Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement - <AUTHOR> https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-separating-gifted-children-hasnt-led-to-better-acheivement/ <comment><USER3> I was fourth picked for g&t. First and second pick ended up being quite successful, as did the third picked. One has a high up, prestigious position at Amazon and the other retired from Microsoft wealthy.

Me, I smoke weed and that's about the only thing I've really done consistently since high school.. more consistently than music, and programming, even.

Frankly, I wish I had been better separated from the other kids. I would have been far happier in middle school just hanging around other nice, smart people. (With a few exceptions, the smart kids tended to be kind). The mixture with the "gen pop" led to bullying, repeated physical abuse and harassment by other kids from ages 10-12. This was decades ago when physical abuse amongst minors was often ignored, even by police.

By freshman year of high school, I was worn down and switched back to some non-honors classes mid-term. This unfortunately led to dysfunctional friendships with the "cool" kids (same bully crowd), introduction to drugs and a low achievement life. There was some form of Florence nightingale syndrome involved here, due to unresolved physical abuse leading to friendships with the abusers in high school.

Separating gifted children for accelerated learning is great. Ignoring social development by blindly sticking all kids together in unstructured environments where bullying and physical abuse is allowed to persist will override any hope for some kids. I know, I was there. Still here.

<comment><USER4> Amen to this. I was separated (went to Stuyvesant HS in NYC) and it made a _world_ of difference for me, as compared to JHS or elementary school. Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was _very_ difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, _just didn 't give a fuck_. It really sucked.

Stuy was a different world, and the first time in my life I felt the opportunity to actually just learn, and not have to hide my report card or test scores as soon as I got them, because doing "too well" meant a beatdown after school.

2/3 of my MIT admission essays were about this experience, incidentally.

[edit 1] Aside: one additional anecdote is that I was constantly getting in trouble before Stuy; I was always bored, because the work was easy, and nobody ever gave me additional work to do, so I would talk to the other kids. I was always an extrovert, and very bad at being bored; I could not sit in one place and just stare at the wall, or pretend to listen to a teacher drone on about some geometry thing I already knew. So I got in trouble _constantly_ for distracting the other kids. That stopped in Stuy, because I wasn't bored; I was challenged.

[edit 2] The other corollary to this, of course, is that on the last day of JHS, after having held my reactions entirely for nearly a decade, and just taking the beatings...I finally lost it. It was really bad, and on the last day of JHS I went absolutely apeshit on this kid for pushing me around and punching me, after I gave him three warnings. Easily one of the top 3 least proud moments of my life. That could have been avoided, too, though you could make an argument a large part of that was also due to it being taboo to actually talk to someone about your feelings in the 90s. I never wanted to fight back because I was afraid of hurting them (I had been training in martial arts for like 7-8 years) and because I didn't want to get in trouble. It was dumb.

<comment><USER5> The solution is not to pull out a handful of high performers, it's to kick out the even smaller number of disrupters.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but how would that work in practice? Special schools for high performers is much more palatable than special schools for quarantining children who aren't going to amount to anything (no matter what you call it and how you design it, this is how it will be perceived).

<comment><USER7> If mandatory school attendance were repealed, it would work itself quite quickly.

<comment><USER8> All well and good, but those people still get to vote.

<comment><USER7> There is no difference between voters who attended school only because they were forced to, and hypothetical voters who weren't forced to attend school.

<comment><USER9> We don't trust kids with the choice to smoke, drink or have sex. Hell, we don't trust them to watch certain films. Why should we trust them with the choice of education any more than other choices that can screw up the rest of their life?

<comment><USER7> Who's trusting kids with anything? Do they not have parents?

The point is that students who are not engaged themselves, and whose parents are not engaged enough to ensure that they go, will no longer make school less valuable for all by their very presence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's the opposite perspective: [https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs- xpm-2012-02-06-bs-ed...](https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs- xpm-2012-02-06-bs-ed-gifted-education-20120206-story.html)

> But as the facts now show, smart kids don't always stay smart, and when they > are bored or bullied or ridiculed or neglected, some turn off and some drop > out. Thirty-plus years of experience and research into how these students > learn has taught us that the academically able can and must be challenged > and engaged, inspired and encouraged in order to cultivate their creativity, > spirit of innovation, and passion for learning.

Here's IMHO a better perspective on how to "close the excellence gap" in NYC schools, in particular, by changing the way talent is identified and by using local norms. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-11-what-can- we...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-11-what-can-we-learn- from-new-york-city-selective/id1435807749?i=1000441117501)

Finally, here's a twist: Eliminating gifted programs disproportionally hurts poor parents since rich parents will just pay for any available opportunity to get their kid ahead.

<comment><USER11> Right, so it raises the question: What is the relative importance of helping the best students verse helping the worst students?

Even if we solve the talent identification problem, SOME kids are going to be the lower achievers.... are we willing to sacrifice helping them do better to help the top achievers do their best? How much are we willing to sacrifice in either direction?

<comment><USER12> > are we willing to sacrifice helping them do better to help the top achievers > do their best

It's not clear to me that separating more talented kids into their own groups and classes hurts less talented kids. What is your thinking here?

<comment><USER11> Isn't that the entire conclusion of the article? That separating kids out hurts the average, meaning more kids are worse off than better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _This difference between tracked and untracked math experiences was illuminated recently in a survey we gave to San Francisco ninth-graders and ninth-graders across another large district, where all students are in tracked groups. The San Francisco students were significantly more positive about both mathematics and their own potential. Importantly, the San Francisco students were also significantly more likely than students in tracked groups to say that they enjoyed solving complex math problems, and that work was at the right level for them — neither too easy nor too hard._

So is the topic achievement, or is the topic their feelings?

In a Postmodern twist of language, we've rhetorically connected a statistic around feelings and a statistic around achievement, but those are two separate items.

They eliminated advanced math classes until 10th great? I'm EXTREMELY happy I'm old now, because when I was a kid ANY class I took with the average or the below average, I was bullied.

Some people are better thinkers, some people are better as leaders, fighters or lifters of boxes. I'm sorry, Postmodernists, we're not equal and never will be.

In NYC they're wanting to remove the gifted and talented classes not because they don't work, but because of racial disparities. The idea here is that we should all fail together, since equality is most easily achieved by trimming the top.

<comment><USER14> Earlier in the article it addressed some achievement metrics for the same district:

>For instance, after San Francisco Unified de-tracked math, the proportion of students failing algebra fell from 40 percent to 8 percent and the proportion of students taking advanced classes rose to a third, the highest percentage in district history. Until 10th grade, students take the same mathematics classes. From 11th grade on, students can choose different pathways.

The author is indeed trying to connect feelings about ability and achievement. I'm not sure how this is postmodern.

<comment><USER15> He is referring to cultural postmodernism, which is a worldview in which objective truth is not to be preferred to the perceived / experienced understanding (i.e. opinion) as to the truth. Especially when considering the socially or economically disadvantaged.

So while an adherent to a purely rational worldview might ask, "what the hell do feelings have to do with measuring academic performance?", a postmodernist would be glad to, say, include data about feelings (i.e. opinions) in an article and try to pass them off as evidence alongside hard, objective data, as though someone's feelings about grades and the grades themselves are both legitimate data from which to make decisions or design policy.

<comment><USER16> Very true, but 'feelings' and 'attitudes' do matter.

Kids who 'love math and solving problems' might be considerably more likely to apply themselves, do the work, have the confidence/grit to push a little bit and get through it.

