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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

> Consider that a gifted and talented program is maybe not the best option for your daughter.

So is your opinion that such a program is not a good option for any student? Why not conclude instead that there should be good advanced programs, not like the ones you've seen?

> Often this translates to children who have difficulty communicating with their peers no longer really being able to interact with their peers and getting the "other" label applied quite literally.

As it is, my child is coming to the conclusion that school is boring/easy and that she is smarter than her classmates. Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything. IMO, that's worse than the picture you paint.

FWIW, I'm not looking for smaller classes at all. Her current class is 15 or 16. I'm looking for instruction that is at an appropriate level. It could be with her own class, or by having her sit with another class for math or reading. Class size is not the point; it's all about having appropriate instruction.

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> As it is, my child is coming to the conclusion that school is boring/easy and that she is smarter than her classmates. Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything.

Welcome to the “parents of gifted children” club. I agree with the previous commenter that G&T probably isn’t the right place for your kid, at least not for now, although you might not have any practical alternatives.

Let’s be real though: one need not invoke resentment-laced arguments about fairness to see that public schools just do not have the resources to properly educate (upper) outliers. Pretend you had a child whose growth curve put him on track to be a future 7-footer—you might consider investing in some private basketball coaching. Different gift, same idea.

> Let’s be real though: one need not invoke resentment-laced arguments about fairness to see that public schools just do not have the resources to properly educate (upper) outliers.

Let's also be real though. This was a conscious policy decision made by school boards across the country.

G&T programs used to be what school's public and private marketed. Now the public schools where I grew up don't even offer AP classes, and a huge portion of their budget now goes to special education.

Why did we decide we have the resources to spend on the lower end of "special" scale but not the upper?

In California, “we” decided this in 2014, when the state did away with mandatory GATE requirements for districts. It’s now optional, and schools aren’t doing it.

It was the same thing when I was a kid in the 90's and I was bored out of my mind at school, completely and utterly un-challenged. I can barely even put into words how bitter I got about being dragged through such a system. There was no such thing as "advanced" classes, and the only so-called advanced stuff I ever did was outside of school in special programs, which I'm pretty sure my parents had to pay for me to participate in. It was a parent-created/run organization.

Anyway, to answer your query, my belief after decades of observing the education system here (BC, Canada) is, politicians and decision-makers basically feel that smart kids have a huge advantage and they don't need the help. They will succeed and be useful members of society whether we leave them for dead or help them thrive. So... the dollars can be allocated to "those who really need it". I have heard this overall sentiment shared over and over and over, as far back as when my parents and I attended city council meetings appealing for ANY sort of "gifted" program implementation, even a tiny hint of one. The answer was always "find a private school", "I heard there's this virtual school you can attend on the computer", "we'll think about it", etc. I honestly don't see this changing anytime soon.

I could say way more on the subject but didn't feel like posting much more of such a personal topic. Happy to chat about it more with whoever, though.

More like welcome to the parents of any child club. School isn't designed to teach, it's designed to be day care. If you want special day care for your special child, it'll cost you, and may or may not be worth it. As it stands, I don't actually recall learning anything in school, or anyone really caring that I did or didn't learn anything, beyond getting me a passing grade of course.

Yeah, it's indoctrination into the 9-5 worker mindset, with a touch of "education" on the side. Parents who are concerned about their kids' all-so-important education being hampered by COVID-related school closures are seriously misled, unless they happen to have the most amazing schools on the continent. Even people I know who work in public education agree it's more daycare than actual education.

I'd definitely argue that the social isolation of not being physically in school would delay some social development, because that's largely what grade school offers imo. It's an environment for rapidly testing and experimenting with interactions between yourself and others, figuring out what works and what doesn't, resolving conflict between you and peers and older adults, forming bonds that will carry maybe into early adult years if not later ones. There's a lot of value in that, but I don't think genuinely academic learning comes until post-secondary, with the exception actually being any kind of vocational classes where you have a specific domain and framework to practice creating or doing something tangible.

> Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything.

If one goes through life expecting people they encounter to care about them, they'll be bitterly disappointed. Some of my teachers were nice to me, and would go out of their way to help if I asked. Did they really care about me? I doubt it. They were just good people. The rest of of my teachers were pretty indifferent. A couple actively disliked me (my own fault).

But what I wanted was not caring, but for them to do their job.

I would say that caring whether or not their students are learning anything is a key part of the job for teachers and principals.

They are well aware of this, which is why they make a great show of caring. But do they really care? The educational results suggest the reality is they don't particularly.

> she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything.

So, she's starting to unschool herself (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling ). Perhaps she could use some help in that process, but it's not inherently a bad thing.

> Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything.

She's getting good grades. They have other students who aren't. She's not in their top twenty list of priorities. That's school.

That doesn’t explain why they don’t let her receive math instruction with a different class. The teacher is already teaching the content, my child is just not in the room.

It also doesn’t explain why she can only use the math app at her grade level or one above. They are rate limiting her.

They don't care about her learning. It's a school, she's not being tutored. It's mostly about childcare and ranking, not learning and they know her rank. If you don't ask for an individualised education plan or otherwise show that you know the magic words that show that you are preparing evidence to sue them they're not going to do anything.

Education schools have been very clear for decades that acceleration and other accomodations for gifted students are wrong and evil.

The point of gifted classes isn't to teach you better math. It's to separate the kids who are too nerdy to survive in the same class as normal ones or who behave too "gifted kid" all the time to keep a class on track.

If you want to be a tiger parent, do what the tiger parents do and send them to afterschool programs. (well that's what I think they do anyway.)

When I was in sixth grade my parents convinced my (private) school to allow me to join the ninth/tenth grader's Geometry class. Two problems developed:

1. The material wasn't challenging; I didn't grasp what the point of "proving" a bunch of obvious stuff was, although I was willing to go through the motions. So I was an 11-year-old smart aleck in a room filled with 14 year olds who found me annoying (because, truthfully, I was super annoying at that age!). This contributed to:

2. The 14 year olds were super mean to me, AND they basically revolted against the teacher when I was in the classroom

In the end the teacher was happy to just privately tutor me, which was kind of her, but I have to acknowledge that I was genuinely disruptive to her class.

So I think there are real repercussions to allowing socially undeveloped kids into a classroom filled with kids at a very different (social) level.

There might have been a different outcome if I'd been in a school with a larger pool of moderately-to-very-gifted-at-math kids.

The next year my parents sent me to a school that had an agreement with the local university to send kids gifted at math to take university classes. The college kids were much more tolerant of me as a curiosity (and I was actually challenged, so I didn't spend my time annoying anyone, which probably helped, too).

That is definitely true but I would suggest that it is a societal choice about basic values that makes it so. I'm not saying I personally disagree with that choice but we should see it as one rather than just the obvious.

Schools could be like other institutions which focus their attention and assess themselves based on the best they produce. Even some schools are like this (or American schools anyway) with sports. Is Coach worrying about how good the average student is at basketball, or the lowest quartile? I think not.

We have decided that it is essential that everyone reaches a minimum level, that the average performance should reach a certain level and that these two things are very important and much more so than making sure that the very best students can reach their maximum level.

Again, I'm not saying I think that is wrong. In a democracy, it has a lot going for it, but it isn't the only way to run a society either.

> As it is, my child is coming to the conclusion that school is boring/easy and that she is smarter than her classmates.

Both of those things are objectively true, so this is a fine conclusion.

> Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything.

This is also true.

Perhaps you could look at getting her private tutoring and making peace with the fact that school is mostly for socialising. Modern schooling is primarily about beating you into the shape that bureaucratic life demands of you, so in essence the impression she is getting now is one she will probably have her entire life.

I was in G&T programs and ended up skipping multiple grades and going to specialized schools for a few years. I was also a colossal asshole and a behavior problem so my story wont be an exact parallel.

