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Comment by charlesu | Hacker News Reader

Getting rid of advanced classes does nothing to solve the real problem: different kids have wildly different resources/home lives and those differences often cut across racial lines. Want to fix large difference in racial makeup between regular and advanced classes? Implement universal pre-K. Give all children free breakfast, lunch, and dinner that's healthy. Give parents $700 per child. Mandate that all homes have safe drinking water free of lead. Put social workers, psychologists, and nurses in schools. Tackle the material circumstances that tend to stifle a child's development and the rest will follow. Canceling classes doesn't do anything for anyone.

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> different kids have wildly different resources/home lives and those differences cut across racial.

One of the largest impacts on a child's outcome is if they have two parents that are involved in their lives, and even more if they are involved in their education. The classroom has little to do with parenting. There's other reasons why kids dont have two parents though.

Add ending the drug war and socialized medicine that provides for mental health services to the list.

Having two parents at home is important, but having a social worker and psychologist can do wonders too.

We can't fix everything but we should do all we can to give ever child a fair shot and a fair shot is more than free primary education.

Married two-parent households is also the biggest advantage Asian kids have, even compared to whites, at every income level. Social liberals sold America a bill of goods by normalizing divorce and single parent households (not just at the individual level, but at scale). And the impact has been the worst in disadvantaged groups that already have so many other things stacked against them: https://www.aei.org/articles/the-power-of-the-two-parent-hom...

> Getting rid of advanced classes does nothing to solve the real problem

The people doing it aren't interested in solving the real problem, they are interested in not having to expend effort dealing with political fallout of one particular symptom of the problem, and they are willing to exacerbate the problem if it achieves that goal.

Give the parents choice of schools so that they can adapt the education to correctly suit their child. Absolutely stop making educational decisions and policy based upon political choices. Just ... stop it. It is hurting all kids when this is done.

Give the parents free home internet if they cannot afford it. The boss tells me that this is a major problem even for the college prep high school where she teaches.

Provide support for parents and families who might need the extra support (homework checkins, tutoring, etc.) that parents may or may not provide. Boss tells me that some of the parents just don't care. Kids shouldn't suffer because of that.

>>Give the parents choice of schools so that they can adapt the education to correctly suit their child.

This mostly benefits parents of means, as getting kids too and from a more distant school is not without costs, and neither is researching and evaluating alternative schools (which also dependent on parental abilities which are directly related to education, which is already the strongest predictor of children's educational outcomes.)

That one “reform” is the one fo the best way to cement existing inequities, despite it superficially looking like empowerment.

> Absolutely stop making educational decisions and policy based upon political choices.

That's logically incoherent: educational policy choices are a subset of political choices.

Exactly. Not only should we "Give the parents choice of schools" we should make every school a good choice.

Choice of schools will just lead to more centralization and it won't be any different than it is now. It doesn't really solve the underlying problem.

to play the devil's advocate -

these differences across racial lines are not an inhibitor for Black Americans to compete at high levels in sports.

Lord knows how much more staggering the difference could be if all Black Americans actually grew up with good nutrition, education, and training. I mean, the NBA is already 75% African American.

What if it is the case, that all of things you mentioned, and more were provided to lessen the disparity, and yet it still came out as predominately one or two races?

I actually discussed this very topic elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296242

I won't repeat my claims here, but I'll add that at this point, at least part of that overrepresentation is self-perpetuating. Many people expect the next Michael Jordan to look like Michael Jordan. That's why Armon Johnson was almost a first round draft pick in 2010 while Jeremy Lin got passed over completely despite the fact that Jeremy Lin is clearly talented by any objective measure.

I'm also uncertain that: 1) cognitive and physical development have the same inhibitors and 2) those inhibitors affect cognition and physical development to the same extent. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that lead hurts the brain more than the rest of the body.

re: cognitive vs physical development, I think at the level of star athlete most of the difference in performance is, for lack of a better word, mental

If you look at Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Jeremy Lin, Tiger Woods ... they're very physically gifted, moreso than a typical pro player ... but it's not like they win by being drastically more physically gifted than their competition.

The thing that helps them to win may not be exactly conscious thought, but I think it's effectively a mental/behavioral advantage — certainly to me it seems like a better fit than attributing their success to their physical build (compared to competitors). Michael Phelps on the other hand ... well, some people are just born with the bodies to play certain sports :)

However, sports can differ in what they are in need of when it comes to traits and skills, and like you pointed out, many would negligently exclude that intelligence can also be a factor.

Take American Football - the running back and wide receiver position will ask for almost exclusively physical traits. Players like DK Metcalf fits his position so well almost solely based on his physical performance and players in these positions are predominately Black. However, the Quarterback asks less of the physical and more on decision making, and players in these positions are predominately White.

I believe it to be a mixture of both, although physicality and athleticism takes a lion share of what factors are needed to be successful in sports, whereas intelligence is required in selected sports.

As you mentioned, Michael Phelps has an physical anomaly where he has the legs of someone with a height of 5'10 and the torso of someone who is 6'7, which is what propelled him to become to greatest - but to your point, swimming does not ask much for the mental. Maybe reaction time for starts, and strategies for 400im and anything longer than 400m freestyle, but doesn't ask for much compared to other sports out there.

And give each child a home that doesn't have yelling and hitting, that doesn't have drug abuse.

But how do you do that?

Parents already get tons of money via tax breaks us childless folk don’t get...

I wouldn't classify $2k per child as "tons of money". Maybe another $1k total from dependent care expenses deduction.

Worse than that, getting rid of advanced classes in public schools increases the divide between rich and poor, because the private schools attended by wealthy children will still have advanced classes.

I don't buy this. Rich people already have better schools and will do better anyway. The divide is growing not because of schooling but because of the centralization of wealth.

That's also true, but "dumbing down" public schools by eliminating advanced learning classes will make it even more difficult for the poor to compete in the knowledge economy.

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