DeBlasio thinks basing admissions on merit is "segregation" and that random chance is better

[laughing dog]

My point was that it is unavoidable to "punish high achievers" even when being selective. For some obscure reason, you feel that is a rebuttal to my observation even though it has nothing whatsoever to my point. I made no argument for affirmative action nor random placement.

So reduce everyone to remedial classes?

Yet another non-sequitur.

My point was the rationale of avoiding punishing the high achievers is vapid.

In terms of policy, I think the idea of "selective" grade or middle schools is rather silly. The goal ought to be high quality schools for all children, not some.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What does that have to do with bringing all schools up to the same rl of excellence as the best school(s)? Are you saying that students who have disabilities or who are not academically gifted do not deserve the best possible education?

What makes a school excellent is the students; not the building or faculty. Give children the best educational opportunity, sure. But that will not make them equal academically. Nature always wins. Don’t punish high achievers so that all get a trophy.

Oh, bullshit.

Excellent, caring faculty and staff are there to bring out the best in students, to open doors and windows and universes for them and to teach them to open these for themselves.

But they can't do that if the students aren't there to learn.

Academically gifted students can languish in poor schools and internalize the message that they are not very smart because their brains are bored by being expected to do endless worksheets for two grade levels behind.

Which is the result of mixing students of different ability levels.

Mediocre students can be taught to excel, students who are behind can be brought up to grade level and beyond.

Sometimes, but usually not. Whatever made them get behind usually persists. Putting them in good schools provides no benefit.

No one, least of all me, is talking about holding any student back so that those are behind can catch up.

No, you're talking fantasy. In the real world you hold back the gifted students by mixing them with the ones who are behind.

 

[Trausti]

My point was that it is unavoidable to "punish high achievers" even when being selective. For some obscure reason, you feel that is a rebuttal to my observation even though it has nothing whatsoever to my point. I made no argument for affirmative action nor random placement.

So reduce everyone to remedial classes?

Yet another non-sequitur.

My point was the rationale of avoiding punishing the high achievers is vapid.

In terms of policy, I think the idea of "selective" grade or middle schools is rather silly. The goal ought to be high quality schools for all children, not some.

Where is the evidence that NYC funds it’s selective schools differently?

 

[Toni]

Yet another non-sequitur.

My point was the rationale of avoiding punishing the high achievers is vapid.

In terms of policy, I think the idea of "selective" grade or middle schools is rather silly. The goal ought to be high quality schools for all children, not some.

Where is the evidence that NYC funds it’s selective schools differently?

It may or may not be a function of funding so much as one of design.

When teachers are told that the students in their class are above average, even gifted, they teach the students as though they are indeed above average or even gifted. And the student's achievement is so excellerated.

If teachers believe that a student or a class is behind or less than average ability, they treat those student as though they are of lesser ability--and the students underperform. I've observed this to happen.

Students, especially young students, very often live up to what is expected of them. Expect the best. And give your best.

 

[laughing dog]

Yet another non-sequitur.

My point was the rationale of avoiding punishing the high achievers is vapid.

In terms of policy, I think the idea of "selective" grade or middle schools is rather silly. The goal ought to be high quality schools for all children, not some.

Where is the evidence that NYC funds it’s selective schools differently?

Yet another non-sequitur. The goal of high quality schools for all children, not some, does not imply nor does it require different funding for different schools.

 

[Trausti]

Yet another non-sequitur.

My point was the rationale of avoiding punishing the high achievers is vapid.

In terms of policy, I think the idea of "selective" grade or middle schools is rather silly. The goal ought to be high quality schools for all children, not some.

Where is the evidence that NYC funds it’s selective schools differently?

Yet another non-sequitur. The goal of high quality schools for all children, not some, does not imply nor does it require different funding for different schools.

This is misdirection. Do you assume "high quality" schools for all would make all students have similar academic achievement? You'd be wrong. What matters is selection, not the brick and mortar.

Effects of School Quality on Student Achievement: Discontinuity Evidence from Kenya

 

[Toni]

Oh, bullshit.

Excellent, caring faculty and staff are there to bring out the best in students, to open doors and windows and universes for them and to teach them to open these for themselves.

But they can't do that if the students aren't there to learn.

What the heck, Loren? You're ready to write off kids at age 11?

Academically gifted students can languish in poor schools and internalize the message that they are not very smart because their brains are bored by being expected to do endless worksheets for two grade levels behind.

Which is the result of mixing students of different ability levels.

No, it's the result of poor schools. And of schools not recognizing talent and ability. Often because of the color of a kid's skin or his parent's profession or his address.

