6 ms·

From a cost standpoint it makes sense. You're capturing most students. How many students will use a gifted program? They will require dedicated teachers and sta

by navait 11y ago

From a cost standpoint it makes sense. You're capturing most students. How many students will use a gifted program? They will require dedicated teachers and staff, and their own curriculum. That's not cheap, and not subsidized by the federal government, unlike students under IEPs.

Retric 11y ago
Economically, gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact which justifies increased investment. The real issue is most 'gifted' programs are a joke with little impact.
- navait 11y ago
  > Economically gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact If you do that, you basically just dumped a bunch of money into kids that are immediatley leaving for somewhere else. It's like global warming; why cut emissions for someone else's benefit compared to your own?
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    Can you please elaborate or share some kind of story on why you think this would happen? Where are they leaving to, and why?
  - jerf 11y ago
    We fund schools because on the whole it all works out; if San Francisco teaches a kid who moves to New York, well, New York taught a kid that moved to Portland and Portland taught a kid that moved to a Kansas farm and Kansas taught a kid that moved to Texas, and in the end everybody wins pretty well.
  - afarrell 11y ago
    jerf, the problem is that there is nothing to keep Alabama from defecting, except for the fact that educated people like to live around places with good education systems and tend to vote in favor of education.
- ForHackernews 11y ago
  Edit: Parent was missing a comma. Punctuation is important.
  - smanatstpete 11y ago
    I think Retric meant Economically, gifted students...
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    Or you can realize that GP left out a comma, or with a slight rephrasing: Economically speaking, gifted students ...
  - graeme 11y ago
    I think they forgot a comma. "Economically, gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact" If there's a sensible read of someone's comment it's preferable to use that interpretation. "Economically gifted" makes no sense in the context of the discussion. The OP was saying your tax dollars are likely to get a good return by fostering the progress of gifted students.
  - brewdad 11y ago
    I think there's a comma missing there. Plenty of gifted students in my son's school qualify for the free lunch program.
  - Glide 11y ago
    Seeing as a lot of people are pointing out the omission of a comma, what would you say to a person who wasn't economically fortunate but ended up in a GT program? Would that justify the tax expense?
- wfo 11y ago
  Economically, education is a public subsidy that helps private wealth. Taxpayers pay for your worker training for free. In exchange society makes some demands on the educational process, primarily that it spend some amount of time preparing students to be responsible citizens/members of society alongside the office drone prep these gifted programs want to accelerate. Keeping all the smart kids locked in an ivory tower where they don't have to deal with humanity or ever get any context into how society actually works is how you get Ayn Rand afficionados well past the age-appropriate teenage years, and nobody wants that.
dragonwriter 11y ago
That may be less true if you consider the costs of dealing with the disruptions caused by the behavioral problems frequently displayed by unchallenged gifted students. But, yes, there's a lot of government policy at all levels that favors focussing on the low end and ignoring the high end of the ability scale -- that's exactly the thing that seems to be the focus of the complaint. So saying that the thing being complained about makes sense because of the exact thing being complained about is, somewhat circular logic.
goodcanadian 11y ago
So it is OK to use dedicated teachers and staff as well as a special curriculum for the kids at the bottom, but when you suggest it for kids at the top, it is too expensive? Your point about government subsidy is on the mark, but why are the kids at the bottom subsidised while those at the top are left to languish? It illustrates a double standard that has somehow become embedded in the culture of the country. If Americans truly believed in giving each child their fair share, then politics would force the resources to be spread more evenly.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Regarding the "why" notion of so much effort being put into the kids at the bottom, it's my personal experience that the most vocal parents tend to come from the pool toward the bottom, be it physically or mentally disabled. They have a point, certainly, in asserting their children have a right to equal access...but I do think the costs associated with such access typically burden the state far more than the parent in terms of accommodation. As in, some special needs kids genuinely don't belong in mainstream education environments, but through parental outcry and pressure, sometimes this gets over-ruled. What has bothered me the most, time and again, is the assumption that smart kids will 'turn out fine' without additional challenges and, by contrast, there's any reasonable ROI expectation with the a large portion of developmentally challenged / mentally deficient kids. It's a sensitive issue for sure. Somehow just postulating this kind of thinking draws up feelings of insensitivity, but I'm trying to focus on some empirical observations. Difficult tight rope!
- douche 11y ago
  In absolute terms, it would really be much cheaper to provide the resources to push the gifted students than what is spent on the lowest-performing students. $1000 dollars worth of books, software and a cheap laptop per student per year is far cheaper than hiring a one-on-one ed tech at $20-30k to babysit children with severe learning disabilities and behavior issues, or the still greater sums on the "severe and profound" students that have to be "educated" until they age out.
  - GauntletWizard 11y ago
jackmaney 11y ago
You aren't accounting for an enormous cost, should we stay on this path for much longer: brain drain.
benkuykendall 11y ago
Magnet schools can fix this issue. If you have 10 high schools, running 1 as a gifted program and the other 9 as before should not cost significantly more. Of course, people complain about negative effects on the remaining schools [0] on the basis that removing gifted students hurts the remaining ones. This seems like a strange concern to me -- why should gifted students be responsible for pulling up their peers? [0] http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/magnet-schools-more-harm-than-good/ http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/magnet-schools-m...
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >why should gifted students be responsible for pulling up their peers? Some variant of academic socialism? Could it be packaged with social socialism for the gifted kids who lack in other social areas?
- AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
  It's an interesting concept. I agree with you completely, but we're basically saying that the gifted have no responsibility to the average and below average. While in this specific situation, it seems obvious that a child shouldn't have to receive a lower quality education in order the help those with less ability, that concept has some Randian implications if you extrapolate it to society in general.
  - peterfirefly 11y ago
    They are going to spend the rest of their lives helping those with less ability -- who do they have to be handicapped in school so as to be less capable of doing so? And have a miserable time of it to boot?
- dublinben 11y ago
  The gifted students are already segregated into their upper level classes. They have little to no contact with average students outside of the cafeteria or gym class.
  - 11y ago
ironchef 11y ago
"From a cost standpoint it makes sense." Only if you view education as a cost center. What's the ROI of spending on gifted education? I've not seen such studies; however, what if you could dramatically improve GDP, etc. based on supporting gifted individuals. "How many students will use a gifted program?" Approximately 6 to 10% are gifted "They will require dedicated teachers and staff, and their own curriculum." Not necessarily. They may (depending on levels of giftedness); however, differentiation and what not are also acceptable approaches in some cases.

