even if it's a bit more expensive per student, my guess is it would be very cost effective at improving outcomes for the rest of the kids.
Ideally, something closer to the 5-1 ratio my district mandates for special ed classes would be more effective. These kids are going to need a lot of individualized attention if you want to help turn them around.
I don't think there were other tracks, it was pretty much just high achievers classes and than the regular pool of students.
I can remember vividly my parents wanted to send me to private (Catholic) high school after Primary school. I begged not to be separated from my existing friends who were all going to the local public school (which didn't have a great rep). It was only the presence of these gifted classes which convinced my parents to let me go to the public school. Both of my younger sisters were subsequently sent to Catholic School.
My parents pretty much followed the 'tiger parent' stereotype they put enormous pressure on me to succeed I remember I got 93% on a math test once and my Dad yelling at me and berating me for not doing well enough.
My friends thought my parents were insane, especially when I'd tell them I couldn't go to the movies because my parents were making me study for an upcoming test and things like that. None of my friend's parents seemed to give a shit about their grades.
I'm grateful for opportunities I had as a result of my upbringing, I got into the course I wanted at a good university etc. But looking back now decades later it feels like I was robbed of an adolescence. A lot of people have fond memories of their time in high school all that really stands out to me was enormous amount of pressure I felt, I'm honestly surprised I didn't have some sort of breakdown.
I can remember one of my good friends, who I'd be constantly competing with for top marks seemed to breeze through class with about 1/10th of the effort I put in he'd never study for any tests, he'd be writing up his homework 10 minutes before it was due and getting full marks. I always felt like such a fraud compared to him. I got good grades because my parents leaned so hard on me to put in the work, even at the time I was conscious of that. He got good grades because he was naturally gifted and school came 'easily' to him. Today he has two PHD and is still one of the most intelligent people I know.
I wonder if he might not have felt the same way because he put in so much less effort, but still did well. If you put in a lot of effort regardless of the outcome you can think back that you tried your best. If you half-ass it and things go well, then you might feel that you don't deserve it, but if things don't go well, then you feel bad for not trying.
Being able to work hard is a talent itself. In many cases it's the most important one.
Ironically if we had stayed in Birmingham, my mother said that the would have tried to use my Grandfathers influence as an ex headmaster and tried to get me into King Edwards (Tolkien's old school) which is normally ranked no 1 or 2 in the UK
On a related metric, if you look at the top 10 students in my public low rated high school in the south, the top 10 students (which I was one) were made up of kids whose parents were in the school system, one kid of a prominent lawyer, one was the daughter of a plant manager, and only one came from a poor background.
Probably even if we went to dystopian radical equality measures like mandating all kids be kept in government creches which would play hell with mammilian bonds and rightfully piss many people off.
When I left my private elementary school in the south and my mom who was teacher didn’t want me to go to the public middle school we were zoned to, she applied for me to go to the one local magnet school. She was told through official channels that there was a waiting list. She called up the admissions officer - she had tutored their son - and miraculously there was a place for me.
Did I get more “intelligent” after the phone call?
However, I have no reason to believe one of those two factors is at place when looking at the top ten students of a given school. With cheating you don't aim for the top, to make it easier for your cheating to remain undiscovered and there's no point to invest lots of resources into a student that isn't failing, since there's nothing to gain, at least from my perspective. Or is there a cash price tied be being in the top ten?
Edit: got carried away, this want a discussion about universities and not thus really applicable. Still interested though.
I can give you another example from my own life. Like I said previously, I graduated from a low rated public school on the small town south. I had the highest SAT score in the school and the second highest in the county (around 1000 graduating seniors). Not bragging, it was far from a perfect score. How much of that do you think is due to my natural brilliance and how much do you think it was due to my mom not only being a Math teacher who was teaching me high school math in middle school, but her also doing SAT tutorials in middle school and sitting down with me at night to help me solve SAT practice problems in high school?
I’m sure that my learning Latin in the magnet middle school that she called in a favor to get me into didn’t hurt me doing well on the English portion.