Mediocre students can be taught to excel, students who are behind can be brought up to grade level and beyond.

Sometimes, but usually not. Whatever made them get behind usually persists. Putting them in good schools provides no benefit.

Bullshit

No one, least of all me, is talking about holding any student back so that those are behind can catch up.

No, you're talking fantasy. In the real world you hold back the gifted students by mixing them with the ones who are behind.

Bullshit, Loren.

Providing good schools to all students is NOT mixing gifted students with those who are behind. What is wrong with you that you think that there is only a small number of elite students who 'deserve' good schools? What is wrong with you that you think that a child's potential is already obvious and unchangeable at age 11?

 

[fromderinside]

Simple test. Roll down the car window next to the 'candidate', race the engine, then ask if the car is going fast or slow.

Got that from an old Andre Norton short story about 65 years ago.

 

[Jokodo]

It's simply showing the effects of how much education is valued at home and in the community. You're assuming a disparate result proves discrimination. Remember that a small difference in the average translates to a large difference on the tails.



It's commonly claimed the white schools get more money, but it's more that white schools can spend more money on education rather than security and they have fewer troublemakers.

In any case, what has also been recently proposed in NYC, it seems, is that a percentage of places are offered to the top percentiles of students in each school in the catchment area, and/or that 20% of of places be offered to economically disadvantaged students who "just missed the test cut-off". A student doing well in a more challenging school/social environment may be a better indicator of both academic potential and motivation than a student doing slightly better in a less challenging school/social environment, especially if the latter has been coached for the exam.

A standard dodge to discriminate while pretending not to.

In a world where all the feeder schools are of equal quality and pre-test training didn't exist, that would be a sensible objection. Last I checked, we don't live in such a world. Do you want us to move there? Do you want to illegalize pre-test coaching? Do you want to abolish private schools and organize public schools at the state or federal level and institute strict nationwide quality standards to make sure, as much as is humanly possible, that every kid in the country gets the same amount of encouragement and preparation?

 

[ruby sparks]

I believe it is the case that the so-called 'Mismatch Theory' is not a settled issue, with arguments and evidence for and against.

What I find interesting is that as far as I'm aware, it wasn't considered much of an issue in the USA during all the many years that students were and are getting in as Legacy Admissions and really only became an issue of concern when primarily black people were and are involved.

If so, there seems to be a double standard in play, and it may have racial, possibly racist undertones.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's simply showing the effects of how much education is valued at home and in the community. You're assuming a disparate result proves discrimination. Remember that a small difference in the average translates to a large difference on the tails.



It's commonly claimed the white schools get more money, but it's more that white schools can spend more money on education rather than security and they have fewer troublemakers.

In any case, what has also been recently proposed in NYC, it seems, is that a percentage of places are offered to the top percentiles of students in each school in the catchment area, and/or that 20% of of places be offered to economically disadvantaged students who "just missed the test cut-off". A student doing well in a more challenging school/social environment may be a better indicator of both academic potential and motivation than a student doing slightly better in a less challenging school/social environment, especially if the latter has been coached for the exam.

A standard dodge to discriminate while pretending not to.

In a world where all the feeder schools are of equal quality and pre-test training didn't exist, that would be a sensible objection. Last I checked, we don't live in such a world. Do you want us to move there? Do you want to illegalize pre-test coaching? Do you want to abolish private schools and organize public schools at the state or federal level and institute strict nationwide quality standards to make sure, as much as is humanly possible, that every kid in the country gets the same amount of encouragement and preparation?

It's not even a reasonable objection anyway, imo. What it partly says is, "even though I base my [flawed, but no matter] case on saying that socioeconomics should be the only criteria, when they are used as a criteria, and this helps blacks in particular, I still object".

Some people (a) incessantly object to anything proactive that might be intended to help African Americans in particular, while on the other hand (b) repeatedly denying the existence and extent of the racism that quite reasonably informs such policies, and are also (c) relatively silent about a range of non-meritocratic advantages that have been going on unchecked for many decades if not more.

In total, you could hardly hope to find a more jaundiced approach if you were trying to find one.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's commonly claimed the white schools get more money, but it's more that white schools can spend more money on education rather than security and they have fewer troublemakers.

I am sceptical of that claim, because I have read that schools in predominantly white areas in the USA do get more money per student, and vice versa for schools in predominantly black areas. Do you have evidence that this is false?

 

[laughing dog]

Yet another non-sequitur. The goal of high quality schools for all children, not some, does not imply nor does it require different funding for different schools.

This is misdirection.

I agree you are engaging in misdirection. Please stop.

Do you assume "high quality" schools for all would make all students have similar academic achievement?

