People are always getting mad at me for talking about race and IQ. Why do you obsess over race and IQ when nobody else in the entire world ever thinks about it? Well, as Trotsky might have said, you may not be interested in race and IQ, but race and IQ are interested in you. Thus, the endless stream of newspaper articles obsessing over my obsessions, just more obtusely.
For example, I've long pointed out the never-ending struggle between parents (and the better sort of teachers) and educrats over tracking within schools. The educartel hates tracking because it makes clear racial differences in intelligence.
Here's an article from the Washington Post that illustrates a lot of iSteve themes. And, allow me to compliment reporter Kevin Sieff for doing a good job of laying out the facts honestly and intelligently.
School districts move away from honors classes in favor of AP courses
By Kevin Sieff, Published: May 22
Not long ago, honors courses were considered a hallmark of student achievement, a designation that impressed colleges and made parents beam.
Now, those courses are vanishing from public schools nationwide as administrators move toward a more inclusive curriculum designed to encourage underrepresented minority students to join their high-achieving peers in college-level Advanced Placement classes.
Fairfax County’s public schools are at the forefront of the movement, nudging would-be honors students toward more-rigorous AP courses, despite criticism from some parents that eliminating honors will have the reverse effect and lead some students to choose less-demanding “standard education” classes instead of AP.
A little background: the Washington D.C. suburbs have some of the smartest kids and most educationally ambitious parents in the country. The suburban public schools are also pretty diverse racially, so not everybody is so motivated.
High schools used to offer regular and honors tracks, but then ambitious parents demanded an even higher track of Advanced Placement courses. So, three tracks became standard, which seemed to make these hard-charging parents happy. Say you have a 120 IQ kid and a 100 IQ kid. The first one goes into AP and the second one goes into the middle track, Honors, where he'll be with the more average whites and the smarter blacks and Latinos, but he won't be pushed beyond his capabilities. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? What parents of average kids fear is a two track system where their kid either is in over his head in AP or is in with the 80 IQ kids in the only other track.
Honors courses are generally taught from the same lesson plan as regular classes but at a faster pace and in greater depth. An AP course contains altogether more-challenging material — charting a path that coheres to national standards, which are heavily endorsed by the Fairfax school system.
This fall, Fairfax will discontinue honors-level courses in subjects where an AP class is offered, drawing the ire of parents who want to restore what they call an academic middle ground. They have formed a group called Restore Honors Courses. ...
Considerable opposition from Fairfax parents has prompted the school board to review its decision to do away with high school honors courses that for years served as an alternative to basic and AP courses. But it remains unclear whether local advocates of honors courses can resist a national trend to reduce the number of “tracks” for students.
“Honors courses are drying up in many districts across the country because of the push to democratize Advanced Placement classes,” said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Some schools in Illinois, New York, Oregon and several other states have begun phasing out the distinction.
But, this reasonable system drives educrats crazy for PC reasons, who want to go back to two tracks to push lots of NAMs into AP by not letting them take mere Honors.
The good news about educrats is that they aren't very bright and aren't very good at predicting the effects of policies. So, if a trend comes along like Advanced Placement that increases tracking, Ed-school educated educrats seldom notice ahead of time that AP will have massive disparate impact. They drink their own Kool-Aid. Who could have known that AP classes were actually tracking in disguise and that whites and Asians would wind up in AP classes more than blacks and Mexicans? To predict requires prejudice and that's the worst thing in the whole world.
So, the educrats didn't organize effectively to put up a fight against parents' and the better teachers' demands for AP. But, now, the truth has finally dawned on them so they are fighting back by trying to fill AP courses with NAMs.
But the problem is that a lot of the smarter NAMs are smart enough to know they aren't smart enough to take a lot of AP courses. So, if the AP carrot isn't working, the educrats are going to wield the stick by taking away mid-range Honors courses, making the bottom of the barrel the only alternative to AP. The plan is to scare the 100 IQ NAMs into AP courses with 120 IQ Asians and whites.
So, the educrats didn't organize effectively to put up a fight against parents' and the better teachers' demands for AP. But, now, the truth has finally dawned on them so they are fighting back by trying to fill AP courses with NAMs.
But the problem is that a lot of the smarter NAMs are smart enough to know they aren't smart enough to take a lot of AP courses. So, if the AP carrot isn't working, the educrats are going to wield the stick by taking away mid-range Honors courses, making the bottom of the barrel the only alternative to AP. The plan is to scare the 100 IQ NAMs into AP courses with 120 IQ Asians and whites.
That trend has reduced the number of levels available in a given subject area. A decade ago, nearly all school systems offered at least three tracks in high school — usually regular, honors and Advanced Placement. Now, many have shifted to two options, as Fairfax will in the fall. Some have gone even further, placing all students in a single track.
“We’ve found that traditionally underrepresented minorities do not access the most-rigorous track when three tracks are offered. But when two tracks are offered, they do,” said Peter Noonan, Fairfax’s assistant superintendent for instructional services.
Increasingly, educators are using AP test data to measure the disparity between white students and their black and Hispanic peers, revealing a profound achievement gap in high-level courses.
African Americans, for example, represented 14.6 percent of the total high school graduating class last year, but they made up less than 4 percent of the AP student population who earned a score of three or higher on at least one exam, each of which is weighted on a five-point scale.
Many underrepresented minority students are able to handle college-level coursework but are intimidated by the AP label, Noonan says. In Fairfax, where students choose their own course schedule with guidance from teachers and counselors, administrators are eager to give students incentives to take AP classes.
But in reducing the hierarchy of available courses, Fairfax has left students such as W.T. Woodson High School’s Conor Wade unsatisfied.