The trade-off was worth it. But my teachers did care, they campaigned for some solution to what they saw as bad behavior from being bored and unchallenged. It did create authority problems to see the Teachers one was supposed to respect stutter on with easy problems and to see your peers having trouble spelling basic words, it was ok to be "other" from that. Early social life doesn't have to be tied to a classroom, I got that from neighborhood friends, athletics church and family. There is no excuse to having your young child wasting the opportunity of her headstart by following the same path as the other kids.

Once you are out of early ed, the honors and AP classes should provide enough challenges, it would be unusual for her to excel in every topic.

I didn't have any particular academic or career excellence other than the path I described there, turns out I just read fast and had tested out of standardized reading levels by the "third" grade but if someone hadn't intervened and noticed that I wasn't mean spirited, I just had read the whole book in the time the rest were reading three pages and now had nothing to do, I would have had a way different feeling about learning and likely would have ended up in alternative schools for being an authority issue.

Most kids in G&T programs even out with others academically over time, there is no reason to waste the younger years where she is showing advanced aptitude

> So is your opinion that such a program is not a good option for any student?

It is extremely hard to draw such broad conclusions. I do think on the whole G&T programs are a net negative- if only because they have drained so many resources from the vast majority of students. I think there is a reasonable middle ground to be had somewhere.

> Why not conclude instead that there should be good advanced programs, not like the ones you've seen?

I have seen quite a few advanced programs and I can attach various adjectives to them, and I think some were objectively good from the standard measure. I think the entire concept is flawed in a fundamental way though. All children will benefit from small class sizes, individualized lesson plans, encouragement to pursue their passions, etc etc. Its heartbreaking that we offer those services primarily to children who are academically exceptional.

> As it is, my child is coming to the conclusion that school is boring/easy and that she is smarter than her classmates

This is certainly a struggle. Do keep in mind that your daughter will take your cues to heart in how you interact with her schooling. Finding the challenge in the mundane is a skill I did not develop until I was much too old to take advantage of it.

> Worst of all, she's realizing that her teachers and principal don't actually care whether she learns anything. IMO, that's worse than the picture you paint.

Thats certainly not a good situation. I wish you the best of luck in addressing it however you deem best. As I concede above, its hard to paint with broad strokes; every child is different and will respond differently to identical situations.

> Its heartbreaking that we offer those services primarily to children who are academically exceptional.

It is far more heartbreaking seeing those resources wasted on the comparatively incapable. You can bring a student to math, but you can't make him/her learn. Moreover it guts both our national competitiveness and eschews meritocracy in favor of classism, where the have's can privately acquire those services.

I was once hired to photograph a teacher for a magazine or the like. It was a music class at about the 3rd grade level. There was a student in the class that clearly had no idea what was going on and just moaned the entire time. They had an aide that stayed with them the entire time and presumably the entire day.

I understand that as a parent you’d want to do what you can for your child to give them a normal experience. I’d probably do the same in their shoes. As a society we should probably place limits on that. As far as I could tell he was one step above “vegetable” and gained nothing from the experience and it took an insane amount of potential resources away from the rest of the students.

> All children will benefit from small class sizes, individualized lesson plans, encouragement to pursue their passions, etc etc.

Class size has nothing to do with it. As I've mentioned above multiple times, this is not what we are after. It is also not necessarily something that these programs offer; the program I was in 30 years ago did not have small class sizes.

Equally important, evidence does not strongly support the theory that smaller class sizes improve performance. Most of the studies show no benefit or a small benefit but only for certain types of students (white/Asian, not URM).

Similarly, we're not looking for individualized lesson plans. Just let her do the regular math for a different grade level. No customization needed. I realize that would require matching up 'math time' for her class and another class, but this is a school with 7 classes per grade. There are many ways to make this happen (for her and for other students who could also benefit from above-grade-level instruction).

> I do think on the whole G&T programs are a net negative- if only because they have drained so many resources from the vast majority of students.

> Its heartbreaking that we offer those services primarily to children who are academically exceptional.

