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Thought experiment: I wonder if one reason the US doesn't do formalized tracking of this sort is that it would be distasteful to formalize the inequalities in o

by kaitai 12y ago

Thought experiment: I wonder if one reason the US doesn't do formalized tracking of this sort is that it would be distasteful to formalize the inequalities in our system, but yet we don't have the stomach to actually provide equal opportunities. We have de facto tracking by parental income and social capital. Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students. There are swaths of the US (with power) that benefit from this socioeconomic/cultural capital tracking of students. Keep the poor relatively poor with shitty schools for all, keep the rich rich with private tutoring so their SAT scores get 'em into a decent college, get the immigrant parents to put out good workers by running their kids through prescribed hoops so they can rise a little and be good middle managers and developers. Then we don't have to deal with poor kids with ability or rich kids who are dumb as dirt -- we can say everyone has equal opportunity with clean hands and conscience!

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students. I think you'll find that the people "wringing hands about who says what words in the workplace" (at least, if by that, you are referring to public concern with things like race, gender, and sexual orientation-based harassment) are, in no small part, the same group of people actively concerned about and things like math and science education. They just aren't particularly influential in Mississippi.
- kaitai 12y ago
  Overall, I agree, but as someone who's been in the fight for good treatment for all for a long time, I've started to worry that we're being misdirected to the wrong fights -- distracted by the obvious rather than looking deeper. Among other things, I teach at a university. I just don't get a lot of students from certain backgrounds, and it's not because of the problems at tech companies. It's because of the economic concerns of parents and the culture that we've passed to children. By college or the master's level half the community I grew up with are just not even on the same track. Maybe part of it is that we drag kids who would be great electricians through some inferior faux-college-prep charade instead of giving them an actual good education. Having taught precalc at the college level those students would have been better prepared for college by taking a shop class that involved using fractions and trig than by taking all four years of what math they actually took. The parent comment to my previous one implied that we in the US have equality of opportunity, unlike Germany with its tracking. I am experimenting with the argument that we in the US say all the right things and yet insidiously do worse. Our rhetoric and our reality in the United States don't really line up. My high school had International Baccalaureate classes open to all, but only some kids signed up. How have we built this self-perpetuating organism of inequality that plods along even though we say all sorts of "correct" things? Even in Mississippi people are publicly concerned with race, gender, and sexual-orientation-based harassment. And yet.
tsotha 12y ago
The US doesn't track for four reasons. * The US is obsessed with race, and tracking makes it too obvious black kids aren't doing as well as white kids. * Parents all believe their own child is above average regardless of the mathematical implications, and they get very upset if you hint the possibility little Johnny might not be the most intelligent child in his class. Clearly he just doesn't do well on tests. * Children tend to live up or down to expectations. Obviously you can't make a dumb kid smart by expecting him to be smart, but you can influence the amount of effort he puts into school. * People have looked at income statistics and decided if we send every child to college they can all be doctors and lawyers, and the toilets will magically clean themselves.

by kaitai 12y ago

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students. I think you'll find that the people "wringing hands about who says what words in the workplace" (at least, if by that, you are referring to public concern with things like race, gender, and sexual orientation-based harassment) are, in no small part, the same group of people actively concerned about and things like math and science education. They just aren't particularly influential in Mississippi.

kaitai 12y ago
Overall, I agree, but as someone who's been in the fight for good treatment for all for a long time, I've started to worry that we're being misdirected to the wrong fights -- distracted by the obvious rather than looking deeper. Among other things, I teach at a university. I just don't get a lot of students from certain backgrounds, and it's not because of the problems at tech companies. It's because of the economic concerns of parents and the culture that we've passed to children. By college or the master's level half the community I grew up with are just not even on the same track. Maybe part of it is that we drag kids who would be great electricians through some inferior faux-college-prep charade instead of giving them an actual good education. Having taught precalc at the college level those students would have been better prepared for college by taking a shop class that involved using fractions and trig than by taking all four years of what math they actually took. The parent comment to my previous one implied that we in the US have equality of opportunity, unlike Germany with its tracking. I am experimenting with the argument that we in the US say all the right things and yet insidiously do worse. Our rhetoric and our reality in the United States don't really line up. My high school had International Baccalaureate classes open to all, but only some kids signed up. How have we built this self-perpetuating organism of inequality that plods along even though we say all sorts of "correct" things? Even in Mississippi people are publicly concerned with race, gender, and sexual-orientation-based harassment. And yet.

tsotha 12y ago

The US doesn't track for four reasons. * The US is obsessed with race, and tracking makes it too obvious black kids aren't doing as well as white kids. * Parents all believe their own child is above average regardless of the mathematical implications, and they get very upset if you hint the possibility little Johnny might not be the most intelligent child in his class. Clearly he just doesn't do well on tests. * Children tend to live up or down to expectations. Obviously you can't make a dumb kid smart by expecting him to be smart, but you can influence the amount of effort he puts into school. * People have looked at income statistics and decided if we send every child to college they can all be doctors and lawyers, and the toilets will magically clean themselves.