Frankly 'attitude' is one of the bigger determinants in so many things.

So if we can somehow get kids to 'love math' my gosh this is a materially good outcome.

<comment><USER15> We agree entirely. Feelings matter for motivation and can underpin performance. But the rational view is that, at the end of the day, you must have an objective measure of performance, devoid of opinion and emotion. The kids' feelings matter when motivating them to perform, but when it comes time to evaluate said performance, feelings cannot matter one wit. If they do, you are no longer measuring performance, you're measuring something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have to say that this result is wildly different from my experience and that of my children. It's boring to sit in class redoing a simple math problem just because someone wants to detrack math.

A friend of mine who is a teacher says that he has MORE discipline problems from the smart kids who aren't challenged enough.

The real secret should be to embrace independent, computer-mediated systems like Khan Academy. Everyone can move at their own pace. That's the best choice going forward. We have the technology. We have the ability to liberate our children to learn at their individual pace. I don't know why we cling to the old sage-on-a-stage model.

<comment><USER18> I think they'd do better by taking the kids who understand the material and asking them to work with the kids who don't. You learn as much by teaching as doing, if not more.

<comment><USER19> It is very difficult to explain something which was obvious to you. Often you would not know how to decompose it, and above all, you would not know the pain points the others encounter, and why those points are painful. Teaching is a trade, after all.

<comment><USER20> > It is very difficult to explain something which was obvious to you.

I think that's the point. Teaching the kids who are performing well on something on how to distill their knowledge to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The SF algebra change is NOT a success. Most of the stats are cherrypicked and misleading.

> For instance, after San Francisco Unified de-tracked math, the proportion of > students failing algebra fell from 40 percent to 8 percent and the > proportion of students taking advanced classes rose to a third, the highest > percentage in district history.

This compares the number of _8th graders_ who failed Algebra 1 before the change to the number of _9th graders_ who failed Algebra 1 after the change. These are apples to oranges numbers. The appropriate metric is the percent of 9th graders that have passed Algebra 1 in either 8th or 9th grade before and after the change.

The following is arguably the most important metric that is omitted. From another article:

> While more students are taking precalculus now, the enrollment in Advanced > Placement calculus courses has _declined by nearly 13 percent_ over the past > two years.

</comment><comment><USER22> When I was in middle school in the 90s, I think around 7th grade (~12yo), the school district experimented with a new way of organizing the student body where they separated us into six distinct, equally sized cohorts based on some evaluation of each student's performance and capability. From what I could tell it was rougly:

1\. Gifted / clearly university-bound

2\. Potential college prep

3\. Community college

4\. Normal underperformers

5\. Little hope, likely will drop out

6\. No future besides unemployment or prison

You took all your classes with your own cohort, rarely had to interact with anyone outside your cohort, and coursework was tailored to your level. It was glorious. I went from boring, slow classes and having to run and hide from tormentors to appropriately paced coursework and always interacting with friendly, nice, smart kids. My childhood mental health went on a noticeable upswing during this experiment. Too bad it ended around 3 years later and I was thrown back into the prison "general population" full of kids whose talents included arson and filing other kids' teeth down in the metal shop. Not sure why they ended the program, because it really made school bearable.

<comment><USER23> My high school in Australia (years 7-12) was structured similarly, there was a gifted program for the high performing students.

I don't think there were other tracks, it was pretty much just high achievers classes and than the regular pool of students.

I can remember vividly my parents wanted to send me to private (Catholic) high school after Primary school. I begged not to be separated from my existing friends who were all going to the local public school (which didn't have a great rep). It was only the presence of these gifted classes which convinced my parents to let me go to the public school. Both of my younger sisters were subsequently sent to Catholic School.

My parents pretty much followed the 'tiger parent' stereotype they put enormous pressure on me to succeed I remember I got 93% on a math test once and my Dad yelling at me and berating me for not doing well enough.

My friends thought my parents were insane, especially when I'd tell them I couldn't go to the movies because my parents were making me study for an upcoming test and things like that. None of my friend's parents seemed to give a shit about their grades.

I'm grateful for opportunities I had as a result of my upbringing, I got into the course I wanted at a good university etc. But looking back now decades later it feels like I was robbed of an adolescence. A lot of people have fond memories of their time in high school all that really stands out to me was enormous amount of pressure I felt, I'm honestly surprised I didn't have some sort of breakdown.

I can remember one of my good friends, who I'd be constantly competing with for top marks seemed to breeze through class with about 1/10th of the effort I put in he'd never study for any tests, he'd be writing up his homework 10 minutes before it was due and getting full marks. I always felt like such a fraud compared to him. I got good grades because my parents leaned so hard on me to put in the work, even at the time I was conscious of that. He got good grades because he was naturally gifted and school came 'easily' to him. Today he has two PHD and is still one of the most intelligent people I know.

<comment><USER24> > _I always felt like such a fraud compared to him. I got good grades because > my parents leaned so hard on me to put in the work, even at the time I was > conscious of that. He got good grades because he was naturally gifted and > school came 'easily' to him._

I wonder if he might not have felt the same way because he put in so much less effort, but still did well. If you put in a lot of effort regardless of the outcome you can think back that you tried your best. If you half-ass it and things go well, then you might feel that you don't deserve it, but if things don't go well, then you feel bad for not trying.

Being able to work hard is a talent itself. In many cases it's the most important one.

<comment><USER25> And never being confronted with tasks that _require_ hard work, during one's formative years, is a curse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd just hazard to say that the current school system is not very functional.

It puts kids through a lot of unpleasant experiences, requiring to exert a lot of effort and spend a lot of time. The problem is that not so much of that effort, discomfort, and time is due to learning new and useful stuff.

Instead, some kids waste time bored when they are ahead of the class, some waste time clueless when they are way behind the class. Quite some kids spend effort on fending off bullies, while other kids attain toxic experience of being successful bullies.

Most of the kids also have a very vague idea _why_ are they studying particular stuff, hoping that maybe it will all fall in place when they go to college, or just hope to pass through it all and forget it after graduating.

Teaching children is what we, as a society, haven't yet figured out well enough.

<comment><USER11> I always feel like my most valuable lessons from school was about how to live and interact with people of different types. I learned academic stuff outside of school... it was learning to deal with dumb people, bullies, smart jerks, dumb teachers, stupid rules, etc that were the lessons most important to my life.

<comment><USER21> It depends on your support system when you're a kid/teen. Facing stress and challenges when you're unable to handle them can cause irreversible trauma. Some people would be better off learning to face them when they are adults.

<comment><USER27> I had a relatively easy high school experience compared to many—almost no physical bullying, very little bullying otherwise, ran with a couple friend groups outside my almost-the-nerdiest-bunch-but-not-quite primary group that had a kind of light-alternative "cool" factor, school was decent and supportive by local standards at least, happened to pick up weight lifting in junior high and stuck with it so got pretty damn cut rather than continuing down the path of lard—but it was _still_ easily the hardest four years of my life so far (now entering middle age, have multiple kids, a job, all that adult stuff).

College was like a vacation afterward. People mostly don't do a bunch of stupid, mean, disruptive bullshit, and if they do you're not expected to just put up with it? 15ish hours in class and you can arrange your schedule for a mix of hard and easy classes to come out way under the ~45-50hrs/wk of in- class and homework/study time of high school, _plus_ you can usually figure a way not to have to get up before the fucking sun at least 2-3 days of the week, if not all of them? If you need to whizz you just... go? If you are sick or just need a mental health day you just send an email or three and rest, and it may mean a little more work later but no-one busts your balls over it as long as you don't do it too much? What is this, paradise?