Wade is now taking 11th-grade basic — or standard education — English, which he says is “not at all challenging.” He’s enrolled in two AP courses and is not ready to take a third. “It’s like choosing between two extremes,” he said. “An honors class would be perfect — something in the middle.”
“It is the position of Fairfax County Public Schools that AP and IB courses, where available, provide the best education opportunity for our students,” district officials wrote in a recent memo to parents, using the acronym for International Baccalaureate. ...
But concerned Fairfax parents have analyzed enrollment data at Woodson, which show that a significant number of students who took honors classes in 10th grade dropped to standard education, instead of elevating to AP courses, once the honors option was eliminated in 11th grade.
“Instead of encouraging them to take more-advanced courses, eliminating honors pushes students backward, to less-challenging courses,” said Megan McLaughlin, a member of Restore Honors Courses.
Other parents and analysts worry that students will be coaxed into taking AP courses even if they are unprepared for college-level rigor, slowing the pace of learning and setting up some students to fail.
Officials at some low-income urban schools point to encouraging minority students to take AP courses as a critical element in closing the achievement gap. But in suburbs nationwide, parents of high-achieving students have threatened to leave school districts that are eliminating honors courses and reducing the number of tracks available, a phenomenon researchers have dubbed “bright flight.”
In Fairfax, school board members call the issue one of the most divisive they’ve discussed. In response to parent opposition, they have announced a work session in July to reevaluate it.
“Parents want more choices for their children, not fewer choices,” said Sandy Evans, a school board member representing Mason. “Eliminating the middle ground forces students to choose between being bored and being overwhelmed.” If Evans has her way, honors courses will be restored as soon as possible.
So, by now, AP is sacrosanct. The educrats can't get rid of AP classes. So, to reduce tracking they are trying to get rid of the mid-level Honors courses.
If educrats were smarter, they'd be more dangerous.
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71 comments:
How much more in-your-face can they make the image of serving the elite and the dregs while hollowing out the middle?
Only if saw off the average kids' bodies at the neck and waist, throwing away the heart-bearing torso, resting the head in the AP class, and plopping the rump to fill up a seat in the dummie class.
When I was in high school in the 1990s the teachers desperately wanted to teach the AP/honors (same thing at my high school) because otherwise they were stuck with the behavior problems and, far too often, criminals. My high school was quite diverse, and the diversity was notably absent in honors/AP.
So Steve,
Do you foresee a dumbing-down of AP courses once it becomes apparent that a significant percentage of students funneled into them for diversity reasons shouldn't be there? The only inherent defense to this that I can see off the top of my head is that it's a national standard instead of a variable local standard. Then again, I thought the whole idea of the AP exam was to shave time/tuition off your college term by getting those classes out of the way sooner.
Also, what about the AP exam at the end of the year itself? Back when I took them, it was something like $100 to sit each one. Is the school district going to subsidize those costs, since it's unlikely that the lower income kids are going to be able to afford to take them?
'Race and intelligence' is something you can practice but not discuss.
So, you can be a liberal Jew who seeks out a white community and sends his kids to fancy schools and then to Harvard as long as he says the politically correct thing: race doesn't matter.
Instead of getting rid of honors classes, why not get rid of regular classes and put everyone in the honors program(as the defacto regular program)? I mean if race and intelligence don't matter, everyone should be equally able to excel in honors classes.
Maybe they should use the lottery to recruit athletes for teams because many teams aren't very diverse.
My old HS used a three track system back in the 1960s: College Prep, Applied Arts and Remedial. It seemed to work well and was not controversial (of course, the school was probably 95% Whites with a few Mexicans and Blacks thrown in for a token diversity).
"Now, those courses are vanishing from public schools nationwide as administrators move toward a more inclusive curriculum"
So, 'inclusive' is a euphemism for 'lower standards' or 'inferior'.
So, if a restaurant hires less-qualified chefs and serves inferior dishes, you're eating an 'inclusive' meal.
And if there's a fly in your soup, don't complain because, after all, it's a more 'inclusive' soup.
Inclusive is the new inferior. Lol.
Back when I took them, it was something like $100 to sit each one. Is the school district going to subsidize those costs, since it's unlikely that the lower income kids are going to be able to afford to take them?
Yes. The tests are $87 for "rich" students. For so-called "poor" students, the tests are $5.00.
I thought the whole idea of the AP exam was to shave time/tuition off your college term by getting those classes out of the way sooner.
The UCs in California do not accept passing scores on APs for college credit; they are used only for placements. A "5" and only a "5" on the English Language AP allowed my daughter to skip freshman English altogether and "place" at the sophomore level. The Ivies do not accept AP credit.
However, passing the APs allows high school students to boost their GPAs substantially. These are not easy classes; my son has college-level Physics, Biology and Calculus texts, the AP tests are scheduled for five hours each, the actual test takes 2 1/2 hours and is not all multiple choice, but include a three-part FRQ Free Response Question or essay question as well.
“If you raise the expectation, the idea is that you’ll raise achievement. That’s not always the case,” said Loveless, of the Brookings Institution. “But some students do need the nudge. They need their schools to offer fewer options.”
What's wrong with focusing on kids doing well in the basic courses? That'd be a real step up.
These guys dont' give a hoot about the lower 1/2 of the bell curve. It's all about competition, and their teams losing.
Anyone who has been around Fairfax County lately knows that high schools will soon have majority NAM student populations mostly of central American descent. The white and Korean students will have to take AP courses to escape the undertow.
Fairfax still has some of the best public schools in the country but I foresee a lot more non-vibrant children escaping to private schools if their parents can afford it.
