Leftist mistreatment of gifted students

From an article in a British news source:

As many as three-quarters of state schools are failing to push their brightest pupils because teachers are reluctant to promote 'elitism', an Ofsted study says today.

Many teachers are not convinced of the importance of providing more challenging tasks for their gifted and talented pupils.

Bright youngsters told inspectors they were forced to ask for harder work. Others were resentful at being dragooned into 'mentoring' weaker pupils.

In nearly three-quarters of 26 schools studied, pupils designated as being academically gifted or talented in sport or the arts were 'not a priority', Ofsted found.

Teachers feared that a focus on the brightest pupils would 'undermine the school's efforts to improve the attainment and progress of all other groups of pupils'.

Does it work this way in the United States? If so, here is a good reason why you should send your children of above average intelligence to private schools.

The leftist mistreatment of gifted students, ironically, benefits the wealthy who can afford to pay for private school, and hurts the middle class whose children won’t be able to compete for good jobs against the better educated children of the rich.

Comments

[tdaxp]

Yes, it works that way. Many teachers believe that students gain from 'mentoring' underperforming peers, without knowing any reasons why that may be the case.

[The Engineer]

My kid is in the G&T program at a public school. I don't get the impression that the private schools have G&T programs, but maybe the student body at them is in and of itself more select.

Out of 100 or so kids in the one grade, 7 are in the G&T math, and 15 are in reading.

It seems to me that, if parents were half as concerned with academics as they are with, say, travel baseball, the schools would be much better places.

And this is an upper middle class school filled with the kids of doctors and lawyers and whatnot. I shudder to imagine what its like at a lower middle class school, or a school full of welfare kids.

["Personnel makes all the difference", comrades]

I don't think that the problem is primarily in them being "leftist". They are just of average intelligence or even below. "Rightist" people of average intelligence will find other plausibly and ideologically sounding reasons for not dealing with high intelligence kids that they don't understand and cannot relate to. Meanwhile, a leftist smart teacher would find a rrrrevolutionary reason for striking back at the oppressive this-or-that and teaching his smarter students well.

Incidentally, it may well be that the same teachers are likewise causing trouble to the low intelligence kids as well because they don't understand them either. After all, it was the "educators" themselves who were on the forefront of destroying vocational education in schools in favor of the college-bound track that THEY, personally, prefer.

Anyway, so people always find an ideological reason to do what they feel like doing. It's a part of human nature, and we have to work with it / around it, not try to wish it just go away.

[John]

No it does not. We have dumb classes, normal classes, and AP classes (college credit) at high school level.

[barghest]

In my elitist suburban public school this was not the case, the smart kids were simply tracked into their own classes.

[joe williams]

Beware of private schools, too. Often times they hire former public school teachers steeped in egalitarian Diversity Dogma. Also most private schools have hypocritical diversity programs that tax the full tuition white kids to offer reduced tuition to a handful of NAM kids who are often disruptive and learning disabled. The teacher sets the speed of class instruction to avoid totally swamping the slow kids, since nobody wants to see the diversity kids flunk out.

Of course there is no real penalty to a private academy if it lets reduced tuition NAMs flunk out. However, if too many do this will dull the schools reputation for minority friendliness. And unfortunately creating a NAM friendly reputation matters a lot to the SWPL private school administrators and board members, these days.

[Simfish InquilineKea]

Yeah. IMO, the best option is to promote homeschooling (or informal homeschooling groups) for gifted students in the middle class (since this would be cheap - for busy parents, unschooling with educational materials is a good alternative - hell - they could just hire a babysitter to monitor whether or not the children are actually learning rather than playing computer games). Homeschooling can be amazingly effective in the gifted, especially when they have a support group of similarly gifted peers, and Internet+technology offers so many ways for self-directed gifted education. Ideally, I would see vouchers for both private schools and educational materials, but sadly, the politicians won't allow this. :(

[AllanF]

You say ironically? I think it is by design. The leftists that push this stuff are but useful idiots.

[David Alexander]

"After all, it was the "educators" themselves who were on the forefront of destroying vocational education in schools in favor of the college-bound track that THEY, personally, prefer."