It was shocking how much less stressful it was. It truly kinda messed me up for a while, just not understanding how to function outside the pressure- cooker of high school. The socialization there had almost nothing to do with how adults relate to one another in the real world, and the constantly high social stress levels, tight and absolute control by adults, and inability to make any reasonable or ordinary effort to get out of that plainly-very-bad situation, were insane compared to most of the "adult" world.

No wonder so many teens are depressed. School is _really_ awful. Like, structurally so. In the best case. The first few months with a newborn, but after you've gone back to work so are trying to do both things, _approach_ but are not _quite_ as stressful, overall, as high school, in the typical case. I'm not kidding.

<comment><USER11> Man, your highschool experience sounds totally different than mine. Highschool wasn't always great, but it was mostly ok and I had a lot of good times. I wasn't popular, but had good friends.

I am also a middle aged guy with a couple of kids, and I think raising children is way more stressful than highschool ever was.

<comment><USER27> There's more _worry_ with kids, in my experience, by a long shot. More responsibility. Less crushing grind (though lots, to be clear). And it's better motivated than high school, that having a disorienting and disheartening mix of deadly seriousness (so you're meant to believe, anyway) and complete make-believe with the lines always shifting and blurring. That helps make the trade-offs of having kids far less oppressive than high school, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This (opinion) article seems to be making the claim that separating out all of the top kids makes the group not selected perform worse.

(The measurement of "achievement" used is percentage of students failing a rudimentary algebra class and percentage of students enrolling in an advanced mathematics class)

This seems uncontroversial -- the smart kids will benefit the rest by their presence, and being labelled as not-smart probably doesn't help achievement very much.

But the purpose of separating out the really gifted kids was never for the benefit of the folks that couldn't cut it -- it was for the benefit of the gifted kids so that they could actually achieve at the level of their ability.

It seems to me quite uncontroversial that removing all of the disruptive kids and eliminating all of the remedial study time would aid students that are both interested and able to achieve.

</comment><comment><USER29> Bogus headline.

"Separating gifted from non-gifted children hasn't led to better overall achievement of both groups combined."

It says nothing about whether the streamed gifted children do better than if they are not streamed it says much about those not deemed gifted doing worse.

(Just quietly, I'd suspect that given the choice of having your child streamed as gifted or not the best thing to do is to put them with the best teacher(s) - who will handle whatever psychological downsides there are of whatever that is).

</comment><comment><USER30> I actually wonder what's up with bullying in US schools.

I grew up in Moscow, Russia in the 90ies (many people were not well off to say the least) and I was both super nerdy and extremely eh, daring (I would talk back to other kids who were much stronger/more popular than me all the time etc.). Sure, I was not popular, yet I was bullied lightly and almost never physically, mostly by a couple classmates who were just kinda generally messed up (interestingly enough both of them are software developers now, as far as I know), and in total perhaps for 2-3 years in late middle school (I think). The bullying just kinda never happened; I never thought much of that until I read stories like the ones here.

Sure, I hear it was worse outside of Moscow, but even in Moscow an average student's family in the 90ies was way poorer than say in Ohio. Outside of Moscow it's not even comparable. And yet, the level of bullying was probably still lower than what it seems to be in any average American school.

What's up with that?

<comment><USER31> In Russia, do you stay together with your class all throughout high school? That is, did you share a core set of classes with a set of about 25 people for four years, with only certain elective classes where you would be split up (like music or art)?

If you do, I think that's the difference. Here in America, depending on the size of the school, every year there is no core group you share most classes with. You sign up for classes, and sometimes friends choose to stay together, but otherwise most classes come with a set of people that is likely to be selected from the whole grade. There are academic tracks for high/medium/low achievement in Math, English, Science, etc., but even in medium-sized schools you could have a class with a significant percentage of the students in the school every year. Some schools are quite large.

I went to high school in both Croatia and America, Croatia having fixed classes where students stayed with their cohort year after year, and I was surprised how different the social environment felt. Even for the more socially awkward people, people weren't really rejected or bullied-- because you would have to see that person for the next N years of your life. Whereas in America, "fuck that guy, I only had a health class with him once, his voice is annoying."

<comment><USER32> I think it depends upon the school system in the United States [1]. I was with the same group of friends starting with the 5th grade (9-10 years old) through 12th grade (18 years old, last grade before college). It just so happened that not only did all my friends live in the same school district [2] but also in the same school boundary [3]. And the high school I attended was quite large (nearly 2,000 students; 450 in my graduating class alone).

[1] Most school systems in the United States are vary by county to county. There's some oversight at the state and federal levels, but the higher up the government, the less oversight, generally speaking.

[2] I think it was the 3rd largest in the country. Large enough to be split administratively into three sub-districts.

[3] I was supposed to attend a different high school from my friends because of where I lived at the time, but the boundaries for high school shifted and I ended up attending the same high school as the rest of my friends. Strange now that I think about it, because of the three high schools in the area, it was the furthest one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Getting classified as G&T is a joke and severely damaging. All it means is your parents taught you to read a little earlier than most other kids. It's mostly about giving your parents and school administrators bragging rights. Everyone calls you a genius for the next 10 or 12 years. You incorporates that as the most important part of your identity. Then people level out. You aren't the best at everything anymore. Some classes actually get hard. You graduate in the top 10%, but not the top 1%. Your core identity shatters. You are smart, but there are lots of smart people and you really aren't that special. Suddenly you are emotionally 10 years behind the people how figured that out in middle school. Hopefully you can pull out of the spiral and live a normal life.

<comment><USER34> Agreed. This thread showed me a new level. Top comment: "I was fourth picked for g&t. First and second pick ended up being quite successful, as did the third picked." I don't know if it's normal to know everyone's ranking (one other commenter knew their own rank), but it doesn't sound healthy. Feels like it would compound the problems you mentioned -- not only were you G&T, you were 2nd-best of the G&T... until one day you're barely average, let alone in the top 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's hard to find this sort of op-ed convincing when it includes hard-to- interpret imprecise word-salad like:

> Eight Bay Area school districts found similar results when they de-tracked > middle-school mathematics and provided professional development to teachers. > In 2014, 63 percent of students were in advanced classes, whereas in 2015 > only 12 percent were in advanced classes and everyone else was taking Math > 8. The overall achievement of the students significantly increased after de- > tracking. The cohort of students in eighth-grade mathematics in 2015 were 15 > months ahead of the previous cohort of students who were mainly in advanced > classes.

Huh? What's "Math 8"? How was "overall achievement" measured?

How could decreasing the proportion of students in "advanced classes" from 63% to 12% result in a "cohort of students" that is "15 months ahead" of the students who were in "advanced classes"? (What definitions of "advanced" could possibly mean 15 months behind "non-advanced" coursework?)

If there's a strong case, and the writer understands it, it would be explained better than this – and probably include tables & graphs, rather than just rambling assertions like the above paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER36> Comparing the approach to high school sports and academics really reveals how intellectual ability is not treated as a talent to be developed, at least in the US. In high school, there are junior varsity, varsity, and sometimes amateur level sport teams officially organized and recognized by school. They have formal tryouts, limited in the number of people accepted, resources dedicated to develop the talents, and school-wide recognition by other students. Rather than a gifted and talented program for students, perhaps there should be "varsity" level teams (i.e. classes) for subjects such as math, science, and literature, etc. There would be tryouts. And once a student is accepted into the program, official support for coaching, practice, development, competition, and official recognition with a varsity jacket, similar to that of sports.