The only way this ends more or less reasonably is for DARPA to make classroom teachers obsolete (to its credit, the White House seems to understand this).
Researchers have long aspired to develop educational software that is as effective as a personal tutor, one of the “grand challenges” in the President’s innovation strategy. DARPA and the Navy have supported the development of a “digital tutor” to train new Navy recruits to become IT systems administrators.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/08/president-obama-highlights-shared-responsibility-education-reform
OT, but I see vibrant metropolis ofLos Angeles is showing all the civic-mindedness Robert Putnam said it had ("Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles")
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/10/most-disturbing-piece-of-research-i.html
Fraudulent use of disabled parking placards explodes in last decade... In Los Angeles County, about 621,000 of nearly 6 million licensed drivers have placards.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disabled-parking-20110522,0,7204414.story
"The Ivies do not accept AP credit."
AP classes are often pointless because of this and:
1.) AP is almost always harder than the college class in the same subject and,
2.) AP requires tons of studying beyond that needed for normal high school learning, and,
3.) AP thus pushes too much homework on kids and reduces their ability to enjoy being teenagers. It also reduces opportunities to build social skills.
So unless your kid just LOVES Studio Art Drawing, Human Geography or Microeconomics, what's the use?
The race and IQ angle is interesting, but it's only the second-most prominent elephant in the room.
Why is education so different from every other thing that people pay for? The controversy is over whether there are two or three tracks? Really? Consumers in every other area of the market demand lots of choices. Is education inherently different?
Why should students only have three options? Why not infinite options?
If the government were to get out of the education field entirely, a wave of dynamism would aborn that would make most of these other questions irrelevant.
> What's wrong with focusing on kids doing well in the basic courses? That'd be a real step up.
Too simple: doesn't give 'Loveless, of the Brookings Institution', anything to give powerpoint talks about.
They've already dumbed-down the AP classes; many former "honors" classes were merely renamed and the teachers given no additional training. There has been a huge push to have blacks take the tests, although only a tiny percentage even achieve a 3 on them.
I took them back in the 1970s and my "seven-sisters" school gave me credit for them; I believe the Ivies did back then as well as long as you scored at least a four.
Our heavily-Asian school district offers numerous AP classes and the International Baccalaureate program. The Asians will do almost anything to improve their GPA and the district has to carry it out to five or six decimal points to determine valedictorian (who is always an Asian). It's just another meaningless DWL (disingenuous White liberal) ticket punch.
Yes. The tests are $87 for "rich" students. For so-called "poor" students, the tests are $5.00.
Whoa - are you sure about this?
The Ivies do not accept AP credit.
Huh?
The UCs in California do not accept passing scores on APs for college credit; they are used only for placements. A "5" and only a "5" on the English Language AP allowed my daughter to skip freshman English altogether and "place" at the sophomore level. The Ivies do not accept AP credit.
The fact that your daughter skipped freshman English is evidence that the UCs do, in fact, accept APs for college credit. My son started at a UC with 45 units of AP.
The article ain't all that, because it neglects to mention Jay Mathews' Challenge Index (due out today). The reason schools punt to AP rather than honors is because the more students they have taking AP tests, the higher the placement on that moronic index. Passing the AP test is irrelevant. All Jay cares about is that the students take it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/new-national-high-school-rankings-appear-friday/2011/05/18/AFW17i6G_blog.html#pagebreak
Jay's commenters beat him up on this.
But anyway, that's why they default to AP. AP has two different faces--for top achieving kids, they have to take a lot of them in order to be competitive. For NAMs in charter schools or low income urban schools, they just sit in there and pretend to take the class and the test (which the government pays for) and then the school ranks high on Jay's Challenge Index.
Schools that have a mix of NAMs and bright suburban kids are caught in a bind. They can't sacrifice the quality of the AP classes or they guarantee "bright flight", but they can't face the equity nazis, either. In general, schools like this go through a couple years in this mode before the parents who actually pay the bills win the game and honors classes come back.
In a town near where I live, they tried to make freshman year one of heterogeneous classes--the thinking being that exposure to the hardworking kids would magically make the NAMS interested in signing up for tougher classes the sophomore year, when they went back to tracking. In fact, what happened was freshman year was a nightmare for the white/Asian kids, and a total waste. They tried it for three years and then reverted to honors freshman classes.
"Maybe they should use the lottery to recruit athletes for teams because many teams aren't very diverse."
God, I wish some parents would put up a huge stink and insist that the basketball team must have a representative number of Hispanics, Asians, and whites on it, and that the coach must, in the name of "diversity" rotate the least talented kids into the starting line-ups..and play them at least a period.
Someone, somewhere is going to do this.
The kind of behaviour you're describing makes me spit nails, not least because I have experience in being put in classes where everyone else was far above me.
I'm average at maths (100 IQ in that area), and above average in the humanities subjects, but I spent my first year of secondary school in one of the top maths classes.
My classmates were at *least* a 120 in mathematical IQ. I think the authorities decided the class needed more girls, or religious minorities, or something.
I spent the entire year having no idea what was going on, and getting headaches and stomach pains whenever I even thought of maths. I did so badly (we're talking a 30% average test score) they put me in an ordinary class the next year and I got straight As. Out of relief as much as anything.
I have spent a long time wondering how these people can get away with being so malicious. Realising that they're just stupid is a big eye opener.
One of the things that people need to understand about Fairfax County is that is all about where your child is admitted to college.
Any parents whose child ends up at George Mason university will be seen as a failure. Any parents whose child ends up at community college will be see as guilty of child abuse.