The problem is that vocational education leads to blue-collar work, which is something that the SWPLs look down upon since it's not work that "true white people" should do. Otherwise, educators would have turned vo-tech schools into de facto bachelor programs that require liberal arts classes for successful graduation. Education isn't their means become super rich, but merely their means of creating their vision of proper white* society.

*which includes native-born NAMs that assimilate and adopt white norms.

[mikeca]

I don't think it is this bad in most US schools. The public high school my daughter went to certainly had both honors and AP classes in many subjects.

However, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act is forcing US schools to devote more resources to the poorest students. Under NCLB it is the scores of the worst students that decide if a school is a "failing" school. This is completely backwards. Oh, and NCLB is not a left wing idea either, so I don't think you can blame all the schools problems on the left.

[HS: Just because George Bush promoted it doesn't mean it's not a left wing idea.]

[Park Slope Pubby]

Private schools love NAM's. They get into all the top colleges. Then the private school can put out the list of last year's class, and it says that 2 went to Harvard, 1 to Yale, etc etc. These are mostly either NAM's or the children of alumni, but the school can boast that it gets its students into the Ivies, and this attracts lots of full-paying SWPL parents. So NAM's are an important part of marketing the school.

Also your average liberal SWPL parent would never send their kid to an all-white school. That would make it too close to a Christian fundamentalist private school. So NAM's are a double marketing bonanza.

[Eric]

Go Peglegs!

[HS: Wow, that's a really deep inside joke. I initially thought you were talking about handicapped children.]

[miles]

Sigma wrote:

"The leftist mistreatment of gifted students, ironically, benefits the wealthy who can afford to pay for private school, and hurts the middle class whose children won’t be able to compete for good jobs against the better educated children of the rich."

Thats the intention in my opinion. I know Im cynical, but thats what I think. The wealthy no-doubt fully support it.

[KingM]

On the other hand, I live in leftist Vermont and the public schools here provide surprising support for my gifted kids. It helps that the major challenge we face is a high number of autistic kids, in that there are not many minorities or immigrants.

[Putnam]

The vast majority of gifted students aren't NAMs. Liberals can't stand that.

[James]

Nations that do this will slowly fall behind, but how long will it take people to see the cause and effect?

[Galtonian]

Is there anyone who is familiar with the British school system? "Public schools" were actually exclusive elite private boarding schools, I know that much. But as I understand in the state-funded schools they used to have more tracking (i think the Brits call it "streaming") and they used to have something called the Grammar School system which was some sort of pre-college track. Also something called O-level exams.

Any British people who can explain how things have changed?

[stu]

Half - in a previous thread Linda wrote
how about Charles Muuray? Probably unelectable because of "The Bell Curve", but he would seem to be the ideal president from Sigma's perspective. Extremely intelligent, highly educated, believes in HBD.

He has an interesting new book called "In our hands" where he suggests replacing the welfare state & government medicine with giving every adult American below the middle class $10,000 per year of which they must use part of to purchase health care
__

I really like Linda's suggestion, but what do we do about the low IQ people who need more than $10,000 a year just in health care costs? I mean many of the low IQ people in America do dumb things like ride a motorcycle without a helmet - one motorcycle accident can easily mean $40,000 in medical bills. Also, low IQ NAMS males often get themselves in to situations in which they get shot. A man with a few gunshot wounds a year can run up huge medical bills

So I really like and respect what Linda is saying but what about people that seem to need more than $10,000 a year in medical ?

[Aboyandhisdog]

By the way, I discovered the best HBD charity in the world. It is called Project Prevention. You give them money and they pay drug addicts to get sterilized.

On average, drug addicts tend to have low IQ children. So paying drug addicts to be sterilized raises the average IQ of the population.

I know that many of the people on this blog don't have a ton of money, but if you are a wealthy reader of this blog, please consider making a generous annual gift to this charity.

I did

[joe williams]

"Also your average liberal SWPL parent would never send their kid to an all-white school."

How wrong you are. Nearly all private schools in Berkeley CA, the Vatican City of white liberalism, are honky ghettos. Check out the stats on Great Schools.net. But every Berkeley private school has a diversity outreach program that exhaustively searches for a token Hispanic and Black for each class of 24 students. Tokens are usually female, since pretty much all the NAM boys in Oakland and Berkeley Unified are certified psychotic retards.

