Art classes seem the same, art and music teachers always seem eager to give special attention to kids who do much better than their peers.

Of course.

Very few teachers take any interest in the students who do well in math. In fact, they'll often find them annoying.

Yes, there are some teachers who do take an interest and do their best for those students. They just aren't the norm, and they don't get much support from the administration.

Only in America, but that's because the math teachers are nitwits.

Art and music programs are being cut to free up funding to ensure all the kids pass the standardized tests so the school doesn't lose NCLB funding.

American public schools are generously funded.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-ed...

I think the big difference here is that it doesn't really matter if someone isn't athletic. A school can have 10 kids for an amazing basketball team and 990 that are terrible at basketball and it doesn't affect anything, but if you have 10 geniuses and 990 kids that can't read then it's a huge negative for society

> it doesn't really matter if someone isn't athletic

Tell that to people who faked athletic credentials to get into the college of their choice. Or who get in with full academic scholarships because they're good at football.

I'm not advocating ignoring 990 kids that can't read, not at all. What I am suggesting is ignoring the 10 geniuses and not taking advantage of them is both unfair and bad for society.

Consider that WW1 and WW2 were won in large part by smart people making more effective weapons. You see the same thing in the Ukraine war today.

Failing to nurture the 10 geniuses is a very bad idea.

Most of those people would not be considered geniuses to Caltech educated elites like you.

I personally think ignoring the top 10 students is perfectly fine because they can clearly already manage. The rest of us can’t, but are still considered subhuman by your Bell Curve reading ilk.

In most larger universities, you can get an elite education by carefully selecting which courses to take.

1. take the honors track

2. 90% of the classes should be STEM

3. the STEM classes should be heavy on the math

4. avoid classes the stoners and cheaters take

5. classes should entail 2-3 hours of work for every hour of lecture

6. work towards getting As, not just passing

7. don't cheat, you'll be sorry if you do

8. be prepared to work your ass off

I literally did all of that at my state school, and yet despite this my degree name still makes people like you think I’m subhuman because I didn’t get into any top schools (because I don’t have “merit”). I have nothing because CalTech and MIT and Stanford elites have everything.

You don’t need to make that trade off.

I also don’t think a world where 10 geniuses go untapped in any context is a positive. The reason so many people can read in the first place is that a small number of geniuses created the prerequisite understanding to shape the modern world. Everyone put in massive amounts of work to achieve all we have achieved, but the key ingredients were a small number of people spearheading foundational ideas. People underestimate the impact of a very small number of people on the massive quality of life benefits we enjoy.

You can’t create genius. The most you can do is create the optimal conditions for the geniuses to take advantage of/manifest and push themselves to that level. Highly intelligent and creative people that make breakthroughs often come from unpredictable backgrounds. In order for them to thrive, you need to provide as many open doors where competency and demonstrable ability is the only prerequisite for entry.

This idea that spending on students correlates with performance is I think entirely wrong and a consequence of the limited metrics we have and attempts to raise money for education.

Education could be WAY cheaper and WAY more effective if we had the proper cultural understanding of what it should provide, and were wise enough to differentiate the needs of different areas. Many areas where reading comprehension is garbage are really in need of like a secondary non-dysfunctional family and job opportunities that are relatively high status/relatively high paying even if you aren’t that smart and just work hard/learn basic skills. If people were sorted into groups based on what their needs were, you could create and advertise doors the smart kids would walk through, and keep it open to anyone who puts in the work regardless of where they’re at, while also serving the needs of people who don’t care about school and are cheaper to bring to baseline if you do it right and don’t force people struggling for basic reading comprehension to be educated by people with a masters degree.

Things are currently falling apart because we’re not willing to admit that people have different needs and abilities and have created extravagantly expensive metrics and interventions to pretend we can equalize all outcome with enough resources. We can’t.

I think we can in fact create better outcomes for everyone, but we have to admit that everyone is different. You can’t have a one size fits all pipeline. Especially if you don’t want to demoralize like 90% of the people in the country that can’t get to the top of that particular giant leaderboard. The internet exacerbates this, and has destroyed borders in which someone who might have otherwise had relatively high status in a particular easily achievable niche accessible to them is now seeing all the people miles beyond them.

The way in which the upper classes currently pity people who don’t have high academic achievement and want to equalize experience in the same pipeline they benefitted from sounds good superficially, but it’s really toxic when you think about it. It assumes people need to have the kind of success that those who’ve done well in that academic pipeline have had in order to be treated with respect.

I think all of this could be fixed with one relatively simple guiding principle: keep metrics in a voluntary, competitive school system for those who have the aptitude and desire to pursue advanced study. Remove most metrics and bureaucracy from a base, mandatory public education much more about civics, basic skills, and introducing people to career paths relevant to their particular local area. I think that principle would ultimately lead to MORE people getting benefits from a traditional pipeline than do currently, free teachers to let the needs of the students actually direct how class time gets spent, and require way less administrative overhead.

EDIT: I rambled way too much here. The current state of education in the US drives me crazy.

Given the test-driven nature of modern education in the US, having 1000 kids that can just read at grade level is better than having 985 kids at grade level, 5 below, and 10 above. Any resources spent on the latter would be better spent on the 5 that are below grade level.

We need to empower geniuses if we have any hope of progressing our knowledge as a species. This means a chief priority should be to find and pay special attention to geniuses regardless of social class.

That doesn't mean there is a false dichotomy where we can't also achieve baseline literacy for all; that's a complex sociological problem which might take a genius to solve.

I think this argument presupposes that denying resourcing for the 10 will definitely improve the success of the 5.

Personal side note; I’ve tended to find that exceptional people are more productive with the resources given. So I find it hard to believe the inverse would also be true.

I think I misstated my argument. :-)

The way schools are currently measured, the 5 are very, very important and the 10 are completely irrelevant. The only judgement is how many of the students are below the appropriate skill level. I don't believe anyone even measures how much in advance of the skill level students at or above the minimum are.

How can you determine if the students learned anything without testing?

How do you know a prospective employee is worth hiring without testing?

Indeed. That's why they get tested.

Would you hire them based only on a competency test?

This is how schools are judged: what proportion of their students pass a minimum competency test.

Unless of course you have a school with a math department and a math team that competes.

Across American I'm sure it's the exception, and not the rule, to have a math department and a math team.

But in California, especially the Bay Area, they're not uncommon. All the public high schools, and many of the middle schools, in my city have them. Private schools will vary based on their priorities.