</comment><comment><USER11> How do we help those kids that are in 'gen pop', though? Simply pulling the smarter kids out, helping them, and ignoring the rest doesn't seem like a good answer, either.

I feel like HN is not the best place for this sort of discussion, since everyone is coming at the problem from the perspective of the high achiever. The low achievers deserve help, too.

<comment><USER4> I agree with this 100%, but the issues are not intertwined. We need to fix how classes are _taught_ in "low achieving schools," but that's really hard to do when teachers are paid so poorly. Teaching isn't a lucrative career, and thus those that would be great teachers don't generally go into it. It's a really complex and difficult problem that I don't know I have a solution for. I do know that getting rid of magnet schools isn't it, though.

<comment> barry-cotter > on average, public-school teachers receive total compensation that is > roughly 50 percent higher than what they would receive in private-sector > employment. While salaries are at appropriate levels, fringe benefits push > teacher compensation far ahead of what private-sector workers enjoy. > Consequently, recruiting more effective teachers for public schools will be > much more difficult than simply raising salaries.

[https://www.heritage.org/education/report/critical-issues- as...](https://www.heritage.org/education/report/critical-issues-assessing- teacher-compensation)

<comment><USER37> As someone raised by two teachers I can say that my parents both had to work two to four different jobs at times just to struggle to keep up. Whatever that statistic is claiming, it doesn't reflect reality in at least some cases.

<comment><USER11> Interesting... both my parents were teachers, and we lived comfortably enough (not rich, but never felt deprived)

<comment><USER38> Same here, but I recall my parents doing side hustles working nights at the drive-in, on summer breaks filling gardens for cash, cutting firewood, doing renovation projects on rental properties we would buy to fix and rent, running a snow plow truck 12-16 hours during storms (teachers get snow days in MD, so snow plow is a near-perfect side hustle), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > The other reason that students do well in mixed groups is that teachers know > they need to "differentiate" work, providing opportunities for students to > take work to different levels.

This isn't a reason students do well in non-differentiated groups, but a confounding factor to the basic question of whether or not they do (one directly underlined in the case of the unspecified other bay area district studied where detracking and teacher professional development were simultaneous interventions.)

It's well-known that students do better when material is tailored to their individual ability, so if you are comparing students grouped in broad ability groups _without_ this individualization and those detracked from broad groups but provided individualization, you lose the ability to distinguish between effects of broad group tracking and the qualitatively well-known effect of individualization.

</comment><comment><USER40> Lots of people sharing stories about how fortunate they were to be saved from bullying and chaos.

I can relate, since I switched schools myself to get away from bullying (though to a Waldorf school rather than any kind of gifted program). But have you stopped to think, if this study is correct, then some of the following seems like they must be true:

* you would actually have done as well if you stayed

* you would have done worse if you stayed, but others who went into gifted programs would have done better if they didn't, making up for it

* people like you are just too rare to make a difference in the statistics.

My older brother wasn't actively bullied, but was in an infamously dysfunctional class. He just filtered them out somehow, never changed school, and did far better than me academically in the end. So maybe an anecdotal data point for the first option.

There are other things besides achievement. I can certainly see an argument for separating kids who actively hurt other kids, whether it matters for achievement or not. But it seems giving high scoring kids extra stimulating environments isn't all it's cracked up to be (If the study can be believed).

</comment><comment><USER41> When I was in elementary school we had this program called GATE and basically it was like once a month you go to a different school with other GATE students from the other schools in the district. There would be special classes like oceanography, robotics, etc. I don't think it added any value into my life ever except variety of experience. I also think it made other students who weren't in it feel kind of bad because they didn't get to go do anything. They should have just done it for everyone IMO.

<comment><USER42> I agree this likely would have been better for the rest of the students if they too had individualized targeted classes to experience.

That'd be a great time for those with strong prospects in sports to receive individualized education with outside coaches/players from those fields.

It'd also be a great time for students at risk academically to secretly have tutoring and targeted coverage of core subjects they might be struggling with.

However I'm much more hopeful for actually personalized education; like turning school in to more of an MMO-RPG class system where assignments are like the quests in a game and participation on larger projects has real world commons / civic infrastructure improvements. Real mentor-ship and problems in the real world would give practical application to education that I feel would make retention much stronger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The article seems to suggest that issues are less the separation than the messaging and expectations created with it. Personally, I think the goal should be to always encourage and challenge all students, and show all students that working diligently and thoughtfully can pay off.

I know from experience that being in a classroom that functions at the level of the lowest common denominator is basically abusive to everyone else. What would you feel like if you had to spend high school English class reading Dick and Jane out loud, for example? That's what a poor combined class is like for "G&T" students (and I had a couple real rough years when things felt like that). But that's also a far from saying "GATE kids" should always be "tracked" or feel like they're stuck in a particular lane and loaded down with ridiculous expectations.

</comment><comment><USER44> There a lot more options than tracked vs non-tracked.

My public school district implemented a combination of pull-out programs, advanced sections, and tracking on a per-subject and sometimes per-previous year's performance basis. A lot of effort was made to keep class cohorts together, while allowing students who excel at a specific subject to engage in a more challenging curriculum for that particular subject. These were all based on independent assessments. There wasn't a notion of "track" because most students were in a hodgepodge of "advanced/ahead" and "regular" courses, depending on the subject, depending on the previous year's performance, or depending on whether they themselves decided to sign up for the class or not.

A high school kid could:

\- be a year ahead in English (which would only separate them from classmates for freshman and sophomore year; English curriculum was completely open, like college, after sophomore-level English.)

\- be in one of three math cohorts

\- be in the honors or regular section of a science course (based on the previous year's science performance). It was always the same science subject (eg, honors bio vs bio).

\- take any AP course they met the prereqs for (iirc, pretty much all APs were available to all students within four years, save AP Calc, which would require a summer school catch up for those in the baseline math track).

\- have been in the gifted pull-out program in elementary school (no special curriculum for "gifted" students in high school, afaik)

</comment><comment><USER45> I was in gifted classes for a couple of years from like 5th-6th grade but was eventually separated. I had perfect standardized test scores, but my grades were average due to many reasons. Some of my teachers didn't like me, and I guess they decided to kick me out. Later I ended up dropping out in high school but still went to college later and now work at one of the big tech companies. So in the end I ended up alright but others may not be as lucky.

I'm not going to lie, being separated from the "smart" kids felt bad. I knew I was just as capable, but someone had the power to decide who is gifted and I guess they didn't like me. I was placed in classes where the teachers were of lower quality and the material was even less interesting. One of the teachers who didn't like me while I was with the gifted kids was my science teacher and that made me dislike science as a whole. I had a couple of math teachers who were extremely supportive throughout my early education and that made a world of difference. I decided to study CS in large part because I could avoid a lot of science courses and focus on math.

I also have a sister who was indirectly affected by me being in gifted programs. She later admitted to me it made her feel really bad that I was placed in those programs while she wasn't. I think this really hurt her self esteem and had a negative impact in her education. I could imagine other kids feeling similarly when some of their peers get labeled as gifted while they don't.

Looking back, the biggest benefit of being in gifted programs was simply that the teachers were better. So the kids who didn't necessarily need better teachers got the best ones, while the rest got packets to read through. The kids also weren't that different. The main difference was how much the parents of the gifted kids were involved in their education and they were generally wealthier. Overall it seemed like an unfair system that told kids who were just starting out whether they were smart or not. I think we really need better and more teachers, but they aren't paid enough. School is more of a place to put children while parents work than it is a place to educate.