Besides, there was a recent well reported scandal about how rich people were able to game the system and bribe people to get their kids in school. Their punishment was a slap on the risk while a homeless poor Black lady is spending years in jail for enrolling her children in a school that was out of her district.
Lowest track - 4 years Middle track - 5 years Highest track - 6 years
I started and spent 3 years in the 'middle' track, in my third year I failed my French and German classes so badly that the school required me to either re-do the third year of the middle track, or go to the 4th year of the lower track. The funny thing is that the 4th year of the lower track does not have French or German as a requirement.
Since my parents did not really cared or bothered to stand up for me (unlike another girl, whose parents lobbied and she was allowed to go through to the next year with worse grades) I chose to do the lower track. Finished that up easily and was given the choice to go to the 4th year of the middle track (without French or German, the 3rd year was the final year with that requirement). Finished the middle track with ease as well.
It is hardly a child's responsibility to suffer from the violence, bullying, and general disinterest in any academic achievement by another group of children.
In both middle school and high school, I was bullied incessantly by kids who were doing just fine, academically. Some of them went on to be quite successful people. Bullies nonetheless.
It would be so convenient (and karmically just) if all the awful kids went on to be dropouts and losers in life, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes they’re smart kids, but they’re just assholes.
I guess I was projecting from my own experience – my bullies were rather dumb, and I got rid of them when they dropped out.
I'm afraid I don't have a good solution for that.
Not a lot of parents are going to be thrilled to hear that their third (or 7th) grader is probably going to drop out. And they're going to wonder if the teachers are just going to give up on the kids in that track.
To do this in a way that would be perceived as positive for all tracks, you'd need to put more resources towards the higher numbered tracks, and make it clear that's what's going on. Smaller class sizes / more instructional aides / better teachers go to the kids who need more help; and put gifted kids into larger classes, because they'll probably manage fine.
Of course, smaller classes needs more teachers / money. It's cheaper to lump everyone together and hope the kids that get it help the other kids.
Also, you need to make it possible/easy to move tracks to adjust if screening got you in the wrong one. And be mindful of systemic bias influencing track selection.
The problem is the reasons kids end up in the bad classes are all different.
Some kids have a learning disability that requires individualized attention. You need more teachers for that, or more parental involvement.
Other kids have a different learning disability where the only thing they need is more time to do the same work. You can put them in a normal sized class with other students who work at the same pace and everything is fine.
Some kids have a bad home life and what you can do for them is to get them into after school programs so they have more time at school to do homework and interact with other students and less time at home where everything sucks. But in that case you don't need smaller classes, you need longer hours. More after school programs.
Some kids used to have a bad home life and now it's better, but the experience affected them and now they act out. What those kids need is counseling.
Some kids have been exposed to environmental toxins at home that predispose them to violent behavior. They needed prevention -- lead abatement etc. -- because once it has already happened they're pretty much totally screwed and there is not a lot the school can do about it.
All of these kids have to be separated from the other kids or they'll disrupt the class, but "pour money on those classes" doesn't fix most of it because most of the problems don't come from the classroom to begin with. The school can't fix the fact that some of their kids are living in apartments with lead paint, so spending money on smaller class sizes for kids with lead poisoning is a lot less effective than spending the money on lead abatement.
Problems in school generally have causes (and solutions) outside of school. Treating the classroom is treating the symptom.
The kids in the middle get screwed. How would you like to be tracked as only worthy of community college because of how you did in 4th or 5th grade?
Kids in this track don’t get access to services, AP classes, etc.
I was a trouble maker at school. In my final two years, my history teacher took a special interest in me for whatever reason. I now have a masters degree from Cambridge university. I was forced to study with the good kids (who actually tried to bully me ironically) but it worked out really well for me. I think a lot of disruptive boys can really benefit from a strong masculine teacher that forced them to see that there's a better way.
Also, there are some kids which are just going straight to jail. No idea how to deal with them.
Absolutely. They're hungry for a leader who wants to lead them.
> Also, there are some kids which are just going straight to jail. No idea how to deal with them.