[Yawner]

""Rightist" people of average intelligence will find other plausibly and ideologically sounding reasons for not dealing with high intelligence kids that they don't understand and cannot relate to."

Meh. My schools had plenty of "rightists" who were happy to advance the education of students who were smarter than them.

[Mr. Jones]

A cousin of mine -- 2.5 years old -- has managed to teach herself to read.

Her mother leaves on the captions on the tv, and my younger cousin (female) picked up reading from that, I guess. She perfectly read aloud a book I brought for her intended for kindergarten kids.

How normal is it for a 2.5 year old child to be able to read kindergarden material?

[Mr. Jones]

And here's the thing: her parents are working class and very unintellectual. If the kid is significantly gifted, then they most certainly aren't going to put the kid in activities were she might make use of any gifts she might have (what if, for instance, my younger cousin has the talent to be an excellent pianist? painter? Upper class parents would push a gifted child of theirs into these sort of things but lower class parents who sire gifted children aren't even aware that they should help their kids make use of their giftedness.

[HS: She's at-risk for bad outcomes in life because her parents won't know how to deal with her.]

[outlaw josey wales]

Once again the sports/academics dichotomy rears its ugly head. Elite athletes are a-ok, but heaven forbid we nurture smart children. By the way, the right wing segment as popularized by Palin et al. are certainly not champions of intellectual achievement. So the left may sacrifice intelligent kids to support failing NAMs, but the right thinks being smart is stupid.

[Biologist]

It varies by locale and by grade within locales.

There have been historical cycles. Not sue where we are now in those trends.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

My much delayed blog

http://dissention.wordpress.com/

[Aki_Izayoi]

I think tracking would be a palatable solution if there was actually a high income vocational track for those with an IQ of 100. I doubt that is possible in this competitive world. Instead of instilling middle class values with people of those IQs, just teach them not to compete. Encourage them to live lifestyles where they do not compete and are disengaged from the world such as hikikomori.

There is an inherent opposition to gifted education because of a perceived universal correlation of IQ and income, and that it leads to inequality. I agree with Half-Sigma, that at lower IQ levels (-1.5 to 1 sigma) that IQ is strongly correlated to income, than at higher levels. At higher levels, wealth and income inequality is caused by the presence or absence of value transferance capital. Severe inequality is caused by the pressures faced the lower classes such as competition from immigration, trade with developing (or undeveloped) countries, and labor saving technology, while the high end causes inequality with its political connections and value tranferance activities. IQ does not explain these severe inequalities although it does have an important part explaining the inequality among the first eight deciles in income.

BTW, what is the correlation of IQ (or education) vs. income in welfare states such as Sweden? I suppose it would be about the same when compared to the US, but the regression line would be flatter as the low IQ population have inflated incomes due to unions and unemployment benefits, and higher IQ people have lower incomes due to taxes and the state's lack of an emphasis on property rights prevents the accumulation of value transference capital. I think much of the variance in relative wealth within those countries can be explained by IQ too. Removing immigration, free trade, and labor saving technology would reduce societal absolute inequality (e.g. difference in incomes caused by IQ) caused by IQ differences, but it would do litle to change relative inequality (differences rank of incomes in a given country caused by IQ). However, that hypothesis is questionable due to the increased income mobility in welfare states (since the differences absolute incomes is smaller, thus making it easier for one to change relative ranks) would make income rank changes more prevalent in those countries.

[Teacher]

The issue is not limited to tracking gifted students, but also students who are merely bright, and average students who are compliant and willing. Presently, everyone is suffering. There are many "average" people who are capable of punching above their weight through sheer effort and dedication, however, they will not get the chance because they are in the same room as morons. Moreover, there are many bright students (IQ 108-125) who are placed into the same learning environment as students with IQs of 75. This happens from the first grade forward and ensures that no one learns much of anything.

[sabril]

It does seem our society is obsessed with raising up the people at the bottom. Which I guess would be good if we were more realistic about it.

[dearieme]

@ Galtonian: I'll have a go.

