5 ms·

"But SAT and ACT scores are the most reliable predictors of a student’s math ability, the report found...." how else do they gauge someone's math ability then?

naIak 11mo ago
Gauging someone’s abilities is meany mean.
Aurornis 11mo ago
They don’t. The movements pushing these ideas are against the idea of aptitude testing. Many of them are even against the idea of having advanced classes for those who are ahead. It’s not a niche ideology, sadly. It’s going mainstream. A core part of Zohran Mamdani’s platform was his goal to phase out gifted education programs, for example.
- tehjoker 11mo ago
  There is a silver lining though, when everyone is in the same class, better off people don't think they can escape and push to make the program better for everyone.
  - naIak 11mo ago
    You can’t have a good teaching programme when there is a variance of 40 points of IQ among the pupils.
  - tr45872267 11mo ago
    They can and do. Private schools already exist.
    - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
      AFAICT many private schools are worse than public schools. Parents put kids into private schools so that they get good grades and extra-curriculars to let them get into the good universities. So that's what private schools sell -- good grades. It's less important that they have the education that the good grades imply.
      - Aurornis 11mo ago
        I have no doubt schools like that exist, but in every location I’ve lived and interacted with parents the private school educations they sent their kids to were no question a cut above. I think this idea that private schools are no better are even worse is a wishful thinking narrative. Private schools, especially the more expensive ones, naturally select for parents who are more involved. More involved parents are highly correlated with better student outcomes. That alone means private schools are correlated with better outcomes. It honestly doesn’t really matter if it’s cause and effect or correlation, parents send their kids to private schools because they want them in the mix with other students selected into the higher performing environment.
      - tr45872267 11mo ago
        They do perform better on average >The average private school mean reading score was 14.7 points higher than the average public school mean reading score, corresponding to an effect size of .41 (the ratio of the absolute value of the estimated difference to the standard deviation of the NAEP fourth-grade reading score distribution). After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was near zero and not significant. For math: >The average private school mean mathematics score was 7.8 points higher than the average public school mean mathematics score, corresponding to an effect size of .29. After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was -4.5 and significantly different from zero. (Note that a negative difference implies that the average school mean was higher for public schools.) In the context of the specific discussion here, it doesn't really matter that the effect goes away when controling for selected student characteristics. First off this was from 2006, we would have to see if any of that has changed. The 2024 numbers are here[1]. But in any case they are not worse than public schools, although they may be no better or slightly worse than a public school in a rich neighborhood or similar. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.aspx https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.a... [1] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboard.aspx https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboa...
        in_cahoots 11mo ago
        Considering private schools cost tens of thousands of dollars and get to choose who they admit, as good (in reading) and worse (in math) than schools with similar demographics seems pretty damning, doesn't it?
  - Aurornis 11mo ago
    > better off people don't think they can escape and push to make the program better for everyone. Your solution is to make the smart kids suffer so maybe they can force the educators to do better? That’s insane. It’s also not going to happen. Do you know what will happen? Any parent with the means will scrape together cash to pull their students out and go to private schools. Or they’ll hire tutors after school and force their kids to sit down and learn what they should have been learning during the day. This fantasy where the smart kids rally together to overhaul the system because we banned them from taking advanced classes is a delusion.
    - FatherOfCurses 11mo ago
      This gives off "I Am Very Smart" vibes. I was in a gifted program in grades 5-7, stopped going mainly because I had to travel to another school to attend and it was inconvenient. I didn't "suffer" being in classes with folks who weren't at my level. The teaching staff did a great job and I never felt like I was being shortchanged. My undiagnosed ADHD means I goofed around a lot, but several of my friends told me after high school that they appreciated me because I helped them see learning from a different angle than their parents or the teachers.
