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Well, you set up a system that fosters competition, you get excellence as a result. DUH. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus also have similar systems, and they punc
by cyberax 1y ago
Well, you set up a system that fosters competition, you get excellence as a result.
DUH.
Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus also have similar systems, and they punch way above their weight in math and CS: https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=RUS https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=RUS https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=UKR https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=UKR https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=BLR https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=BLR
Ironically, the US schools do have tracking. For athletics.
The US absolutely _needs_ to have a school system that challenges students. No more nonsense about racist algebra.
- faangguyindia 1y ago"When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" is known as Goodhart's Law
- airstrike 1y agoThe parent is arguing for a target, not for a metric, so Goodhart's Law doesn't apply here.
- faangguyindia 1y agoI didn't know Olympiads do not have any score (metric). Thank you.
- cyberax 1y agoThis is a BS saying because it's so easy to find counterexamples. Let's try to use the number of child deaths, for example. By your saying, trying to do that is bad. Because governments probably will somehow resurrect dead children to look good at this metric. Right?
- devmor 1y agoNo, but it is easy to see how reporting the death of children could be withheld - say for instance, if this metric had penalties associated with it.
- cyberax 1y agoThen it becomes a different metric.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoLook at what France, Japan, and USA consider childhood deaths. Back when I did medical software and wrote reports, France and Japan both lumped at lot of deaths post birth into 'death at birth' to lower their childhood death statistics.
- kazinator 1y agoYou get excellence in a tiny number of individuals who don't budge the statistics. The national averages are poor, and the excelling individuals are not even numerous enough to create a "fat right tail".
- dcsommer 1y agoThis is interesting if true, but without data I can't take this claim at face value.
- oefrha 1y agoScientific and technological breakthroughs are created by the few. Always been, always will be. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people are responsible for the current AI breakthroughs for instance, and I’m being conservative. You don’t need a fat right tail to completely change your country; of course, most of your tiny number of excellent individuals leaving for richer countries is a different problem altogether.
- saagarjha 1y agoNo, it's the same problem. Nobody wants to live in a country where everyone is impoverished and illiterate.
- oefrha 1y agoYou do realize that if you go by "national averages" American math education is pretty bad right? People aren't leaving for countries with great national average in math. That's basically irrelevant.
- derbOac 1y agoIMHO there should be challenges but also opportunities for self correction and movement. The problem with test score stratification is that you start treating kids as unchanging objects being measured by an infallible yardstick, when neither assumption is true. It's not racism it's essentialism and poor education. An ideal educational system would tailor material and projects to an individual student and adjust at the rate they improve.