No.

I wonder if it is possible for you to actually address the content of a post. BTW - a high quality school has less to do with "brick and mortar" and more to do with selection of staff.

And why do you continue to post research from an area that has a well-known replication problem?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

When you let in students who aren't as good you either utterly leave them behind (hurting them) or you slow the whole class down (hurting everyone else.) The closer in ability the students are the better the education will be.

Of course, if you don't provide the opportunity for success, you also provide those children with an easier path to mediocrity, setting into stone, their path.

I also seem to remember in elementary school, all children weren't the same intelligence in a classroom. There were the "gift and talented" and then there were the not so bright. And then the baseline students. So there is this misconception that parity has been a thing in classrooms since the dinosaurs.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's middle school, FFS.

Lottery is a lot more fair than supposed merit.

Much, much better still is that ALL schools be brought up to the standard of the most prestigious.

This also provides us with the problem of being able to accurately judge just how well schools are doing. In Akron, the "best" elementary school has the richest children attending. Coincidence? No. Granted, stability is also a consideration when talking about schools.

Ohio has a pretty crap report card for schools, mainly to make people want to put their children into shitty charter school system Ohio has. It is hard enough to actually gauge how schools are actually performing as there are a bazillion metrics involved, forget the politics involved in the money from charter schools and kickbacks. And when schools are the main place for food for a good deal of children, there are certainly other constraints that are affecting the ability of children to learn that are out of the hands of schools.

Schools are just one piece (a large one) of the puzzle, and represents a portion of the environment for children to do better in education. Schools alone can't fix the poverty issue, but America has been brainwashed into thinking poverty is deserved, so we don't tackle it because those people are lazy, bad decision making fools. And those in poverty be damned if anyone thinks their children deserve a chance at a more stable schooling environment.

 

[Trausti]

Schools are just one piece (a large one) of the puzzle, and represents a portion of the environment for children to do better in education. Schools alone can't fix the poverty issue, but America has been brainwashed into thinking poverty is deserved, so we don't tackle it because those people are lazy, bad decision making fools. And those in poverty be damned if anyone thinks their children deserve a chance at a more stable schooling environment.

No one is saying that. But the reason a school environment is not stable is because of the students who go to that particular school; the walls are not haunted and the teachers are not tormenting the students. ‘Course, it’s verboten to notice that.

 

[ruby sparks]

Schools are just one piece (a large one) of the puzzle, and represents a portion of the environment for children to do better in education. Schools alone can't fix the poverty issue, but America has been brainwashed into thinking poverty is deserved, so we don't tackle it because those people are lazy, bad decision making fools. And those in poverty be damned if anyone thinks their children deserve a chance at a more stable schooling environment.

No one is saying that. But the reason a school environment is not stable is because of the students who go to that particular school; the walls are not haunted and the teachers are not tormenting the students. ‘Course, it’s verboten to notice that.

I haven't seen anyone saying that's not a factor.

Jimmy is right. There are so many factors. All it takes is to be reasonable and accept them all where they are in play, and stop saying 'it's this and it's not that'.

Some of them may even apply to Kenya specifically.

 

[Toni]

It's middle school, FFS.

Lottery is a lot more fair than supposed merit.

Much, much better still is that ALL schools be brought up to the standard of the most prestigious.

This also provides us with the problem of being able to accurately judge just how well schools are doing. In Akron, the "best" elementary school has the richest children attending. Coincidence? No. Granted, stability is also a consideration when talking about schools.

Ohio has a pretty crap report card for schools, mainly to make people want to put their children into shitty charter school system Ohio has. It is hard enough to actually gauge how schools are actually performing as there are a bazillion metrics involved, forget the politics involved in the money from charter schools and kickbacks. And when schools are the main place for food for a good deal of children, there are certainly other constraints that are affecting the ability of children to learn that are out of the hands of schools.

Schools are just one piece (a large one) of the puzzle, and represents a portion of the environment for children to do better in education. Schools alone can't fix the poverty issue, but America has been brainwashed into thinking poverty is deserved, so we don't tackle it because those people are lazy, bad decision making fools. And those in poverty be damned if anyone thinks their children deserve a chance at a more stable schooling environment.

Schools ARE just one piece of the puzzle. And home environment is another.

I take very strong exception to the notion that poverty/low SES condemns children to low achievement and that we cannot expect more from such students and so we should not even attempt to provide an education equal to provided children with wealthy parents.