"Public schools" were actually exclusive elite private boarding schools. YES (except in Scotland which historically called state schools "public schools".)
..I understand in the state-funded schools they used to have more tracking (i think the Brits call it "streaming") YES: everyone took exams at around 11 (details inevitably different in Scotland) that were used to identify if you were capable of high standard academic work. The exams included IQ test and tests of "attainment" in English and Arithmetic. If you did well, you went to Grammar School (unless you came from somewhere so rural that the budget didn't run to having multiple local schools, in which case you might all go on to one school, but it would be heavily streamed. I went to a school like that: there were seven streams (in addition to the separate building for the "mental defectives"). As you might imagine, the standards in the top stream could be very high and the classes proceeded at a fair lick - you could reasonably call that a "pre-college track".

Also something called O-level exams: YES, they were the national exams done by those turning 16; A-levels were done by those turning 18. (Details all different in Scotland, of course.)

Any British people who can explain how things have changed? YES The system just described was largely introduced by the Conservative politician R A Butler as part of the wartime Cabinet. It succeeded in one of his key aims, identifying bright children from poor or uneducated (or indeed stupid) families, and giving them the chance of a free, high calibre education. There was also introduced a system of grants so that such youngsters could proceed to University, with fees and maintenance costs all met. This system flourished at its height for only about 25 years, before the Labour Party set about demolishing it. Their complaints are hard to read - I always felt that they were less than frank about their motives. Politicians, eh? Anyway, a hatred of the idea of an intellectual elite open to people of any social background seemed to be the key. Socialists, eh?

[Zimriel]

I'm a Brit, and I went through the "public school" Shrewsbury. (Proud alma mater of Charles Darwin. At least that's what we Old Salopians are proud of; I am told that Chucky D himself hated the place.)

The British system had an educational track up to age 16: there was a basic "General Certificate of Education", for the average Kevin, and the "Ordinary Level", for those headed for more academia.

By the time I started in "third form" - your 8th grade - the educators had already decided that GCE / O-Level was classist, so we had a General Certificate of Secondary Education instead. And instead of ABCD, F it was ABCDEFG, U. (I'm not joking here.)

By age 18 the O-Level group (then) and higher-scoring group (now) would take A-Levels, which correspond to AP credit I believe. The new regime made sure most students went through to college - it was an Americanisation of the system.

While I was there we were told that Manchester Grammar might well be a better school than Shrewsbury. But it was stressful. We heard that one of the students took out his pencil during the A-Level and rammed it through his nostril straight into his brain.

All this information is current only to late 1992. I understand the educational system there is dumbed down further, particularly in A-Level (which had not fallen to the rot in GCSE as of 1992).

[Kudzu Bob]

Aki_Izayoi,

Hikikomori... Sweden... Do not compete... Yet more about Hikikomori...

Got it.

[Aki_Izayoi]

I am not going to admit that the hikikomori suggestion is dumb... it justs sounds dumb though. However, such a suggestion reflects the intractability of the problem as I haven't heard any better ideas. The best idea to deal with the "dumb" cohort is to encourage them not to interact with the world; it is in the best interest of the cohort and society in general.

"It does seem our society is obsessed with raising up the people at the bottom. Which I guess would be good if we were more realistic about it."

One way that I know that will help them is removing competition. Sunder immigration and free trade.

IQ is overrated in explaining societial differences. That doesn't mean it has only a small impact; it means that most HBDists assign too high of a value to IQ. But I may concede "HBDists" are correct that most people underrate it. Macroeconomic factors, such as trade and immigration policy, and the glut of labor caused by former communist countries entering the global labor market, play a more important role in explaining inequality.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Plugging my much delayed blog..

http://dissention.wordpress.com/

[factcheck]

"So I really like and respect what Linda is saying but what about people that seem to need more than $10,000 a year in medical ?"

Charles Murray is not proposing $10,000 a year in medical; he's proposing every American get $10,000 a year but be forced to spend $2000 of that on health insurance, which would then cover far more than $10,000 in medical aid if needed.

[Aboyandhisdog]

We need more people on this blog who speak from a liberal HBD perspective.

The HBD blog-o-sphere lacks liberal voices. We need to craft HBD policies that appeal to liberals as well as to conservatives. So I am grateful for Linda's idea.

That being said, If the typical NAM teenager in Baltimore is getting shot three times a year, and I own an insurance company, it makes no sense for me to sell that kid insurance for $2k a year.

No private insurer is going to sell him insurance.