</comment><comment><USER46> When I was in High School, we didn't have "advanced math" per se. You just went in to the next math. If you were advanced, you did Geometry as a freshman, and if you were remedial you did Geometry as a senior, but we were all mixed into the same class.

I ended up making friends with a senior (as a freshman) because I'd help her with the problem sets after I quickly finished them. This not only helped her, but it helped me master the material better because I had to know it well enough to teach it. The teacher encouraged this by allowing all of us time to work together in class, so this happened with a bunch of small groups.

</comment><comment><USER47> The problem with this article is that the author keeps talking about aggregate "achievement". Is it better to slightly improve the aggregate number of children who can limp across the arbitrary "achievement" thresholds supposedly measured by ever-changing tests, or make sure that the resources exist for every child to exist in an environment that allows them to learn at their own speed? Classrooms forced to teach at a pace that accommodates the slowest learners necessarily hold back the education and growth of every student capable and eager to learn at a higher rate (as well as inducing boredom and apathy). I'd argue that we should be increasing resources to the slowest students who have the hardest problem closing the achievement gap rather than trying to eliminate that gap by pretending that all students learn at the same rate and holding back our best and brightest.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find it interesting that a lot of people here are referencing how they wish they could have been separated very early on. That the "smart" children were nicer and the rest were just bullies. I'll hedge that some of that is true. Sure - at my schools - some of the worst performers and bullies were in lower tracks. The worst moved or never went to the normal high school though. They ended up failing so hard and/or getting too many out of school suspensions. However - gotta say - plenty of assholes at the top marks. I can't remember any high(er) performers being very nice. Most were jerks outright. Bullying then was usually more psychological than physical but it wasn't foregone to see physical issues.

I was quickly shot in and out midyear due to my rather unpredictable performance (go figure - regular bullying, alcoholic parents, harsh punitive measures, and high neglect never fared me well). I never noticed the bullying change beyond the superficial. (Physical vs psychological - but, even then, that wasn't off limits really much either)

If the goal is to increase test scores - maybe fix the core issues that get in the way of students learning the material. But - I get it, that's basically impossible. Shit parents are ubiquitous. They seem almost universal.

</comment><comment><USER48> > _after San Francisco Unified de-tracked math, the proportion of students > failing algebra fell from 40 percent to 8 percent and the proportion of > students taking advanced classes rose to a third, the highest percentage in > district history. Until 10th grade, students take the same mathematics > classes. From 11th grade on, students can choose different pathways._

That doesn't seem like much time to choose different math pathways. For example, the "math kids" I grew up with took several classes post-calculus in high school. How can you do that if you're only taking calculus as a junior or possibly senior (depending on what the common coursework was up through sophomore year)?

<comment><USER49> > . For example, the "math kids" I grew up with took several classes post- > calculus in high school. How can you do that if you're only taking calculus > as a junior or possibly senior

What if taking more than Calculus 2 in High school isn't necessary?

Your school seems incredibly privileged to me, imho.

<comment><USER48> Surely it isn't "necessary" to take more than Calc II. But that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be good for some students to go further than that. The point is that in the setup described, no kids can take very advanced classes.

As far as privilege is concerned, it was a public IB school in Sacramento, and we had kids from all types of backgrounds. The average income (even in the IB program) was definitely lower than in other area high schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> In the final two years of secondary education — UK Sixth Form (college), roughly equivalent to US Junior and Senior years — I was in a selected math(s) class of just 12 students. Certainly the group of kids in the class all excelled academically at that point, and of that dozen many have gone on to be very successful (by a variety of metrics)

One point from TFA jumped out at me

— others shared that they'd learned they shouldn't ask questions, as "gifted people are meant to know everything."

I remember being astonished at this attitude at the time, that when the hardest problem sets were being worked through, consistently there was this sense that students were afraid to ask questions or make suggestions for fear of being wrong. The class kept moving because of a combination of no-nonsense teachers and a couple of students with a habit of blurting out the first thing that came to their head. Those students weren't often correct (I was occasionally one of them) but they definitely kept the class from stalling

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm in favor of single gender schools. I went to both coed and boys only grammar school in the UK, and the latter was much better. Bullying was much lesd without girls around to impress. Everyone was friendlier too, even between jock and nerd cliches. It was actually cool to do well in school. For those who wanted girlfriends, there was an all girl school they could go visit once school let out. Much better system than all the coed schools I ever attended in the US, UK and Maledives.

</comment><comment><USER52> This article mostly talks about the bay area (and slightly mentions national studies), so it seems that they were mostly studying the case were most students were already meeting a sort of baseline.

From my personal experience, I think that separating kids in lower income areas leads to positive experiences. Before being in the gifted program, my classes were often interrupted by fights and stuff that was more fit on world star.

</comment><comment><USER53> I want separation, but I'm not convinced separating the "cream of the crop" is the right way to go.

What if schools were more proactive to weed out and separate the bullies from everyone else. I think we'd end up with an overall healthier society, wherein 90% of kids will get a good education and have a good experience in school vs trying only to ensure the top ~10% get separated from the rest.

</comment><comment><USER54> The author is a professor at Stanford. If separating gifted children has no benefits, why doesn't Stanford admit students at random?

<comment><USER55> Because IQ is only loosely correlated with actual achievement? College admissions generally care about achievement (grades, awards, activities, extra-curriculars, etc.), diversity, and likelihood to be a successful student who later donates money back to the school. IQ is not a great predictor of these outcomes since there are _a lot_ of high-IQ individuals who don't really apply themselves.

<comment><USER26> But it answers a wrong question.

Stanford does not admit kids by IQ score. But it _does_ have an entrance exam, as opposed to a lottery among those who applied.

That is, they likely see some value in separating by some measure of aptitude.

<comment><USER56> The entrance exam is a fig leaf. If they admitted based on IQ scores directly then they would be open to direct and severe attack by IQ skeptics and anti- racists.

By using an entrance exam, they get to claim they're admitting based on academic achievement but in reality they know that the test is highly correlated with IQ. All written exams are, for the most part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wouldn't say about gifted children and achievement but even then, I'd like to be separated just for the sake of having someone I could share one idea or two. Spent most of my childhood lonesome and not because 'antisocial' like I was led to believe but because the people I'd like to be hanging out with was spread out, just like was, spending their days lone (or worse), just like I did. I snapped out of this unlucky situation after I got into the university. This could be achieved back then by doing just what happened now: putting me and the other people like, together.

</comment><comment><USER58> I would wonder what the standards used are. There was a recent article about how students are less prepared for University since Common Core was implemented. Maybe the advanced class is easier that it ever was.

The biggest problem with education for gifted or even average students is that our standards are too low. It would be like if we set a 10 minute max for the mile run. Anybody that could run faster would still get a 10Min score. Then we rate the school based on the average running time of the entire student body.

There is no incentive to push kids faster than 10 min. All the resources go into the 2 kids on crutches.

</comment><comment><USER59> > OPINION: Separating 'gifted' children hasn't led to better achievement

This is an opinion piece, it is not evidence based. Why was "OPINION", which is part of the original title, removed?