by navait 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

Economically, gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact which justifies increased investment. The real issue is most 'gifted' programs are a joke with little impact.

navait 11y ago
> Economically gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact If you do that, you basically just dumped a bunch of money into kids that are immediatley leaving for somewhere else. It's like global warming; why cut emissions for someone else's benefit compared to your own?
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  Can you please elaborate or share some kind of story on why you think this would happen? Where are they leaving to, and why?
- jerf 11y ago
  We fund schools because on the whole it all works out; if San Francisco teaches a kid who moves to New York, well, New York taught a kid that moved to Portland and Portland taught a kid that moved to a Kansas farm and Kansas taught a kid that moved to Texas, and in the end everybody wins pretty well.
- afarrell 11y ago
  jerf, the problem is that there is nothing to keep Alabama from defecting, except for the fact that educated people like to live around places with good education systems and tend to vote in favor of education.
ForHackernews 11y ago
Edit: Parent was missing a comma. Punctuation is important.
- smanatstpete 11y ago
  I think Retric meant Economically, gifted students...
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  Or you can realize that GP left out a comma, or with a slight rephrasing: Economically speaking, gifted students ...
- graeme 11y ago
  I think they forgot a comma. "Economically, gifted students are likely to have an outsized impact" If there's a sensible read of someone's comment it's preferable to use that interpretation. "Economically gifted" makes no sense in the context of the discussion. The OP was saying your tax dollars are likely to get a good return by fostering the progress of gifted students.
- brewdad 11y ago
  I think there's a comma missing there. Plenty of gifted students in my son's school qualify for the free lunch program.
- Glide 11y ago
  Seeing as a lot of people are pointing out the omission of a comma, what would you say to a person who wasn't economically fortunate but ended up in a GT program? Would that justify the tax expense?
wfo 11y ago
Economically, education is a public subsidy that helps private wealth. Taxpayers pay for your worker training for free. In exchange society makes some demands on the educational process, primarily that it spend some amount of time preparing students to be responsible citizens/members of society alongside the office drone prep these gifted programs want to accelerate. Keeping all the smart kids locked in an ivory tower where they don't have to deal with humanity or ever get any context into how society actually works is how you get Ayn Rand afficionados well past the age-appropriate teenage years, and nobody wants that.

