They didn't really cut it, they renamed it. AP classes, independent study, and dedicated schools for high-performing students, rather than just individual classes in the main schools.

https://vansd.org/highly-capable-services/

bad example, but there are tons of others

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curric...

"The draft rejected the idea of naturally gifted children, recommended against shifting certain students into accelerated courses in middle school"

You should read that article a bit more.

> The model has been in place since 2014, yielding a few years of data on retention and diversity that has been picked over by experts on both sides of the de-tracking debate. And while the data is complicated by numerous variables — a pandemic now among them — those who support San Francisco’s model say it has led to more students, and a more diverse set of students, taking advanced courses, without bringing down high achievers.

> California’s recommendations aim to expand the options for high-level math, so that students could take courses in, say, data science or statistics without losing their edge on college applications. (The move requires buy-in from colleges; in recent years, the University of California system has de-emphasized the importance of calculus credits.)

No, there’s a perfectly valid course to help the under-performers perform as well as they can and help the out performers reach new heights. Equity doesn’t have to be perfect, the closer we can approach the ideal the better.

What’s deeply evil is your opinion purporting your straw man is the only way forward to blatantly push your agenda.

You’re just really confused about what equity is. It’s not “equality of outcome.” The whole point of seeking equity is to free the out-performers from the chains holding them down.

Edit to add:

Seeking equity is about surfacing relevant merit, and fighting irrelevant demerits. For example if someone has the skill to be a great engineer they should not be given the job of taking notes in meetings just because they are a woman. Gender is irrelevant to engineering. But many people who aren’t male find their engineering career progression slowed because of their gender. That is not an equitable outcome.

But obviously it’s impossible to create an equal outcome: you can’t magically make everyone on Earth a great engineer.

Can you define what “equity” is then, according to your understanding?

To me, “freeing the outperformers” sounds like “meritocracy” which I wholeheartedly support!

See my edit. Equity means your outcome is determined by relevant metrics, and not by irrelevant metrics.

You’ve described meritocracy.

Equity is pretty explicitly anti-meritocratic. E.g. a woman should be hired over a man, or a black should be accepted to university instead of an Asian, not because they’re more skilled or have greater potential, but to address historical grievances and/or ensure proportional percentage-wise representation.

Meritocracy is about determining who has ruling power. The hint is in the suffix -cracy, like in democracy or autocracy.

Equity has much lower stakes. It’s about the ability (opportunity) for each person to live the best life they can, free from oppression. It’s not necessary to rule over other people to do that.

Equity and meritocracy share similar challenges in that a social order already exists, and therefore the determination of merit is currently being determined by specific people. So it’s not objective.

Equity is a goal that is very hard to reach. What you’re complaining about are some admittedly blunt tactics to try to get there. But they’re not in themselves the goal.

Even if you don’t like those tactics, it’s a bad look to say that the goal of equity is “deeply evil.” It’s like saying “everyone getting a fair chance is deeply evil.”

Edit to add: an example of a relatively uncontroversial tactic to improve equity is accessibility engineering for websites. Being visually impaired doesn’t stop a person from thinking, so we have made social rules that websites should be constructed in a certain way so that visually impaired people can interact with them.

Well, you can also do meritocracy in organisations/companies (e.g. GitHub used to do that), and by extension, most of education system (which is preparing people for careers).

Which isn't what's happening lately. Asians and whites are discriminated in university admissions in preference to latinos/blacks. Men are discriminated against when hiring and doling out scholarships to the benefit of women. Openly racist policies are being proposed ("reparations") or even legislated [0] in the name of "anti-racism". Non-extreme-left viewpoints are being suppressed. People are being cancelled for making jokes, or for supporting biology (e.g. biological sex).

This isn't happening in the name of "meritocracy", or in the name of "equality". It's happening in the name of "equity". It's bullying, it's repression, it's discrimination, it's evil. You might mean good (hell, even Hitler just wanted to improve the world!), but if your way to justice requires massive injustice along the way, well, I hate to break it to you, you're just evil.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/oregon-cares-fund-laws...

Meritocracy only works when everyone starts on an even footing. What we are attempting to do is equity of circumstances so meritocracy can truly take hold.