, which most notably allowed individual genius to flourish.
I’m not sure why one would attribute more efficient water wheels or turnpike construction in Britain to Voltaire scribbling away.
While we’re at it, must remember, Thos. Aquinas a bloody clot.
>While we’re at it, must remember, Thos. Aquinas a bloody clot.
What does Aquinas have to do with this?
What does Aquinas have to do with this?
The quotation I was responding to is right there in italics.
The elimination of advanced track classes, average and below average track classes happened years ago. Even here in Tennessee. The bizarre notion behind the elimination was explained to me by a disgusted veteran 2d grade teacher (best teacher any of my kids had).
All the kids were mixed together in order to help the less gifted kids. And this was supposed to help the smart ones because they would learn the material better when they explained it to the slow ones they were tasked with helping. Yeah, right.
What actually happened was a 2d grade teacher had 3 groups to teach in the same room and tried to keep two of them busy while she taught the third. Mostly the smart ones learned on their own because they needed less help. Boredom was a constant. And this was in one of the best schools in the state. The public high school this primary school feeds routinely has 15 or more merit scholars and 25 kids scoring 5 on the AP Calculus BC test (not the easier AB) in each senior class of 400 or so,
Fortunately, if the bright kids can make it through the early grades, the very large number of AP classes allows them to be challenged.
“Shut up and look stupid!”
Ren and Stimpy
http://www.caffeinatedtoothpaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2013-05-22-small.jpg