Partially, that is because I grew up barely middle class, raised by parents who grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. Nonetheless, my father tremendously exceeded all expectations set for him and raised his children to expect to excel in school and college, although his own father fought with him bitterly because my father refused to drop out of school when he was 16 and could do so legally. For a time, when I was really young, my family was really poor, at one point, lacking indoor plumbing. Yet my siblings and I all graduated at the top of our class, did extremely well on our SATs (including National Merit awards), won academic scholarships which were not easy to win even back in our day, and completed degrees in math and science fields, some of us grad school. Our SES would not have predicted this at all. Yet, I look at my former classmates and some of them are among the smartest people I know--including some of the Ph.Ds and doctors/lawyers, etc. None of them came from an easier economic situation than I did. A couple were slightly worse off. BUT we were not treated as poor and indeed, it was not until I was well into adulthood that I realized that in fact, it wasn't just that we didn't have money. Compared with my spouse, who lived in a very nice upper middle class suburb of a large city, we were dirt poor. Yet all of my siblings and myself outperformed my husband and his siblings in grades, on standardized tests, etc. By a couple of standard deviations.

Partly that is also because I spent a number of years volunteering in the public schools in my very working class town. My kids literally attended school and were in the same grade school classes as the children of millionaires, doctors, lawyers, the town mayor. And as factory workers (which barely pay more than minimum wage), people who cobbled together a living working in bars and as janitors, tradespeople, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers and child abusers. It's a small enough town that if someone is charged with something, it shows up in the paper. One day, I had to decide whether I should just show up at my kids' school and take my son out of class because the father of one of his classmates had gotten out of prison earlier (sentenced for raping my son's classmate's mother) and had threatened to come to school to get his daughter. This is actually far from the worse situation I know/knew of amongst my kids' classmates families. As fact, not rumor.

I spent a lot of time helping kids learn their math facts, listening to them read, teaching more advanced science and reading to kids who were marked as gifted. I helped tutor one of the kids who used to regularly threaten (credibly) one of my kids. I marked spelling tests and changed bulletin boards and set up fund raisers and even cleaned the turtle bowl in order to provide a little extra relieve to teachers who were overtaxed--and to earn enough credibility that I could get them to allow the students to participate in some PTA sponsored creative arts programs, etc.

Some of the kids I worked with in the 'gifted' pull outs were from families where from time to time, they lost phone service or their electricity was cut for non-payment. Some of the kids who needed extra help with someone listening to them read and helping them with the hard parts were from well to do families, including one teacher's daughter, who was bright but struggled with a learning disability.

Academic talent does not skip over families who fall low on the SES totem pole just as addictions do not skip over families who have country club memberships. But too often, kids get sorted by SES or perceived SES by teachers and schools and those who are judged to come from families that 'don't care' are treated as though they will not achieve much. And those with parents who have money? They catch all kinds of breaks.

In my town, there is a private school system--Catholic, to be exact, although they don't care about your religion so long as your cash is green. My kids had friends from among the catholic schools as well. From what the kids told me and from what I saw and heard from the kids, their families: the privates in my town are more 'elitist' but are not better. They tend to ignore learning disabilities and to counsel kids who struggle with dyslexia to stay home when benchmark tests are given. And they send their students who really can't get along without the extra help to the publics for remedial classes. Also for orchestra. For anything that costs extra, we taxpayers get to pay for while the publics are only partially reimbursed for what they provide.

It is true that the son or daughter of a janitor is less likely to become a doctor or a lawyer than the son or daughter of, well, a doctor or a lawyer. Even if they make the same grades. It's harder for a janitor's family to dream that big and it's harder for them to come up with the money and resources to support their kid in their journey to a different kind of life. AND it's hard for the kid and for the family to leave their family behind without a lot of guilt.

BUT: This is America, where we celebrate leaders who rose out of poverty to achieve great things. We need to remember the humble beginnings of many of our greatest leaders. And look in the humble places for the next generation of leaders.

So for those who think that only the children of country club parents deserve 'the best' schools: you can just fuck right off. (and Jimmy, I know that's not you).

 

[laughing dog]

Schools are just one piece (a large one) of the puzzle, and represents a portion of the environment for children to do better in education. Schools alone can't fix the poverty issue, but America has been brainwashed into thinking poverty is deserved, so we don't tackle it because those people are lazy, bad decision making fools. And those in poverty be damned if anyone thinks their children deserve a chance at a more stable schooling environment.

No one is saying that. But the reason a school environment is not stable is because of the students who go to that particular school; the walls are not haunted and the teachers are not tormenting the students. ‘Course, it’s verboten to notice that.

Where do you get such silly rhetoric? The staff and administration of a school set the tone, not students.

 

[ruby sparks]

Lol. That's funny. Just after I mention something, it happens.