</comment><comment><USER60> My school system was a mess when it came to their gifted and talented (GAT) program. In my case, I was identified as a candidate, subjected to an absolutely insane battery of cognitive, aptitude and other tests, and then pulled from class once a week to go to another school with other GAT kids. Once there I was put into a room and basically told to go do smart things with no other primer, driver, or material to work with. My own personal interests were ignored. I was told I was disappointing my sponsor teacher by my lack of output, with no particular set of expectations on what, exactly, I was supposed to be doing.

After a year of this I asked to be excused from the program and spent the next year in not a "normal" class, but a remedial class because the school had sacrificed their non-GAT classes to create academic space for the GAT kids. So basically you were either doing some kind of advanced literature analysis or you were being tested on how to spell such challenging words as "ball" and "dog". There were other elements of the GAT program that were similarly discouraging.

I couldn't get out of school fast enough and it was such a damaging experience that I didn't go back to university until years later.

</comment><comment><USER61> Interesting - I went to a tracked high school. The advanced track kids were expected to take a bunch of AP exams at the ends of their tracks. I was in advanced but didn't always like it - there were really some gunners in these courses blowing Calc BC out of the water. That said, there is NO WAY every kid in high school is BC calc ready - so clearly at some point people are getting to choose what classes to take?

</comment><comment><USER62> The problems that smart kids encounter are the same issues that appear generation after generation. Smart kids usually don't follow the crowd so they stand out and are easy picking for bullies. We want and are expecting bullies to disappear since we are better tuned into the problem of bullying. So things will change for the better we say but that's just, not reality.

There's special education for kids with special needs; why is there no special education for smart kids that will help them deal with social situations? Smart kids have to deal with social land mines that will scar them if not handled correctly. No matter how smart someone is there is no way to know what to do in all social situations especially since most of these kids will not have a role model to follow. Even if they are kids of parents that had to deal with the same issues it does not mean that the parents will be able to help.

</comment><comment><USER63> From the article, it sounds like the measure of 'better achievement' is baseline scores across all students.

I was always of the opinion that separating based on ability level was not about improving the baseline, but about allowing those able to learn greater depth to do so.

Not every student is going to earn a Fields Medal or develop new medical procedures, and frankly, that's ok.

But we do need some who will push the boundaries.

The only issue I have is that the selection process itself has not been entirely merit-based, frequently showing preference for students from certain backgrounds at the expense of gifted children of color or from less wealthy backgrounds (and at the expense of society as a whole, who has lost out on the benefits those children could have provided, given the opportunity).

<comment><USER11> So we shouldn't care about improving how the lower performing kids do, since they aren't going to win Fields Medals or develop new medical procedures?

This is a super tricky question to answer... how much extra achievement by the top of the class is worth how much extra achievement by the bottom of the class? There isn't a simple answer.

<comment><USER64> It's not really important for someone with an IQ of 85 to attempt to study algebra

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> If students are inappropriate put into advanced classes, they will struggle, and of course that will bring down the achievement of the student body.

> _Eight Bay Area school districts found similar results when they de-tracked > middle-school mathematics and provided professional development to teachers. > In 2014, 63 percent of students were in advanced classes, whereas in 2015 > only 12 percent were in advanced classes and everyone else was taking Math > 8._

How did they "de-track" anything? Just the numbers were reshuffled. Advanced classes continued, with reduced enrollment.

Could it be that though 63% were in advanced classes in 2014, only 12% (or fewer) actually belonged there? So the 2015 picture was a rational correction?

</comment><comment><USER66> It's worth mentioning that gifted and talented schools also put all the top test takers into a small number of schools within a system taking away AP opportunities and other funding from other schools within the system.

Additionally, other kids in the system miss out from the interaction with top performing students whose habits and interests can rub off and help lift up other students. One of the most important parts of going to school is meeting people and learning new things from them and this isn't mentioned enough in the test score and percentile driven education age.

<comment><USER67> the best students should never be weighed down to benefit the lower performers. the top percentile people in essentially any pursuit are responsible for a disproportionately large impact. it is far more important for the top performers to achieve their potential than for the middle to do slightly better.

<comment><USER66> At any school in the system the top performers would be in advanced classes and receiving the top education at that school. We are talking about public schools, everyone pays taxes for these schools not just the families of the top performers. Therefore, every student should have access to the AP classes and resources that are centralized within magnet schools.

<comment><USER38> Why? Why should a student who isn't (or probably shouldn't be) college-bound have theoretical (or actual) access to an AP course?

I was barred from taking our Vocational-Technical courses (auto repair, auto body, advanced shop, etc) because they weren't offered to G&T kids. That _also_ seems fine to me. Not every human is well suited for every endeavor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I come from Russia, where the idea of gifted classes is taken to the next level: instead of gifted classes we have entire gifted schools. If this is true, that children who coudln't make it into gifted class are so much demoralized by the presence of gifted children, how about we build gifted schools here in the U.S.? This way non-gifted students won't be exposed to gifted ones on a dayily basis. Transportation might be an issue though - <USER2> Russia it is absolutely normal when 8 or 9-year old children take public transportation to school on their own.

</comment><comment><USER69> > And when we separate students into different classes, the message we send > them is that their ability is fixed. When students, instead, embrace the > knowledge that there are no limits to their learning, outcomes improve.

I find it difficult to believe in a sudden shift in the student worldview from a relatively minor change. I'd tend to assume any effect was a shiff in classroom norms.

We all tend to take behavioral hints from those around us. If you go from a class where most people aren't paying attention, to one where most people are, it can sway the behavior of the remainder.

</comment><comment><USER70> In elementary school, I was in the "Gifted" program. It meant 1 day per week I would go to the library with a teacher that taught special stuff like "logic problems" and doing research and making slideshows. It was a _lot_ of stuff.

This is where I learned to program. This single skill was hugely impactful to me.

But the rest of the time was probably actually more helpful, as I was forced to do all the rest of my classwork for my regular classes and pass all my regular tests in addition to all the work for Gifted. This kept me much, much more engaged in education than I would have been otherwise.

Middle school had 1 class per day the same way, but it was a pale shadow of the Elementary version.

High school had "Honors" or "AP" (Advanced Placement, IIRC) classes that totally separated me from the kids that were just there to put in time. They had no interest in learning and were actively against it, but I was no longer associating with them for Literature, Science, and Math classes, and there were no class clowns to slow everything down. We also had dual-enrollment classes where college classes were taught at the high school for credit in both.

Missing out on these 3 systems would absolutely have stunted my growth and I doubt I'd be where I am today without them.

My wish isn't to separate kids, though. I wish they could _all_ enjoy learning like I do. We haven't cracked that nut yet, though, and it seems like separation is still necessary in order to give everyone their potential.

</comment><comment><USER71> Gifted education (and other advanced classes) were important because it taught me it was okay to be smart and learn things.

A lot of other kids will try and keep you down. Make fun of you for using big words and knowing things and learning things.

At the same time I'm glad I didn't grow up in a bubble with only gifted kids. Coping with people different than you is an important skill.

</comment><comment><USER72> I was in the gifted program. So is my daughter. It's a nice break from the monotony of regular school but it's not challenging in any way. It's not really clear to me what the purpose of the program is, but it doesn't appear to even try to challenge the students or introduce them to more interesting/meaningful curriculum.

<comment><USER73> >It's not really clear to me what the purpose of the program is, but it doesn't appear to even try to challenge the students or introduce them to more interesting/meaningful curriculum.

Its purpose is to maintain the deception that the education system is designed to educate, rather than the daycare-disguised-as-education function it actually serves.

