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Because intrinsic ability is such a vanishingly small part of the equation that we can't know who could actually be the best until we actually give everyone a f

Because intrinsic ability is such a vanishingly small part of the equation that we can't know who could actually be the best until we actually give everyone a fair shot. There might be the rare generational talent that, starting in their discipline at age 18 with no prior exposure and poor nutrition, education, health, exercise, etc, could outcompete your average loser brought up with every advantage and private lessons from age 6, but in general I wouldn't expect talent to out in those circumstances. And school's not supposed to be about filtering for rare generational talents, at least not first and foremost. It's supposed to be about getting everyone as far as they can go, and if we separate people into "smart" and "dumb" buckets before they're old enough to ever have actually gotten a chance, some people will be stuck in the "dumb" buckets their whole life that could've been a solid contributer to society if society ever cared enough to invest in them. Or, another way of looking at it: Everything else is made to put a thumb on the scale. Everything else is designed from the ground up to advantage the advantaged. Public school is supposed to be one of the few institutions that mitigates that, that tries to put a thumb on the other side at least a little, to help level things out. And the people with the advantages hate that, and try their hardest to thwart it, whether through private schools, through pushing public schools to make different "tracks", or whatever.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
mont_tag 5mo ago
You've done a nice job articulating why people support equity programs. The sticking point is that there is a big difference between theory and practice. We end up with elimination of 8th grade algebra in SF, abandoning graduation requirements in Oregon, the Chicago teachers union tweeting that "testing is white supremacy", promoting kids before they have achieved grade level performance, political indoctrination in classrooms (both parties do this), dividing kids into identity groups (oppressors and oppressed), promotion of whole language learning over phonics, and active attacks on the concept of merit.
- BobaFloutist 5mo ago
  I will of course agree that equity programs are completely susceptible to flawed design and implementations, like everything else. What makes it difficult to have productive conversations, is that it's very difficult to untangle who has a problem with a given program, versus with the concept of equity (as a theory to make things fair), versus with the fundamental goal of making things more fair, since not everyone even knows for themselves what side they're on, and they freely swap arguments and forces. This is, of course, hardly unique to equity programs, but I think that schools are somewhat unusually susceptible to strong, uninformed opinions, since everyone has to interact with them at some point in their life, and is affected by how they're run for the rest of their life, but not everybody has actually recently bothered to look under the hood. But, I will agree that there is nuance, and we may find that our current approach to thinking about equity programs is fundamentally flawed, and there's even some broad benefit to some level of tracking. I just want to push against people that follow their intuition and present that as established fact. I will leave you with perhaps my most controversial opinion on the matter, and open myself up even further to criticism by saying that I don't have children, and don't currently intend to ever: People love to throw around the truism that it's natural for parents to want the best for their kids, that you can't ever blame parents for doing whatever they can to give their children every advantage, that, on an individual level, you shouldn't expect altruism from parents if it involves any sacrifice on their kids part. I strongly disagree. I think that parents should be able to recognize when granting their children an advantage disproportionately harms other kids, should value challenging their kids, pushing them to step up, to make their own sacrifices for the sake of others. If nothing else will motivate them, it should at least be clear that their kid will have to live in a world populated by other people's kids, and so we should want those other children to also be happy, healthy, functional, and well educated. Their child may face more competition, but that will also be healthy for them, and help them grow and develop as an adult. I think it's asinine to argue that parents should have a free pass to behave antisocially for the benefit of only their own kids, that it's a bit of a thought-terminating cliche that excuses parents from prosocial expectations. I understand that parents are, fiercely motivated to protect and nurture their children, and I don't think that instinct is wrong, but I think it can easily grow unhealthy, and that they have every bit as much of a responsibility as everyone else to think of others. Maybe more, since those others will eventually be the people that shape their children's world.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

mont_tag 5mo ago

You've done a nice job articulating why people support equity programs. The sticking point is that there is a big difference between theory and practice. We end up with elimination of 8th grade algebra in SF, abandoning graduation requirements in Oregon, the Chicago teachers union tweeting that "testing is white supremacy", promoting kids before they have achieved grade level performance, political indoctrination in classrooms (both parties do this), dividing kids into identity groups (oppressors and oppressed), promotion of whole language learning over phonics, and active attacks on the concept of merit.

BobaFloutist 5mo ago
I will of course agree that equity programs are completely susceptible to flawed design and implementations, like everything else. What makes it difficult to have productive conversations, is that it's very difficult to untangle who has a problem with a given program, versus with the concept of equity (as a theory to make things fair), versus with the fundamental goal of making things more fair, since not everyone even knows for themselves what side they're on, and they freely swap arguments and forces. This is, of course, hardly unique to equity programs, but I think that schools are somewhat unusually susceptible to strong, uninformed opinions, since everyone has to interact with them at some point in their life, and is affected by how they're run for the rest of their life, but not everybody has actually recently bothered to look under the hood. But, I will agree that there is nuance, and we may find that our current approach to thinking about equity programs is fundamentally flawed, and there's even some broad benefit to some level of tracking. I just want to push against people that follow their intuition and present that as established fact. I will leave you with perhaps my most controversial opinion on the matter, and open myself up even further to criticism by saying that I don't have children, and don't currently intend to ever: People love to throw around the truism that it's natural for parents to want the best for their kids, that you can't ever blame parents for doing whatever they can to give their children every advantage, that, on an individual level, you shouldn't expect altruism from parents if it involves any sacrifice on their kids part. I strongly disagree. I think that parents should be able to recognize when granting their children an advantage disproportionately harms other kids, should value challenging their kids, pushing them to step up, to make their own sacrifices for the sake of others. If nothing else will motivate them, it should at least be clear that their kid will have to live in a world populated by other people's kids, and so we should want those other children to also be happy, healthy, functional, and well educated. Their child may face more competition, but that will also be healthy for them, and help them grow and develop as an adult. I think it's asinine to argue that parents should have a free pass to behave antisocially for the benefit of only their own kids, that it's a bit of a thought-terminating cliche that excuses parents from prosocial expectations. I understand that parents are, fiercely motivated to protect and nurture their children, and I don't think that instinct is wrong, but I think it can easily grow unhealthy, and that they have every bit as much of a responsibility as everyone else to think of others. Maybe more, since those others will eventually be the people that shape their children's world.