dragonwriter 11y ago

That may be less true if you consider the costs of dealing with the disruptions caused by the behavioral problems frequently displayed by unchallenged gifted students. But, yes, there's a lot of government policy at all levels that favors focussing on the low end and ignoring the high end of the ability scale -- that's exactly the thing that seems to be the focus of the complaint. So saying that the thing being complained about makes sense because of the exact thing being complained about is, somewhat circular logic.

goodcanadian 11y ago

So it is OK to use dedicated teachers and staff as well as a special curriculum for the kids at the bottom, but when you suggest it for kids at the top, it is too expensive? Your point about government subsidy is on the mark, but why are the kids at the bottom subsidised while those at the top are left to languish? It illustrates a double standard that has somehow become embedded in the culture of the country. If Americans truly believed in giving each child their fair share, then politics would force the resources to be spread more evenly.

6stringmerc 11y ago
Regarding the "why" notion of so much effort being put into the kids at the bottom, it's my personal experience that the most vocal parents tend to come from the pool toward the bottom, be it physically or mentally disabled. They have a point, certainly, in asserting their children have a right to equal access...but I do think the costs associated with such access typically burden the state far more than the parent in terms of accommodation. As in, some special needs kids genuinely don't belong in mainstream education environments, but through parental outcry and pressure, sometimes this gets over-ruled. What has bothered me the most, time and again, is the assumption that smart kids will 'turn out fine' without additional challenges and, by contrast, there's any reasonable ROI expectation with the a large portion of developmentally challenged / mentally deficient kids. It's a sensitive issue for sure. Somehow just postulating this kind of thinking draws up feelings of insensitivity, but I'm trying to focus on some empirical observations. Difficult tight rope!
douche 11y ago
In absolute terms, it would really be much cheaper to provide the resources to push the gifted students than what is spent on the lowest-performing students. $1000 dollars worth of books, software and a cheap laptop per student per year is far cheaper than hiring a one-on-one ed tech at $20-30k to babysit children with severe learning disabilities and behavior issues, or the still greater sums on the "severe and profound" students that have to be "educated" until they age out.
- GauntletWizard 11y ago

jackmaney 11y ago

You aren't accounting for an enormous cost, should we stay on this path for much longer: brain drain.

benkuykendall 11y ago

Magnet schools can fix this issue. If you have 10 high schools, running 1 as a gifted program and the other 9 as before should not cost significantly more. Of course, people complain about negative effects on the remaining schools [0] on the basis that removing gifted students hurts the remaining ones. This seems like a strange concern to me -- why should gifted students be responsible for pulling up their peers? [0] http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/magnet-schools-more-harm-than-good/ http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/magnet-schools-m...

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>why should gifted students be responsible for pulling up their peers? Some variant of academic socialism? Could it be packaged with social socialism for the gifted kids who lack in other social areas?
AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
It's an interesting concept. I agree with you completely, but we're basically saying that the gifted have no responsibility to the average and below average. While in this specific situation, it seems obvious that a child shouldn't have to receive a lower quality education in order the help those with less ability, that concept has some Randian implications if you extrapolate it to society in general.
- peterfirefly 11y ago
  They are going to spend the rest of their lives helping those with less ability -- who do they have to be handicapped in school so as to be less capable of doing so? And have a miserable time of it to boot?
dublinben 11y ago
The gifted students are already segregated into their upper level classes. They have little to no contact with average students outside of the cafeteria or gym class.
- 11y ago

ironchef 11y ago

"From a cost standpoint it makes sense." Only if you view education as a cost center. What's the ROI of spending on gifted education? I've not seen such studies; however, what if you could dramatically improve GDP, etc. based on supporting gifted individuals. "How many students will use a gifted program?" Approximately 6 to 10% are gifted "They will require dedicated teachers and staff, and their own curriculum." Not necessarily. They may (depending on levels of giftedness); however, differentiation and what not are also acceptable approaches in some cases.