Fortunately for educators and parents, even gifted kids are still easy targets for the "we can't do anything else, so give them a token raise, a fancy title, and stick them in a room [maybe with others like them] so everyone else can get back to work" thing that quite a few organizations currently do. It's one thing to accept this when you have some idea of how much you as a person are worth; it's quite another to accept this when you're a child and have _no idea_ that this is merely a token gesture (even though you may have your suspicions, you'll generally lack the opportunity to do something about it even if you're capable of acknowledging it).

And every adult that interacts with these kids _all know_ (on a subconscious level) but will refuse to remedy this knowledge gap when they see it for pragmatic reasons- teachers and administrators don't want their job to become harder and/or don't have time, and parents desire obedience and subordination from their kids and/or don't have time/money to allow limit-pushing.

You may be in a unique position to remedy this; if you are I highly recommend you take advantage of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> The problem with advanced placement / gt / etc is that just like the broader educational system it assumes everyone learns the same just a lot faster. In my own experience, and I get it, this is purely anecdotal: the three smartest people I know, and by smart I mean like off the charts genius level, all were recognized early as being beyond what even gt was going to do for them. They were all taken aside and basically told: you have Carte Blanche to do Whatever you want, go to the library and learn what interests you. Now, I ask you this: why should that gift only be afforded to kids who are so off the charts the teachers don't know what else to do with them? Why not focus on getting kids the structure and discipline and desire to learn that they can go seek the same path if they want to do it?

</comment><comment><USER75> I think in a few decades people will be looking back at the obsession over achievement and academics as something weird. People learn and achieve in different paces, and, assuming a lifetime of continuous opportunity for learning (as we have today), the metrics of specific ages are obsolete things.

<comment><USER67> even if everyone could have all their bills paid for them so they could learn all day at any age, it's ludicrous to suggest this would "obsolete" the discussion of how to treat intelligent kids in relation to others.

also fluid intelligence declines over time so it is absolutely in society's interest to identify talent and assist it as early as possible.

<comment><USER75> what if intelligence becomes something that "can be cured"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Separating kids into streams within the same school doesn't work, because school is about enculturation, and the kids are still together at recess.

Separating gifted kids into "magnet schools" _sort of_ works, but they're just getting the same _teachers_ they'd get anywhere else—we don't really know how to select for teachers that can teach gifted kids any better, so we just select for teachers with impressive resumes.

You know what works? Academies. Specifically, military academies, though technical academies sometimes do too. Places where the students and teachers are of a selected population, not by natural talent, but by their driven-ness to grow and succeed. _Those_ tend to product functional, intelligent, mature and mentally-healthy adults. And the difference is simple: in an academy, _bad grades_ are stigmatized _by the students_ , while _good grades_ (and hard work to _achieve_ good grades) are not. Everyone wants to be "the smartest kid in the class", and popularity generally correlates with how well you do in the classes (i.e. everyone wants to be friends with the most-competent kids.)

The one core flaw of the academy model is that this constant mutual pushing of one-another to succeed, leaves students little time to actually get to know one-another or indulge in any outside interests. Hobbies aren't actively discouraged, but you can only have one to the degree that it doesn't interfere with your pursuit of top grades; so nobody ends up pursuing heavy-time- investment hobbies, since few others would, so even if one can make time themselves, there's nobody to share it with. Since academy students are so busy working their asses off, they also essentially treat their fellow students as "coworkers" (interfacing with them only to accelerate their own productivity), skipping right over the stage where they treat the children in their own classes like friends, bonding over shared interests and the like.

Not sure if there's any in-between, though. Give kids the time and opportunity to create their own subcultures with their own definitions of success, and all the problems of regular schooling re-emerge.

<comment><USER77> Same teachers as anywhere else? At my public magnet school I was taught by a National Teacher of the Year, a board member of a national mathematics group, and a few PhDs. The faculty needed to guide/craft winning entries for prestigious science competitions, and coach nationally-competitive mathematics teams, and teach classes years past Advanced Placement courses. That is not your run-of-the-mill teacher.

The faculty I had was enthusiastically involved in all of these things and performed well. The few exceptions that did not live up to that level were well known, and the very involved parents pressured the principal and leadership to change at every opportunity - but public schools don't have much flexibility for getting rid of teachers.

Of course, the caliber of the faculty is determined by many factors, and other magnet schools may have terrible teachers. But it is up to the principal, school board/leadership, parents, and teachers to give the kids the opportunity to reach their potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> This article largely comes down to the age-old trade-off that societies need to make: when is the individual more important vs when is the group more important?

It seems clear that people in the upper half of the ability range suffer when the very top of the ability range are creamed off. Does hot-housing the very top make up for the losses in the almost-good-enough?

This is a value judgement, and I think it's disingenuous to say one is absolutely a better trade-off than the other.

There's a lot of conflation by other people on this topic with the social structure of US middle and high schools, with all the bullying. I think that's an orthogonal topic and specific to US, and distinct from streaming / hot- housing.

</comment><comment><USER79> My two cents:

1) Sometimes I wish I had the opportunity to get special education, but it seems that most people complain about bullying and liked gifted education to be protected from bullying - thank God bullying was not a big problem for me.

2) Looking in retrospect, I can remember that many colleagues and friends were also gifted in some way or another. They just didn't care as much to get high grades.

There was one guy that learnt English just from watching VHS movies, he could listen to a music and understand it, something I can't do even today. Another guy slacked the whole year and bet everything on the final exam (and passed every time), he played guitar and keyboard (other 2 things I can't do).

</comment><comment><USER80> Hm. I didn't get identified as gifted until eighth grade and I don't think about it very hard these days. I still struggled to make friends after I was placed in a gifted program, and in hindsight wasn't being challenged in my courses. In college I envied students that went to more rigorous schools, partly because I struggled a lot more with my coursework. I think being labelled as gifted wasn't a very good thing for me, and that I should have been encouraged to pursue my interests more instead.

</comment><comment><USER81> Curiously, he doesn't seem to present any numbers on the outcome for the gifted children. All he says is that it is better for the other children if they learn together with the gifted children.

I think parents of gifted children are first concerned with how well their own children do, not the others.

I question that even "learning together" as in school is the most effective way to learn. Some homeschoolers achieve stellar results (see Polgar sisters), indicating that there may be better ways.

</comment><comment><USER82> What's with the constant attacks on testing, achievement and merit? It seems like every other week there is something attacking the SAT, scores, testing, achievement, etc.

</comment><comment><USER67> i am compelled to bring up "growth mindset". the author of this article, Jo Boaler published this book [0] which is about as textbook Growth Mindset as you can get. the general idea is that there's very little _real_ talent gap between people, it's all societal or whatnot.

Growth Mindset is weak scientifically. I believe that the belief in it drives articles such as this submission, so I think it is directly related.

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around- grow...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-growth- mindset-yet/)

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/07/growth- mindset-4-growt...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/07/growth- mindset-4-growth-of-office/)

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your- mindset](https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism)

important to note that there is a necessary baseline necessary for someone's potential to be unlocked. you can't be starving with poor nutrition and no education and become einstein. stable home environment is important. baseline being necessary to unlock talent does not mean talent is not important.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Mind-Learn-Without- Barriers...](https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Mind-Learn-Without- Barriers/dp/0062851748)

</comment><comment><USER83> It does a great disservice to smart kids to pick them out of the regular rank and file completely. You really need to be aware that stupid people exist, and how to deal with them. And that they are still people.

There are a lot of smart people that have spent their entire lives in a bubble that is only inhabited by people at least a standard deviation above average, if not more. And it shows.