Thus, the educrats keep believing if they put everyone in college prep classes then everyone will be admitted of UVA or William and Mary.
Let me summarize my own viewpoint on the topic of race and IQ, which I believe is the viewpoint of most people:
I'm OK with it not being acceptable to discuss the subject in polite society - but what I do have a problem with is people making policy decisions assuming that since it's taboo to talk about them, the differences don't actually exist.
Other posters have made the point the top-level colleges now essentially treat it as an opt-out. At my alma mater, for example, getting a 5 on BC calc would place you into multi-variable calculus, but you would not have math credits "earned" for Calc 1 and Calc 2. Gotta get those tuition dollars!
"The educartel hates tracking because it makes clear racial differences in intelligence." If you say so, but the war against "tracking" in Britain dates back to the 60s and 70s, which was before people in the race victimhood business became as important as they are today. It was the consequence of chip-on-the-shoulder British socialism. Many of the more Marxist socialists on the Continent didn't seem to share the venom against "tracking".
Steve: "But the problem is that a lot of the smarter NAMs are smart enough to know they aren't smart enough to take a lot of AP courses."
It isn't that they "aren't smart enough" it's that they don't need to. The Talented Tenth merely have to do better that the other 90% of black folks to claim the secure Affirmative Action jobs in predominately white organizations.
My wife is black, smart and cultured. Our hi-yalla/good-hair daughter has a 148 IQ and (if pushed by a Tiger Mom) could excel. But the wife doesn't want to. Bottom line, as she explained it to me: our daughter doesn't have to work hard for the same job security and quality of life as de white folks.. Blacks of moderately high intelligence and modest effort are assured good positions in large white businesses. If they can get through a decent state university, not get pregnant, and not do jail time, they are in like Flynn. For the black middle class it is like the 1950s.
So if you don't want to compete with Jews to become a neurosurgeon, why not kick back and enjoy a secure, if not stellar, life of AA?
The black kids of Fairfax who refuse to take AP courses are making a rational economic decision, one that I applaud. Why should they sacrifice their high school years to grub grades when they could live a Beaver Cleaver 1960s California life with much less effort? Life for the Black middle class is much easier than you imagine.
The Washington Post has become basically an anti-anxiety drug for GS-12s gathered around the Mr. Coffee. If I were running the paper, I could not think of a better business strategy. It’s their market, or the shreds of it left to Katherine Weymouth.
I thought education was supposed to prepare you for life. Once they are out of the fake world of schools, students will discover that life tracks you. Despite all the diversity pressures, it is astounding how few NAMs occupy professional or managerial positions in non-government and non-academic enterprises.
Maybe schools ought to initiate AP courses in morals and courtesy. You know, sexual self-control, hard work, avoidance of sex and drugs, cleanliness, clear and non-obscene speech and non-slovenly clothing.
They are smarter than you think, Steve. Does the NGO-cracy have more control over the national-standards AP courses or the state-and-local-standards honors courses?
It's a trap! What a coincidence that every new policy inevitably leads to more direct control by educarats.
I'll give you another example. Virginia has made changes to the accreditation requirements. Schools are now judged on how quickly students graduate. 100 points for any student graduating in four years, 50 for any who graduates later, zero for drop-outs. In addition, we still have the requirement of 70% pass-rate on the state standards of learning.
VA instituted state test around a decade ago just as most other states did. Over the past ten years exams were allowed to get easier and easier to demonstrate progress. My own 95+% NAM alternative school had pass rates of 99% in my department in May 2010. Ont the February version of the test, there was a state-wide drop. For my left-end-of-the-bell-curve kids, this meant a 50% pass rate. 95% to 50%. Of course, now we don't have the option to hold kids back from testing until they have a better chance of passing. So I will have to test students who have been absent 30-40 times this semester and hope for the best. Oh, and did I mention that teachers may not use attendance as a grading criterion. And of course, you know what happens if we lose accreditation, a top to tails make-over by educrat consultants. Schools have to be run how educrats want them run, which inevitably leads to failure, which inevitably leads to *more direct* rule by educrats. It's a trap.
I did a bit of research, and, in addition to New York, Georgia has experienced a very similar chain of events. These people are stupid like a fox.
And I haven't even mentioned, "Personal Learning Communities" which attempt to "democratize" the teaching process by removing all authorial control over a class from the teacher. You'll never guess what group of learned scientists will step in to fill that void.
"It also reduces opportunities to build social skills."
I've been wondering about this for my own kids (if and when I ever have them). Suppose they turn out to be smart. I don't want them to be smart losers (like me). How much do I encourage them to develop any academic talents if they risk ridicule and the consequent decline in social skills, which are more important in life?
"God, I wish some parents would put up a huge stink and insist that the basketball team must have a representative number of Hispanics, Asians, and whites on it, and that the coach must, in the name of "diversity" rotate the least talented kids into the starting line-ups..and play them at least a period."
ROTFL. Shows you where our priorities are as a nation, eh?
Randall van der Sterren: So unless your kid just LOVES Studio Art Drawing, Human Geography or Microeconomics, what's the use?
Because, as should be clear from the article, if they don't take the AP track they're likely to end up in finger-painting classes mysteriously labeled, say, "physics"?
Happened to us - we relented on the AP physics class for one of our kids on the naïve notion that the non-AP class would be like the high school physics class we took back in the day. Imagine our, er, surprise when we discovered the actual content: "physics" with no math at all. Physics without any pesky numbers! What an age we live in.
The gutting of the excellent, decades-old tracking system in our district is, of course, attributed to "lack of funding".
Dutch Boy: My old HS used a three track system back in the 1960s: College Prep, Applied Arts and Remedial.