So if his medical care costs $40k per year someone has to pay $40k per year for it.

Is linda and or Charles Murray suggesting that the taxpayers essentially give this teenager eight thousand dollars plus unlimited health care even if his health care costs a lot - or is Linda / Murray calling for society to give him 8k plus some rationed and limited health care. And if rationed and limited who makes the decisions?

Again, I support most of what Linda is saying but want more clarity on this

[Anon]

Half Sigma - is there a way for people who donate above a certain $$ ammt to this site to have their posts show up in a different color - different from everyone that does not donate that $$ ammt

I mean people spend money on status and posts in a different color would provide status

Think about it

[Linda]

"Again, I support most of what Linda is saying but want more clarity on this"

What Charles Murray is saying (I'm just the messenger)is as follows:

"The central proposal is for a basic income grant of $10,000 per year for every citizen aged 21 and above. There are two catches. The first is that everyone must spend $3000 of that grant on a basic health care package, which insurance companies will be forced to offer to everyone at that price with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, age, etc (the sum $3000 is negotiable for Murray—what is not negotiable is that there should be a residual grant of $7000, so that if the insurance costs more the grant would be more). The second is that all other government welfare programs (including TANF, Social Security, Medicare, etc, and all corporate welfare but not spending on genuine R&D or compulsory public schooling) would be abolished to pay for the grant."

http://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/01/charles-murrays-in-our-hands-left-or-right/

Also, you may want to watch this interview where Murray discusses other aspects of his proposal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsxPjzT8g3c

[Aboyandhisdog]

Murray is the finest spokesman we have for HBD.

Not to say he is great, but he is the best we have right now

I support his proposal 100%

However, what about children?

In other words, if a woman has 10 kids and all 10 of the dads are in prison or dead and can't pay any money towards their upkeep, what do you do ? Do you pay her just the 10k per year or a bonus for each kid?

[Linda]

"In other words, if a woman has 10 kids and all 10 of the dads are in prison or dead and can't pay any money towards their upkeep, what do you do ? Do you pay her just the 10k per year or a bonus for each kid?"

I think the point is that once she realizes she'll have to share her $10 k with her 10 kids, she'll think twice about having them especially without a father in the home to contribute another $10 k to shared expenses; in contrast to the current welfare system where the more kids you have, the more money you get.

But if she has 10 kids anyway, Murray is confident that private charity (the Salvation Army, family, friends, churches etc) will help her, but in the process Murray expects she will get lectured by these people for having more kids than she can support every time she shows up with a new kid, which will help keep her in line.

[joe williams]

"Her mother leaves on the captions on the tv, and my younger cousin (female) picked up reading from that, I guess."

My Korean girlfriend came to this country at age 7 and taught herself to read and speak English this way, too. She preferred to watch very old classic Hollywood movies and musicals. Now she speaks excellent slang free English with a slight SoCal twang. It's rather charming.

She is an example of highly successful assimilation, compared to most Mexicans: after decades in this country, they speak English poorly or not at all. And even their Spanish is so poor that visiting Spaniards won't talk to them. Apparently, un-Educated Mexicans don't bother to conjugate verbs, saying things like "I be going now", and rely heavily on a kind of Spanish-English pidgeon fraught with words like "carpeta" and "lippy sticky."

[Peter A]

"How normal is it for a 2.5 year old child to be able to read kindergarden material?"

I think it's very normal for a child with a high IQ. Any smart child can learn to read very quickly. Gifted children really should not be in school in the first place - school exists to 1) indoctrinate the average and 2) tame/train the below average. In some places it also is supposed to keep the criminal class off the streets, but it doesn't fulfill that role very well.

[not too late]

"How normal is it for a 2.5 year old child to be able to read kindergarden material?"

My friend's kid taught himself to read with a Leappad when he was 3. Sure a Leappad is a learning toy, but the kid has to really apply himself to actually learn to read. He was reading Harry Potter in first grade. My pre K son decided he wanted to set the alarm on the clock radio and figured it out by himself. I figured it was luck, but he gave a complete explanation of how he figured it out from trial and error. A dumb kid couldn't have paid attention that long and wouldn't have wanted to control his life to the extent of setting an alarm. Humans, even little ones, can be damned clever little devils.