</comment><comment><USER84> Seems like the gifted kids are teaching the rest of the students. Maybe the school should be paying them a salary for doing their job.

</comment><comment><USER85> One Problem is that parents will try and get into the GT schools by hiring some tutor to help them prepare. The reality is that some of these kids arent really gifted and talented and doesent learn easilyy which actually makes their lives horrible when they mannage to get in.

</comment><comment><USER16> In my Ontario school the advanced classes were simply an option. Anyone could enrol. You get the advantage of mostly kids who want to learn without the social difficulties. Nobody is told that they're 'special/not special'. It works.

</comment><comment><USER86> Lawyer, FB exec, doctor, ... the cohort of my talented and gifted class would beg to differ.

</comment><comment><USER87> I believe a focus the whys would be helpful in this discussion. Most comments seem to accept the status quo rather than asking Why do we have bullies? Why is being smart "not cool"?

</comment><comment><USER88> The article headline is misleading: the subhead gets at the real issue: "The inherent dangers in telling students that their abilities are fixed".

</comment><comment><USER89> Really there just needs to be a much higher teacher/student ratio all around so that every learner can get the unique attention they deserve.

</comment><comment><USER90> "Better achievement" isn't the only relevant metric. There are plenty of other reasons why separation could be justified.

</comment><comment><USER91> In sports it is the default to bring together similar talented kids. Why not also do the same when studying?

</comment><comment><USER92> So wait, what exactly is meant by "de-tracked"? Does that mean that students are not allowed to advance faster if they happen to be quicker at mastering certain subjects? If I placed into Algebra in middle school when the "normal" course for my grade is Pre-Algebra, would I be allowed to take Algebra or would I be forced to take Pre-Algebra?

If so, then given how much I struggled to stay engaged even with "tracked" courses, I can guarantee that I wouldn't have graduated high school. I would've fallen even harder into the "I already know I'm gonna pass all the quizzes and tests, so why bother with paying attention in class or doing this homework?" trap.

I'm fully on-board with helping students get out of academic ruts and regain their footing and not feel like they're being left behind, and giving them whatever extra resources are necessary to help them do so. I'm _not at all_ on-board with holding back the higher-achieving students to give some illusion that "hey, you poor-achieving student's aren't so poor-achieving after all". It's an insult to _both_ sets of students.

\----

The article's sources, meanwhile, don't seem to actually relate to what's written in the article. Most egregious:

> [Eight Bay Area school districts found similar results] when they de-tracked > middle-school mathematics and provided professional development to teachers. > In 2014, 63 percent of students were in advanced classes, whereas in 2015 > only 12 percent were in advanced classes and everyone else was taking Math > 8. The overall achievement of the students significantly increased after de- > tracking. The cohort of students in eighth-grade mathematics in 2015 were 15 > months ahead of the previous cohort of students who were mainly in advanced > classes.

The link (the part between square-brackets) points to a screenshot of a report (not the report itself, a _screenshot_ of it; who in the actual hell does that‽) that has zero to do with the text after it.

> Recent national data show the same downsides to ability grouping: [In the > National Assessment of Educational Progress study for 2017], elementary > schools that reported using reading groups "almost always" scored lower on > average than those that used them "hardly ever."

Of the three links within that linked source, zero of them contain the phrases "almost always" or "hardly ever". Whence did the author quote these phrases?

> The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on > education that is free to all readers.

Absolutely nothing about this article was in-depth, I was unable (in the ten minutes I allotted myself to read this article and actually check sources) to actually validate whether or not it was fact-based (which leads me to believe it was not), and I get a strong feeling that nothing about this article was unbiased.

</comment><comment><USER93> Grade advancement and radical acceleration of the profoundly gifted in a 20 year study:

[https://www.davidsongifted.org/search- database/entry/a10489](https://www.davidsongifted.org/search- database/entry/a10489)

</comment><comment><USER94> The author of this article is an academic fraud who makes unsubstantiated claims in everything she does. Jo Boaler has an agenda without the data to support it, and her lies are used to support structural changes to school programs. Instead of responding to critics with facts and information, she just calls everyone who criticizes her a "bully".

[https://www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Essays/v8n5.htm](https://www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Essays/v8n5.htm)

<comment><USER95> what are your thoughts on this? [https://web.stanford.edu/~joboaler/Jo-Boaler- reveals-attacks...](https://web.stanford.edu/~joboaler/Jo-Boaler-reveals- attacks-by-Milgram-and-Bishop.pdf)

<comment><USER94> She does absolutely nothing to dispute the points they made about her actual research. It's ad hominem attacks on her critics and pointing out her own credentials. She's never refuted any of their attacks on her work itself, because she knows her work can never be replicated.

<comment><USER96> Did or did you not create a new account solely to bash on Dr. Boaler?

<comment><USER94> I did not. However, her continued attacks on real science did upset me enough to make a new account to comment (I forgot my old password). But if I had made an anonymous account to bash her it would make sense, considering the irrational rabid behavior of her fan base that ignores all of the reproducible studies in favor of her feel-good frauds.

<comment><USER97> Actually the evidence suggests that you did create this account for that purpose. Either way, we've banned the account for breaking the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21455081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21455081). Please stop creating accounts to do that on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Fake news like always. The high achievers need to work with other high achievers to be productive. This happens naturally in the free market and real world (FANG).

</comment><comment><USER99> Educational bureaucrats are compromised dregs and monsters. Their paymasters want high-value cogs. Gifted program is there to preserve the value. The rest of the program is there to reduce them to cogs. The result is--at best!-- broken people with big bank accounts and nice offices, struggling to fill the void.

In other words, home-school your kids. Give them goals outside of pleasing some salaryperson who doesn't even like them.

<comment><USER100> Yes, homeschool should be considered as at least an option if you care about your childrens' education.

The rest of the parent comment is paranoid drivel, which I do _not_ endorse.

<comment><USER99> did you go to public school? an ordinary one?

<comment><USER100> Some of the time. Define "ordinary".

Also state why you think that's a relevant question.

<comment><USER99> "Ordinary" being the typical sort of public school most children in your city/county/etc would go to. A school that pre-selects students based on race, wealth, test scores, etc would not count as ordinary for obvious reasons.

If what I wrote was drivel, it should be very easy to refute. Just labeling it as drivel seems like a cop-out--driven more by ideology than first-hand experience.

<comment><USER101> Let's say there is a city (somewhere in the northern half of the US) that has seen better days, due to the rise and fall of local industry in the 20th century, and there is a town/suburb that has much higher property values and better schools. The students in the suburban school(s) are much more likely to go to college than in the city schools. The suburb is nearly all white, with lots of parents with well-paying STEM jobs, while the city is not. De facto segregation. Which public school is "ordinary"?

<comment><USER99> will also add that i think you asked a perfectly fair question, and have no idea why you've been downvoted

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> The arrogance and ignorance in some of these comments is astounding

</comment><comment><USER102> Damn, America is so rich it just invents problems. When I was a child, you worked hard in school or your life was going to suck. By American standards, your life already sucked because you defecated in the fields. So you did everything in your capacity to not keep it that way.

I'm in America now. Did it the hard way. It wasn't as easy as showing up to class and having the choice of working hard to apply to some of the best educational institutions in the world.

Bloody hell, it's no wonder everyone in America is terrified of immigrants. They're going to eat your lunch because they will go through all these things that ruin you and instead come out resilient and able instead of reduced to just smoking weed all the time or whatever other activity you've decided to blame on society.</comment>