Ah, the refreshing terminology of a more plain-spoken age. "Standard, Honors, and AP" makes me think of jokes about condom-size labeling.
'Researchers have long aspired to develop educational software that is as effective as a personal tutor, one of the “grand challenges” in the President’s innovation strategy. DARPA and the Navy have supported the development of a “digital tutor” to train new Navy recruits to become IT systems administrators.'
They can't really be serious about this, can they? Classroom teaching slows down the smarter kids and gives the teacher a chance to spend extra time helping the slower kids keep up, closing the achievement gap a bit. Educational software that truly lets every student advance at his own pace will only expand the achievement gap to its maximum extent. And once such software exists and parents know about it, if the schools try to stop using it, parents will simply use it at home, and there won't be any way to put the genie back in the bottle.
Usually I think the educrats know full well what the reality is, and are cynically spouting their blank slate mantras to keep their jobs. But if they're really pushing for individualized teaching software, they must really believe every student is equally capable and just needs the right teaching and encouragement.
The fight over tracking is another costs to diversity. In a more homogenous society, the idea that some students were "academic," some were "less academic," and most were average, would be less controversial.
The three-track system makes sense. In IQ terms it would be roughly minus one SD and below; within one SD of average; and above one SD. In actual numbers it might be more like: <90; 90-110; 110 and above.
Although there would be "disparate impact" such a system would be best for everyone. Not so bright kids would get a basic education. Average kids would receive a full education. The smartest kids would receive the challenging education they need.
As someone who worked for years in schools (psychometrist), I was struck by how the abler students, quietly but sincerely, felt they were being subjected to "Robin Hood" abuses in various group learning schemes for mixed-ability teaching. I'm not "g" laden sufficiently to understand why anecdotal evidence like this has to go out the window in favor of exclusive reliance upon mere statistical studies (most of which won't stand rigorous criticism). It's a variant of "What are you going to believe-- the skool of educashun authorities or your own lying ears and lying eyes?"
The whispered awareness among abler realists within schools (including quite a number of attendance center Principals)
about how "Jensenism/Sailerism" may be true and about how positing it as such, leads to suspicions that when looked into are usually confirmed
(juggling of test results; dumbing down the curriculum; mixed-ability "Robin Hood" effects etc etc) is about on the order of what I've heard from German women who married U.S. GIs after WWII. They remark how rumors were rife in
1943-44 that the Jews sent to containment centers were not writing back , were not heard from, etc., and that "something" more than containment and re-location was likely going on. But if allusion to this was more than an occasional witticism and emerged as a topic of whispered conversation, the person so possessed of curiosity was greeted with questions of "Why are you interested in this topic, when no one else is discussing it?" Reality and Morality are never arrived at by some Gallup Poll of
conduct--by a weather vane character.
"I have spent a long time wondering how these people can get away with being so malicious. Realising that they're just stupid is a big eye opener."
Teacher education is a cult. The priesthood are evil. The laity are true believers.
I've got four very intelligent children, IQs in the 135-150 range, and they are not taking all AP classes over honors, because I am not a tiger mom and my children don't do well on four hours of sleep. Two per year is challenging.
The parents in our district are so educationally ambitious that you can have a girl in honors physics who is clueless how an incandescent light bulb works. We probably need a fourth track, high honors, in between regular and honors. Then we can phase out regular and everyone will be above average.
Correction to my previous post - high honors between honors and AP.
I don't do well on four hours of sleep either.
"The Asians will do almost anything to improve their GPA and the district has to carry it out to five or six decimal points to determine valedictorian (who is always an Asian). It's just another meaningless DWL (disingenuous White liberal) ticket punch."
Not meaningless. All bottlenecks mean the pathways need to be enlarged. In this case they need a more rigorous curriculum to separate the smart Asians from the really smart Asians. This may mean bringing more Asian teachers.
See? Nothing is really meaningless.
As I've said before, my secondary school had 7 "tracks" (plus the so-called 'metal defectives', who had a building of their own). We were told that to get into the top two you had to have an IQ of 118. As we got older we specialised more so that, for example, the final year top maths track had only three pupils and just zoomed along - we were taught in tutorials rather than "classes". Dear God, it was fun. And because very little time was wasted there was ample opportunity for sporting and intellectual diversions too.
Hey, Steve,
Is there any way that a guy like Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, got any, I mean ANY government aid (okay, maybe not in the form of money, but in concessions of some sort over land for his new mega-stadium) or any way the guy that owns the Patriots got any for his stadium in Foxboro?
I mean if even one dollar of taxpayer money resulted in their being able to build those structures, we ought to be able to level discrimination charges against them. After all, the rosters of their teams are not diverse.
I have to admit that I am a little bit shocked at the idea of anyone who frequents a Paleocon site - like iSteve - contemplating anything other than homeschooling their children.
What gives?
Would anyone here even dream of sending a child to a government school?
"Maybe schools ought to initiate AP courses in morals and courtesy. You know, sexual self-control, hard work, avoidance of sex and drugs, cleanliness, clear and non-obscene speech and non-slovenly clothing."
Yes, maybe this would've helped our current crop of politicians lead such scandal-free lives their only obstacle to running for president would be in relation to good/bad policies.
I'm not certain you live in the real world, HC. We're now observing the later in life fallout of behavioral excess that was encouraged and condoned in the baby boomer population. The phenomenon appears to be worldwide in scope.
"My wife is black, smart and cultured. Our hi-yalla/good-hair daughter has a 148 IQ and (if pushed by a Tiger Mom) could excel. But the wife doesn't want to. Bottom line, as she explained it to me: our daughter doesn't have to work hard for the same job security and quality of life as de white folks.."
