I think the consensus is that it is better for the whole of society to make sure the bottom 5% makes it through that for the top 5% of the class to fulfill their potential.

It's not that I don't understand what you are saying. I was at the top in school and also as a parent I notice how removed education is from... beauty? It's just that economy dictates the rules. Also, teaching is hard.

I wholely disagree, it's just that people see the two groups differently. The bottom-5% kid who has trouble tying their shoes is an easy target for sympathy and you can throw money at special-ed programs. The top-5% kid who's bored off their ass and could be excelling elsewhere, not so much.

My explanation is that americans consider ourselves individually to be exceptional, and have trouble recognizing when others are. To the detriment of everyone.

Why do those two 5% have to be in the same class?

Lots of reasons. To start with it is positive for the bottom 5%. School is also not just about academic results but also integration and socialization. I think that ideally you would have one class and several teachers.

If integration and socialization is important, perhaps we should outlaw private schools and redistribute all students across nearby schools randomly, so the rich kids get to understand what it means to be poor from the early age.

Dragging down the top 5% to the lowest common denominator is not a benefit to society overall. Would you recommend cancelling AP classes?

This is a big subject; none of us are in a position to do anything other than philosophize. But I do think that when your goal is "socialization" you don't need to force everyone to study the same thing. I think it's a moral tragedy that we hold back our brightest students.

Could you perhaps tell me what AP means? Thanks!

I’m guessing he means “Advanced Placement” here.

Sorry should not have used an abbreviation: "Advanced Placement" -- courses meant for excelling students.

> courses meant for excelling students

I took a couple of them and dropped them as fast as I could. I found the classes mostly just included more homework than was necessary. I thought it’d be more like university and focus more on lecture, notes, and reading. Writing more essays and more projects was a big NOPE for me.

How do you identify the students which belong in the separate classes, and at what age do you do it?

It's not uncommon for students to switch between top 5% and bottom 5% - yet people act as if its static. Education and chid development are ridiculously complex. It's not possible to have a solution that solves for everyone.

That's a good question that has several reasonable answers (also depending on context), so we should run some proper experiments to find which answers are best.

Though from a policy point of view, we don't need to know those answers: different schools should try different answers (including sending all kids to the same class), parents should send their kids to the schools they deem the best overall package.

As long as you permit or even enforce periodic rotation between the "tracks" when appropriate given the performance/speed of learning, you might as well start early.

The former is a lot harder.

It's like what you learned with the i386 was much more inline with a trade school level of learning vs the more theoretical learning of a university. you learned the down and dirty and was immediately able to do something with it. it didn't teach you the hows & whys and blah blah. it's that 30,000' view vs 10'000' view vs down in the trenches view. sometimes you need all of the views, but some tasks don't always need the 30,000' theoretical lesson