      - Aurornis 11mo ago
        Great that it worked for you. I believe everyone should have the choice. However, please don’t force your experience to be the only allowable experience for others. If some students want to take advanced classes, we should let them. Refusing to allow students to learn at a faster rate is insanity.
        vacuity 11mo ago
        As someone else mentioned somewhere in this thread, what about public schooling prevents students from learning by themselves? In my experience, the best students I know generally didn't become so due to public or private schooling, but simply personal interest and drive (and perhaps talent, but that is also school-independent).
      - 11mo ago
  - gizajob 11mo ago
    Nah, they get dragged down and ignored. Teachers only really teach the middle third - the top third can be ignored because they can do it for themselves while being bored. The bottom third can’t be helped because they won’t be helped without a huge amount of energy by the teacher (for little rewards), and so won’t do it for themselves while being bored. The middle third is all that gets schooled because they can at least be bumped up a little higher towards where the under-achieving top third thus rests.
  - triceratops 11mo ago
    But you can't tailor one program for kids with different abilities. You shouldn't even try. You should give each individual what they need to succeed to the best of their ability. That's the core of inclusion and equity. You know, the classic comic of the three kids trying to look over the fence?
- triceratops 11mo ago
  > his goal to phase out gifted education programs Gifted education programs for kindergarten. I don't necessarily agree with that either but it's important to be accurate when talking about proposed policies. The man isn't talking about taking away AP algebra. Most kindergarteners still need to be told not to eat their boogers.
  - Aurornis 11mo ago
    “Phase out” means gradually remove. Kindergarten is where the phase out starts. That’s how you phase something out. You don’t take it away from everyone all at once because that triggers outrage. You disallow it for new kindergarten students one season, then next year remove it from 1st grade so they can’t go into accelerated programs and so on. He explicitly uses the phrase “phase out” for this reason. Read more of his platform documents, including the ones before everything got watered down for his website. The “it’s just for kindergarten” is just positive spin on the first step of the goal of phasing it out in general.
    - triceratops 11mo ago
      > Read more of his platform documents, including the ones before everything got watered down for his website Do you have links?
      - Aurornis 11mo ago
        It’s been his statement all over: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/nyregion/mamdani-schools-gifted-and-talented-program.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/nyregion/mamdani-schools-... The phase out starts with kindergarten and “early grades”. In some places he’s said up through second grade which some assume is an upper limit, but really it’s just the natural length of phasing out gifted programs one year at a time over the 4-year course of a mayoral term due to the necessary delays to eliminate the program after his election date (kindergarten next school year, then 1st grade the next, then 2nd grade)
        11mo ago
- fortran77 11mo ago
  Even though he personally benefited from them. Pull up the ladder!
  - vacuity 11mo ago
    Do you have reason to believe he benefitted from gifted programs around the level of kindergarten or maybe first or second grade?
    - fortran77 11mo ago
      He never had to work a day in his life and now he's mayor elect of NYC!
      - vacuity 11mo ago
        The "never had to work a day in his life" claim is wrong, though I agree his experience seems insufficient for the position of mayor.
bena 11mo ago
One could use course grades. The problem with that is the variance in instructor quality between institutions.
- perrysmith 11mo ago
  That’s why it isn’t a reliable indicator of aptitude. A student who earns all A’s at a top level public school and a student who earns all A’s at a low level public school aren’t necessarily operating at the same academic level.
  - bena 11mo ago
    They asked what else could be used. I told them, then I explained why it wouldn't work as well as a standardized test. And the variance can happen even in "top level" public schools, for certain definitions of "top level". I went to one of the best high schools in the nation (as rated by college acceptance rates, SAT/ACT scores, etc). There were still teachers people wanted to avoid because they were seen as harsher graders. So you can have grade inflation even at "top level" schools as private schools aren't above selling grades.
    - perrysmith 11mo ago
      Of course you can have grade inflation at top level schools, but there is a reason that they are considered "top level" in the first place.