Hey...the lying weido is back.
I know there are a lot of high IQ types who hang around here and can't get over their high IQ's but what a horrible life it must be to be in pressure cooker competition from earliest childhood with all the other best and brightest to be the best the brightest the brightest the brightest the best the very tippy toppy brightest best. Exhausting just to think about it. And what joy can such a person ever feel? What space could possibly be left for joy? For such a useless thing as joy? Talk about deprivation.
Suppose the Manhattan Project had hired a bunch of inferior Mexican and black scientists, and the bomb didn't blow up. Ahhh, but it would have been a more 'inclusive' bomb, therefore more valuable.
You literally have no idea how close we are to having that real history being rewritten along those lines. I visited D.C. two summers ago, and at Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History, the exhibit on the Manhattan Project is literally subtitled something like "America looks to women and minorities to win the war". Remember this isn't an exhibit on factory work or hospitals, this about the building of the first nuclear weapons, but you would think from the exhibit that a bunch of female and NAM technicians were more important than all those pesky physicists, chemists, and engineers who as we know are overwhelmingly white and male, THE HORROR, THE HORROR.
There is an historical answer to this question. Actual "Honor" High Schools. Any Urban Center of a half a million or so could do it. Test the kids in late grade school and then admit those who make the grade. It worked for the Catholic Church in the ( now ) rust belt and other regions of the old USA. Those not admitted would be at the mercy of the latest fads but those few with brains would be given a real chance.
More than half a century ago when I was in a Catholic HS tracking wasn't practiced. Flunking was the method with the flunked being swept up by the Public Schools. Classes were roughly assigned the first year by IQ and grade school recommendations but each year sorting by results of the previous year was made. The entire HS was directed to boys with brains and those in charge made no bones about it. Everyone took LATIN. The Catholic Church at that time offered a smattering of parish HS opportunities and some Girl Academies also existed. This was all before Vatican II and inclusion was not in the Church's mind as far as I can tell as the Catholic Church was still fighting the battle of uplifting the immigrants from Middle and Southern Europe.
Specifically selection into my all male HS depended on 1) recommendation by parish school, and 2) result of short written IQ test given during 8th Grade at parish school. I remember orientation day ( during week before HS school began ) when home room and lockers were assigned, book list given, gym clothes purchased from book store, dress code explained and two brief talks were presented to the 600+ boys.
The first talk was by the Principal who said that one should study hard otherwise one would be likely to be dropped. He wasn't kidding as we only graduated 290+ with most losses being academic failures. The second talk was by the Vice-Principal who said that even if we performed well in class we could be thrown out if discipline was a problem. A third demerit at anytime up until the day of graduation resulted in expulsion.
That HS was harder than College and beyond. ( I spent nearly 9 years in an IVY. ) Aside from its academic rigor and systemic pressure I can recall fatigue more than anything else. Many of us had long commutes, mine was two hours a day on public transportation, and the home work load was daunting.
The result was worth the effort. Why not give kids today the same chance I had? The wealthy have almost universally withdrawn their scions to the private schools. Give the middle class's and lower class's smart children a fighting chance to gain an education.
Dan Kurt
I worked in education for years. Yes the educrats are that dumb and believe all kids are equally smart.
Second, note the Harry Potter books. A longing, deeply expressed, for a "nice" boarding school along the typical English "Public" (really: private) lines, only open to middle/working class kids.
It's set in a school! With only a few NAMs.
Again, thank you my just-north-of-Chicago school for tracking the hell out of me and my fellow students. We had basic, regular, advanced and honors levels for every subject. In upper grades we had AP added on to that as well.
Now, as a teacher in the inner city, I'm especially pro-tracking. Here's what happens when current "research based techniques" and the No Child Left behind/ RTTT merge. Test scores are the only goal (they make or break our careers and funding), so everything is done with the numbers in mind. Students are divided into 3 groups: the basic (not gonna pass the tests), the regular (possibly gonna score as proficient on the test) and advanced (possibly gonna scare as advanced on the test). My school actually has 3 sections of each grade level. BUT, all the kids are mixed level-wise. Why? Because everyone KNOWS all students benefit from mixed ability grouping, silly! The division I mentioned above is there only for number scheming. The advanced kids are left alone and kept busy with worksheets. Nobody cares about them; they'll score what we need anyway. The basic kids are ignored as well by the classroom teacher. Different types of intervention specialists might come to see them from time to time, but the teacher can't waste energy on a low returns deal. The only kids actively taught are the ones who are demonstrating "on the fence achievement". That's the regulars who are about to fall behind and the regulars who might make a jump into the advanced category. Nobody cares about the firm-in-the-middle regular kids.
Oh, by the way, the "advanced" students aren't really advanced by the standards of most people here. They just wouldn't depress you. Truth is, they really could use some instruction, if we want their future ACT scores to be in the upper 20s.
Again, thank you my just-north-of-Chicago school for tracking the hell out of me and my fellow students. We had basic, regular, advanced and honors levels for every subject. In upper grades we had AP added on to that as well.
Now, as a teacher in the inner city, I'm especially pro-tracking. Here's what happens when current "research based techniques" and the No Child Left behind/ RTTT merge. Test scores are the only goal (they make or break our careers and funding), so everything is done with the numbers in mind. Students are divided into 3 groups: the basic (not gonna pass the tests), the regular (possibly gonna score as proficient on the test) and advanced (possibly gonna scare as advanced on the test). My school actually has 3 sections of each grade level. BUT, all the kids are mixed level-wise. Why? Because everyone KNOWS all students benefit from mixed ability grouping, silly! The division I mentioned above is there only for number scheming. The advanced kids are left alone and kept busy with worksheets. Nobody cares about them; they'll score what we need anyway. The basic kids are ignored as well by the classroom teacher. Different types of intervention specialists might come to see them from time to time, but the teacher can't waste energy on a low returns deal. The only kids actively taught are the ones who are demonstrating "on the fence achievement". That's the regulars who are about to fall behind and the regulars who might make a jump into the advanced category. Nobody cares about the firm-in-the-middle regular kids.
