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"The No Child Left Behind Act, which shaped education for nearly 15 years, further contributed to the neglect of these programs. Ignoring kids who may have had

"The No Child Left Behind Act, which shaped education for nearly 15 years, further contributed to the neglect of these programs. Ignoring kids who may have had aptitude or interest in accelerated learning, it demanded that states turn their attention to getting struggling learners to perform adequately..." teaching to population averages will prove disastrous to our long-term growth. thank goodness we have private institutions to pick up the slack where massive bureaucratic oversight often (so often) gets it wrong.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
I'm glad private institutions exist too. But remember you can only get the education you can afford. Since brilliance is not necessarily related to parents' income, private education is a poor substitute for efficient, timely public education.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- wastedhours 11y ago
  Exactly - that's why things like https://www.teachforamerica.org/ https://www.teachforamerica.org/ have to exist. It's a socio-economic issue that's holding back talent in developed countries across the world, where parental income directly impacts on academic success. Considering the imbalance is so pronounced in-country, it's a real shame...
  - douche 11y ago
    I applaud Teach for America for the effort, but I'm not sure that's really that successful. I graduated with more than a handful of people that went into TFA, and around 90% of them burned out hard after a couple years. Most of them had no teacher training, and, really, no cultural context for understanding the cultures they got dropped into. Inner city ghettos, Cajun Bayous, and Appalachian hollers are a different world than white-bread East Coast suburbia. I think if you want to fix the disadvantaged areas of the country, you've got to reverse the brain-drain that's sucking the best and brightest people out of these communities. Decentralizing the economy would be a good first step.
    - wallflower 11y ago
      The deeper problem with TFA is that by hiring TFA teachers they are literally ensuring 100% turnover in 2-3 years since TFA teachers do not usually stay past their 2-3 year assignment in their placement areas. There are a few who do stay, however, as a pure numbers game, it is not enough. Also, you can Google (or Bing) away for stories of how TFA teachers are given inadequate training and special-needs students (or worse, disruptive students) are put into their classrooms. Up the Down Staircase is a lightly fictionalized novel about teaching in the 1960s in a public school system. Bureaucracy, parents (or lack thereof), funding, burnout. Almost 60 years later, many of the same fundamental problems still exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Down_Staircase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Down_Staircase
LeifCarrotson 11y ago
It's not necessarily wrong to teach to population averages. It sounds like you're suggesting that education effort/money should be distributed with an emphasis on high-aptitude students instead of low-aptitude students for long-term growth goals. This makes some sense, it seems likely that empowering high-aptitude students with better education will generate leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors, 10x engineers, and "growth". But if you don't spend the extra money and effort to teach the low-aptitude students, they will not have a usable education, producing a "low aptitude class", likely condemned to poverty, unemployment, and suffering. Growth is great, but suffering is not. Maybe the bureaucracy swings too far towards preventing suffering at the expense of future growth, but it's not a black-and-white wrong.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

I'm glad private institutions exist too. But remember you can only get the education you can afford. Since brilliance is not necessarily related to parents' income, private education is a poor substitute for efficient, timely public education.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wastedhours 11y ago
Exactly - that's why things like https://www.teachforamerica.org/ https://www.teachforamerica.org/ have to exist. It's a socio-economic issue that's holding back talent in developed countries across the world, where parental income directly impacts on academic success. Considering the imbalance is so pronounced in-country, it's a real shame...
- douche 11y ago
  I applaud Teach for America for the effort, but I'm not sure that's really that successful. I graduated with more than a handful of people that went into TFA, and around 90% of them burned out hard after a couple years. Most of them had no teacher training, and, really, no cultural context for understanding the cultures they got dropped into. Inner city ghettos, Cajun Bayous, and Appalachian hollers are a different world than white-bread East Coast suburbia. I think if you want to fix the disadvantaged areas of the country, you've got to reverse the brain-drain that's sucking the best and brightest people out of these communities. Decentralizing the economy would be a good first step.
  - wallflower 11y ago
    The deeper problem with TFA is that by hiring TFA teachers they are literally ensuring 100% turnover in 2-3 years since TFA teachers do not usually stay past their 2-3 year assignment in their placement areas. There are a few who do stay, however, as a pure numbers game, it is not enough. Also, you can Google (or Bing) away for stories of how TFA teachers are given inadequate training and special-needs students (or worse, disruptive students) are put into their classrooms. Up the Down Staircase is a lightly fictionalized novel about teaching in the 1960s in a public school system. Bureaucracy, parents (or lack thereof), funding, burnout. Almost 60 years later, many of the same fundamental problems still exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Down_Staircase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Down_Staircase

LeifCarrotson 11y ago

It's not necessarily wrong to teach to population averages. It sounds like you're suggesting that education effort/money should be distributed with an emphasis on high-aptitude students instead of low-aptitude students for long-term growth goals. This makes some sense, it seems likely that empowering high-aptitude students with better education will generate leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors, 10x engineers, and "growth". But if you don't spend the extra money and effort to teach the low-aptitude students, they will not have a usable education, producing a "low aptitude class", likely condemned to poverty, unemployment, and suffering. Growth is great, but suffering is not. Maybe the bureaucracy swings too far towards preventing suffering at the expense of future growth, but it's not a black-and-white wrong.