naIak 11mo ago

Gauging someone’s abilities is meany mean.

Aurornis 11mo ago

They don’t. The movements pushing these ideas are against the idea of aptitude testing. Many of them are even against the idea of having advanced classes for those who are ahead. It’s not a niche ideology, sadly. It’s going mainstream. A core part of Zohran Mamdani’s platform was his goal to phase out gifted education programs, for example.

tehjoker 11mo ago
There is a silver lining though, when everyone is in the same class, better off people don't think they can escape and push to make the program better for everyone.
- naIak 11mo ago
  You can’t have a good teaching programme when there is a variance of 40 points of IQ among the pupils.
- tr45872267 11mo ago
  They can and do. Private schools already exist.
  - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
    AFAICT many private schools are worse than public schools. Parents put kids into private schools so that they get good grades and extra-curriculars to let them get into the good universities. So that's what private schools sell -- good grades. It's less important that they have the education that the good grades imply.
    - Aurornis 11mo ago
      I have no doubt schools like that exist, but in every location I’ve lived and interacted with parents the private school educations they sent their kids to were no question a cut above. I think this idea that private schools are no better are even worse is a wishful thinking narrative. Private schools, especially the more expensive ones, naturally select for parents who are more involved. More involved parents are highly correlated with better student outcomes. That alone means private schools are correlated with better outcomes. It honestly doesn’t really matter if it’s cause and effect or correlation, parents send their kids to private schools because they want them in the mix with other students selected into the higher performing environment.
    - tr45872267 11mo ago
      They do perform better on average >The average private school mean reading score was 14.7 points higher than the average public school mean reading score, corresponding to an effect size of .41 (the ratio of the absolute value of the estimated difference to the standard deviation of the NAEP fourth-grade reading score distribution). After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was near zero and not significant. For math: >The average private school mean mathematics score was 7.8 points higher than the average public school mean mathematics score, corresponding to an effect size of .29. After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference in means was -4.5 and significantly different from zero. (Note that a negative difference implies that the average school mean was higher for public schools.) In the context of the specific discussion here, it doesn't really matter that the effect goes away when controling for selected student characteristics. First off this was from 2006, we would have to see if any of that has changed. The 2024 numbers are here[1]. But in any case they are not worse than public schools, although they may be no better or slightly worse than a public school in a rich neighborhood or similar. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.aspx https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.a... [1] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboard.aspx https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboa...
      - in_cahoots 11mo ago
        Considering private schools cost tens of thousands of dollars and get to choose who they admit, as good (in reading) and worse (in math) than schools with similar demographics seems pretty damning, doesn't it?
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  > better off people don't think they can escape and push to make the program better for everyone. Your solution is to make the smart kids suffer so maybe they can force the educators to do better? That’s insane. It’s also not going to happen. Do you know what will happen? Any parent with the means will scrape together cash to pull their students out and go to private schools. Or they’ll hire tutors after school and force their kids to sit down and learn what they should have been learning during the day. This fantasy where the smart kids rally together to overhaul the system because we banned them from taking advanced classes is a delusion.
  - FatherOfCurses 11mo ago
    This gives off "I Am Very Smart" vibes. I was in a gifted program in grades 5-7, stopped going mainly because I had to travel to another school to attend and it was inconvenient. I didn't "suffer" being in classes with folks who weren't at my level. The teaching staff did a great job and I never felt like I was being shortchanged. My undiagnosed ADHD means I goofed around a lot, but several of my friends told me after high school that they appreciated me because I helped them see learning from a different angle than their parents or the teachers.
    - Aurornis 11mo ago
      Great that it worked for you. I believe everyone should have the choice. However, please don’t force your experience to be the only allowable experience for others. If some students want to take advanced classes, we should let them. Refusing to allow students to learn at a faster rate is insanity.
      - vacuity 11mo ago
        As someone else mentioned somewhere in this thread, what about public schooling prevents students from learning by themselves? In my experience, the best students I know generally didn't become so due to public or private schooling, but simply personal interest and drive (and perhaps talent, but that is also school-independent).
    - 11mo ago
- gizajob 11mo ago
  Nah, they get dragged down and ignored. Teachers only really teach the middle third - the top third can be ignored because they can do it for themselves while being bored. The bottom third can’t be helped because they won’t be helped without a huge amount of energy by the teacher (for little rewards), and so won’t do it for themselves while being bored. The middle third is all that gets schooled because they can at least be bumped up a little higher towards where the under-achieving top third thus rests.
- triceratops 11mo ago
  But you can't tailor one program for kids with different abilities. You shouldn't even try. You should give each individual what they need to succeed to the best of their ability. That's the core of inclusion and equity. You know, the classic comic of the three kids trying to look over the fence?
triceratops 11mo ago
> his goal to phase out gifted education programs Gifted education programs for kindergarten. I don't necessarily agree with that either but it's important to be accurate when talking about proposed policies. The man isn't talking about taking away AP algebra. Most kindergarteners still need to be told not to eat their boogers.
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  “Phase out” means gradually remove. Kindergarten is where the phase out starts. That’s how you phase something out. You don’t take it away from everyone all at once because that triggers outrage. You disallow it for new kindergarten students one season, then next year remove it from 1st grade so they can’t go into accelerated programs and so on. He explicitly uses the phrase “phase out” for this reason. Read more of his platform documents, including the ones before everything got watered down for his website. The “it’s just for kindergarten” is just positive spin on the first step of the goal of phasing it out in general.
  - triceratops 11mo ago
    > Read more of his platform documents, including the ones before everything got watered down for his website Do you have links?
    - Aurornis 11mo ago
      It’s been his statement all over: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/nyregion/mamdani-schools-gifted-and-talented-program.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/nyregion/mamdani-schools-... The phase out starts with kindergarten and “early grades”. In some places he’s said up through second grade which some assume is an upper limit, but really it’s just the natural length of phasing out gifted programs one year at a time over the 4-year course of a mayoral term due to the necessary delays to eliminate the program after his election date (kindergarten next school year, then 1st grade the next, then 2nd grade)
      - 11mo ago
fortran77 11mo ago
Even though he personally benefited from them. Pull up the ladder!
- vacuity 11mo ago
  Do you have reason to believe he benefitted from gifted programs around the level of kindergarten or maybe first or second grade?
  - fortran77 11mo ago
    He never had to work a day in his life and now he's mayor elect of NYC!
    - vacuity 11mo ago
      The "never had to work a day in his life" claim is wrong, though I agree his experience seems insufficient for the position of mayor.

bena 11mo ago

One could use course grades. The problem with that is the variance in instructor quality between institutions.

perrysmith 11mo ago
That’s why it isn’t a reliable indicator of aptitude. A student who earns all A’s at a top level public school and a student who earns all A’s at a low level public school aren’t necessarily operating at the same academic level.
- bena 11mo ago
  They asked what else could be used. I told them, then I explained why it wouldn't work as well as a standardized test. And the variance can happen even in "top level" public schools, for certain definitions of "top level". I went to one of the best high schools in the nation (as rated by college acceptance rates, SAT/ACT scores, etc). There were still teachers people wanted to avoid because they were seen as harsher graders. So you can have grade inflation even at "top level" schools as private schools aren't above selling grades.
  - perrysmith 11mo ago
    Of course you can have grade inflation at top level schools, but there is a reason that they are considered "top level" in the first place.