Oh, by the way, the "advanced" students aren't really advanced by the standards of most people here. They just wouldn't depress you. Truth is, they really could use some instruction, if we want their future ACT scores to be in the upper 20s.
"I have to admit that I am a little bit shocked at the idea of anyone who frequents a Paleocon site - like iSteve - contemplating anything other than homeschooling their children."
Uh, huh. Yet another agreived white guy in his 30s who has not, and never will have children passing judgement, if I may...
"Yeah you need to quit your job and spend 12 years teaching your children while the four of you live in a major city on your husband's $37,000 a-year salary! It's the only answer!"
"I worked in education for years. Yes the educrats are that dumb and believe all kids are equally smart."
No, you screwed up kids education for years, and if the "educrats" are truly dumber than you prove yourself to be on a daily basis, we really are in trouble.
How can anyone expect DARPA, the guilds of the professions thru their regulators or the free market to allow remote teaching and standard testing to replace public and college teaching? The unions and the bifactional parties will have their say and it won't be based on anything other than their "rice bowl". Cui Bono.
While we're dedicated to reducing the gap between our best students and our worst students(by means of tearing down our best), what is happening to the gap between China's best and our best?
Nah, I wouldn't homeschool my kids. Children need to have experiences outside of those of their parents. People need to learn real life lessons from early on. They need to know what it's like to receive and follow orders from those dumber than them, or what it's like to meet a charismatic adult with opinions that differ from those of their parents. They need to experience that it sucks to be the smart one among the dumbasses or the dim one who can't keep up with the rest. There is so much to find out outside of algebra and romantic poetry. How about the moment your bright kid realizes that he feels a real bond with his lesser intelligent football teammates?
As for academics, there is only so much the kid needs to be taught before he starts to teach himself through reading. Parents can keep their kids ahead of the curve in elementary school by spending time with them on the weekends. Math and hard sciences might be the exceptions, so invest in summer courses at the local CC or hire a private tutor when the kid reaches high school.
School is a shared peer group experience; a place for romantic failures and indulgences in fake subcultures to occur.
I wonder if this is the reason we have such problems developing native scientific talent and have to import them from overseas.
Cruft,
Teachers aren't against standardized testing. We are against the value added measurements and standardized test scores of our students being used to evaluate us. It makes the profession a circus of network trends. Obviously, the test scores and values added will show that all the suburban teachers are superior to the urban teachers; the richer the suburb- the more talented the teachers. What will happen (and what many of us have observed already) is that the young teachers with connections will rely on their daddies to find them a school where the students don't knife each other and the kids have heard the ABC song a couple of times before starting kindergarden, or at least, know the names of 2-3 colors. Also, those who make friends with the principal/ the administrative office in their school can dodge the students the alternative school/mental hospital had sent back.
Seriously, why should my worth as a teacher be determined by the number of crack babies in a given year's class? Four of my boys joined gangs (yes, in elementary school, and as a side note, they are already taller than me) this year, and they are all about being thugs every second of the day now. Several of my kids are pretty much homeless, and they sleep through the school day, even in the super uncomfortable tornado drill position. Their mothers engage in bloody fist fights on our school's front loan, regularly. I spend 6-7 hours, on average, preparing lessons every day. I rap the vocabulary with beats from the garage band software. I make comic books, create individual student plans and drop a substantial part of my earnings to buy exciting materials and behavior/academic incentives. No, I don't expect half of them to pass the easy standardized test! Are you kidding? A large number of them don't care. Their parents don't care. I had to buy extra nice prizes to bribe them into staying awake all the way through the test. What is it that you want from the teachers? We aren't magicians. If i were half as charismatic, manipulative, inspirational, impressive, artistic, terrifying and overall talented as succeeding in this task requires me to be, I'd be... perhaps, I'd be one of those pop stars who built a cult around an image they create and who are largely in charge of their own management and marketing. Would I be Jimmy Page? No, it's easier to sell music, sex and rebellion to teenagers than math, English and foreign language to an aspiring thug.
Use your tests to place THE STUDENTS in their appropriate levels. I already aced all my professional exams.
I don't understand why there isn't more emphasis on getting younger students into college classes since you're going to work them to death anyway.
Give up on keeping them with "the" peer group. Those days are over. Find "a" peer group that moves at the same pace. Looks like some creativity is in order because the divergence in ability level is too great for the local public schools to meet everyone's needs well.
Chronological age is no longer an effective measure for sorting students into peer groups.
"People need to learn real life lessons from early on."
People learn life lessons in war too, so I guess military service should be mandatory. I also know a guy who got his GED and turned his life around while in prison, so obviously everyone should get that "shared peer group experience" too.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are still people who think homeschooling means being locked up at home all day and never getting to play sports or other activities with other kids.
How about very large (15,000 studentbody) big city highschools with an a la carte menu style curriculum. The only requirement would be that all graduating seniors would have taken a minimum of three -- no, make that five! -- industrial arts courses: cooking, woodworking, welding, plumbing, landscaping, etc.. That plus write a paper on Emerson's essay on manual labor. Destigmatization!
