Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

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> There is some fair arguments to make that mixing kids of different backgrounds together improves outcomes, if you take 1 kid from a poor background and surround that kid with a culture of success, there is a very large chance the kid will pick up on that culture of success and start doing better.

My understanding is research shows this "evens" outcomes. The worst students do better (Teacher has more time to pay attention to them), the best students do worse (can not get into the really hard stuff, get bored).

If you are in the bottom 25%, you WANT integrated classrooms of all levels.

If you are in the top 25%, you WANT an elite classroom with ramped up work and less distractions.

>culture of success

There is the crux.

Bad cultures exist and we dont need to celebrate them. Bad culture drags everyone down and makes society worse.

> Bad cultures exist and we dont need to celebrate them. Bad culture drags everyone down and makes society worse.

We need to ask why those bad cultures exist and take steps to remediate the underlying problems.

In Seattle, one of the richest cities in one of the richest countries in all of human history, some of the public schools still have leaded drinking pipes that "may be safe" for kids to drink from.

For the vast majority of working adults in America, a job means unreliable shifts, being treated with outright cruelty by management, and pay that isn't enough to cover health insurance premiums.

Given that, why is anyone surprised that kids don't "apply themselves"? What are their parents going to say? "Work hard and you to can be in debt and barely afford to pay rent!"

People generally do what is expected of them. If you’re dropped into a class with higher expectations, you perform better. Lower expectations and you perform worse. We are all optimized to do what’s required of us and conserve excess energy.

Or you find the difficulty is too high, and you drop out.

Or too low, and you mentally check out.

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