I'm curious where you're getting your numbers from. I work in education technology, and the common wisdom is that tons of money is spent on Title I schools and special education. I have literally never heard anyone claim that GATE is a lucrative market.

> I'm curious where you're getting your numbers from. I work in education technology, and the common wisdom is that tons of money is spent on Title I schools and special education. I have literally never heard anyone claim that GATE is a lucrative market.

I went to a magnet school for high school. While we did have a decent amount of swanky equipment for labs, that was pretty much all donated or begged off of companies. That does comport with your tales that GT isn't particularly graced with extra funding.

Swanky equipment is entirely unnecessary for GT instruction. All that is needed is a teacher and a blackboard.

Re spending: Every advanced class I was in had

1) a lower student to teacher ratio 2) better, newer equipment 3) better, more experienced teachers

I've never talked to someone who didn't admit to those advantages, only argued about how important they were or how expensive they might be. I can imagine it isn't a cash cow for the industry because the number of students is small and most of the difference is in teacher pay per child.

Re snap class sizes having an effect on outcomes. This is extremely surprising to me. The last I looked (admittedly quite some time ago) it was essentially the only factor that has significant weight and was reproducible.

> better, more experienced teachers

Well, you will need teachers who have mastered algebra themselves. Other than that, I don't see why they need to be better or more experienced.

The profs I had in college were never trained as teachers, nor were they particularly experienced at it. But they knew the material to the point that it was trivial for them.

> But they knew the material to the point that it was trivial for them

On the flipside this can make it harder for the teacher to relate to the students. In a university context of course, students have each other as equals.

If I hadn't had gifted classes to keep me intellectually stimulated, I probably would've been lighting things on fire during class in elementary school. I guess I would've found "the challenge in the mundane", but it most likely would've been through destructive and antisocial behavior.

I don't recall we even needed a lot of resources or personal attention or special student/teacher ratios in gifted class--they just set us loose with computers and told us to write logo programs (it was the early 90s), instead of being stuck in regular class trying to figure out how to cut myself so I could feel something other than bored.

I would've ended up getting a phd with or without gifted classes--I didn't need it to get a jump start on career success or something like that. I needed it to keep me sane.

> All children will benefit from small class sizes, individualized lesson plans, encouragement to pursue their passions, etc etc.

You don't need any of that for a gifted program. You just need to teach more advanced material, and at a faster pace. There's no reason whatsoever it should cost more.

Heck, my freshman physics class in college had 150 students in it. It blew by high school honors physics in 3 or 4 lectures. I learned a crap ton in it. It was terrifying, but also exhilarating.

Well, perhaps this is true. I wonder how well it would work in a k-8 setting. I've never seen it implemented there like that.

Edit: I can think of a situation where I attended a different grade's math class. That was completely separate from the g&t program at the school, and I simply haven't considered it as part of that.

I understand that k-8 is different, I was just pointing out that small class size is not necessarily correlated with quality teaching. This is especially true as the kids mature.

I also doubt that it is even possible to reliably detect a gifted student before 3rd grade.

And lastly, a gifted program can be little more than just giving the 3rd grade gifted students the 4th grade curriculum. No extra money required. No magical teaching required.

I think perhaps we are in (majority) agreement. My primary point is that g&t programs in the k-8 range don't look anything like what you describe. What you describe also happens, its just not called a gifted and talented program (at least in my experience).

>> As it is, my child is coming to the conclusion that school is boring/easy

And she may feel that way even in gifted classes, I know I did. There's only so much that teachers can do. If it's so easy then she can spend her time doing/studying other things that she likes.

I read all the feynman lectures in middle school classes (ymmv with teachers). Later I got into quantem mechanics and advanced math, all on my own and because I had a bunch of free time..

Those were some of my favorite years and shaped who I am today. There's plenty to learn beyond the school curriculum and your child can self direct it

People forget in the 8-12 year old range kids have their own ideas about things. Kids understand a lot and perceive when adults don't care about what is good for them at some level.

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