Did I mention machinist, concrete work, electrician, electronic repair, automotive mechanics, home appliances, sheetrock, painting, masonry, heavy equipment operating? Basic arithmetic would be built into these courses, and maybe a basic course in civics and American history would be required.
The point here is that all academic subjects would be elective. Students and their parents would make these decisions, not teachers and administrators.
"You literally have no idea how close we are to having that real history being rewritten along those lines. I visited D.C. two summers ago, and at Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History, the exhibit on the Manhattan Project is literally subtitled something like "America looks to women and minorities to win the war".
One of the things you notice about the museums, whether science or other, is that all the voluntary visitors are white or Asian. I remember noting the Asians back in the 70s, to a guy I was with and he said matter of factly that blacks are just not part of the culture. Asians are. Obviously he meant the science and high art, not pop and sports.
Blacks do not come except in school groups, and considering this is D.C., there are not even a lot of them. Nobody thinks blacks have much to do with science or culture except as guards in white museums. Don't worry. As for women, we also know not too many women were involved, but there were actually a few of them. I don't think there were any blacks or mestizos.
I never said that home schooled kids are locked up at home. I know they are often involved in large peer groups that put on drama shows together, play for local community center sports teams and go to summer camps. Still, there is value in going out into the world and experiencing trends that largely aren't under parental control. I know it made me appreciate my family more. Obviously, the key to everything is moderation. Btw, jail isn't a common, across the board peer group experience. And I, for one, wouldn't be against mandatory national service.
Chronological age is a nifty grouping tool to start with, but the way it is used in schools nowadays is ridiculous. If i could have 2 things in schools today, as a teacher, they'd be:
1. Discipline
2. End of social promotion.
If an 8 year old can't read and cries 7 times a day, keep him in kindergarden.
You are absolutely right, the drift is too large for the teachers to serve all the same age kids effectively in the same classroom. I got students who read thick classics and kids who don't know the sounds letters make, in the same classroom.
A grade level should be a sign of certain skills attained, not years spent on Earth.
Don't worry. As for women, we also know not too many women were involved, but there were actually a few of them. I don't think there were any blacks or mestizos.
There was an outstanding female Chinese-American physicist working on the project, but interestingly enough there isn't any mention of her in that silly exhibit, which would have a least given it a modicum of credibility. Instead what you get are pictures of minor technicians and maybe some MP's who happen to be black or Mexican and I don't know guarded something important during the project. But apparently these people are more important then the physicists who actually designed the bomb itself. The whole exhibit is very Orwellian.
If you are forbidden to visit a museum until the 70s/80s, it is hard to develop a culture of attendance.
"Btw, jail isn't a common, across the board peer group experience."
Neither was compulsory government-directed schooling, until recently.
"And I, for one, wouldn't be against mandatory national service."
Spoken by a school teacher? Shocking!
I'm against compulsory government-directed schooling. I think there is a lot of value in common generation-wide experiences that bond fellow citizens, but I don't think you should be required to share my opinions. Academically-speaking, government schools are as good as anything else at providing comprehensive education. There are plenty of resources and helpful educators for those who want to learn, and nothing that could entice those who don't. I think the government needs to make sure that all people have access to public libraries with up to date media centers. Perhaps, libraries should also have math/science tutoring halls with optional lab classes. Then, if every school would close, the results would probably be exactly the same. Those who want to learn would still learn. Those who couldn't be bothered to stay awake in class, would still know nothing. I know kids in my horrible inner city school who are thriving. They'd thrive anywhere they could have easy access to information. I'm all for exam based university entrance. I'd also love to be able to enter any profession I choose by taking tests, paper or practical. My district is trying to extort 20,000 from me for a completely useless master's in education. Meanwhile, I've scored in the top 3% in all the teaching exams, including basic skills, content knowledge and theory of teaching.
If you are forbidden to visit a museum until the 70s/80s, it is hard to develop a culture of attendance."
70s/80s? How old are you? I visited the Smithsonian in the early 60s, and there blacks there in school groups. The guards were all already black. There had been black government employees in the offices since the early 1900s. Blacks in D.C. had some of the best high schools in the late 1900s (although many of the students were "mulatto") and the best known black university, Howard (founded by General Howard of the Civil War.)Cultural resources were open to them, if they wanted them.
They were not "forbidden" from visting museums. The Smithosonian was open to all.
What an absurd excuse. Jews were barred from universities. Didn't stop them.
There is no end to the absurd excuses. The only cultural institution in Baltimore I recall being closed to blacks in the early 60s was an amusement park, Gwynn Oak, which opened to them in 1963. Within fours years it was dead and gone.
Is it possible to plausibly deny that school desegregation has seriously hurt below average income and average or below average intelligence whites, while not having helped blacks?
I think public schools should have at least 4 tracks, beginning by about 4th grade. Maybe two tracks from second through third grade.
My private prep school had something like 10 tracks. That's despite having an IQ of something like above 125 to get in, unless you were a 12th grade transfer "ringer" athlete in a major sport like football, imported from a public high school on a scholarship to often/usually do over his senior year in a much better school with a better chance of getting admitted to an Ivy League or equivalent school. Then still 110 at least I think.
Every 12-15 student sized class was in effect it's own track. At least that's true at the higher levels. Students were assigned initially according to the SSAT scores, and then their performance the prior year in that subject.
They weren't called tracks and weren't officially listed in a hierarchy, but we got to know who the geniuses were and the really smart kids, and the relative slacker dummies, so we figured it out. I was in the second highest, except for French, which I sucked at (and also didn't much care about, but I had to take a language), so there I was in a middle ranked track at this elite school.
Overall good enough to get me into Stanford.
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