Those kids need serious individualized attention, which we normally "can't afford". Yet the cost of fixing it then and there is so much less than the cost of their future crimes and imprisonment.
It's both moral and economical to do the right thing, yet we kick that can down the road. Sigh.
Everyone has different motivators and different idea's of success. Some of those ideas can lead to being classed a criminal, but the state wont accept its own part it plays in people's failures. Until the state recognises this, you will continue to have failure's in people who shouldn't really be failing. Family can also contribute to a persons failure, you cant help it they have different idea's to your own but a lot of parents view their kids as possessions and they don't always accept a kid can form strong beliefs and desires from a young age even though we hear of people who have managed to pursue childhood dreams.
>Sometimes disruptive kids need to be told they are capable I'd agree with that, but having a suitable person to recognise this and guide them is hard, some benefit from a hands off approach others benefit from a hands on coaching position. Out of all the secondary school teachers only 1 would defend me in the staff room, I really pushed the boundaries and challenged people even teachers, but anyone will know cognitive dissonance can create powerful anger in one or more people. I don't think the UK is geared up to educating and exploiting the talent of each individual to their max yet but I hold out hope. >I think a lot of disruptive boys can really benefit from a strong masculine teacher Certainly at primary school I gave female teachers a hard time especially if they didn't "flirt" with me and yes kids can have feelings at that age largely controlled by oxytocin imo, but I think it was a respect to the hidden but generally controlled anger you would sometimes from older male teachers, it was a shocking sight in some ways because older people are generally more laid back so to see them lose their temper was more of a shock than a younger adult who lost their temper more frequently. I also respected the older teachers more than the young teachers, whilst at primary school (6-7age), I am supposed to have caused a young female teacher to have had a nervous breakdown which perhaps backs this idea up, but I came from a very strict background where extreme corporal punishment was also the norm. Even at primary school I was very competitive, often completing work in the classroom first then disrupting the rest of the class as I hated having to sit in silence. When the teachers started setting me extra work to keep me occupied, that lasted for a few days as there was no extra benefit, but it proves some primary school kids can be highly motivated and quite likely the most disruptive. I wrote my first program on a ZX Spectrum one summer around 7-8yrs when it first came out because student neighbour had one and was studying computer science at Uni. He taught me to write basic programs. I didn't know what I was doing was considered hard or difficult because I hadn't been socially conditioned into thinking it was hard, here was something novel and fun which fitted in with the scifi like Dr Who/Star Wars I liked to watch. That I think is an important point, kids learn when its fun, if you have everyone including the teacher saying we are going to learn some hard maths, physics or sciences, the teacher, parents and older peers have subconsciously created a barrier to learning in the classroom. Its why we need to be careful what we say around kids because they are sponges for knowledge and we should be exploiting that better, but I think AI will be taking over soon, which is my primary interest. Cambridge is nice, could have gone, but education held me back imo so I pursued my own non educational path. Do I need those pieces of papers, no, I work for myself because no one has yet to build a general AI and so no one can teach people how to build one. Having a belief in yourself is also important which can be hard some days when things don't go right and then it can be easy to blame others for our own failures which I see a lot of in this thread. Noone will do it for us, we need to do it ourselves, but getting the right environment to make that happen can be hard and we don't always recognise what is a bad environment for us, in fact that can sometimes take years to spot so having periodic times of reflection can be a good thing when looking for ways to do things better and trying to be the best in the world!
1. Gifted / clearly university-bound
2. Potential college prep
3. Community college
4. Normal underperformers
5. Little hope, likely will drop out
6. No future besides unemployment or prison
You took all your classes with your own cohort, rarely had to interact with anyone outside your cohort, and coursework was tailored to your level. It was glorious. I went from boring, slow classes and having to run and hide from tormentors to appropriately paced coursework and always interacting with friendly, nice, smart kids. My childhood mental health went on a noticeable upswing during this experiment. Too bad it ended around 3 years later and I was thrown back into the prison "general population" full of kids whose talents included arson and filing other kids' teeth down in the metal shop. Not sure why they ended the program, because it really made school bearable.