Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

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I was in a gifted program. But it ends up often being segregation by another name where the well connected can get there kids into them even if they aren’t “gifted” to keep their kids away from “those kids” and you end up giving funding and the best teachers to those kids.

Something similar happen to me. I was smart enough to be in gifted programs in high school. But I got into magnet school in middle school (which was supposed to be to be based on a waiting list) because my mom tutored the child of the admission officer years before.

It’s just like people being against affirmative action for college admission but never say a word about legacy admissions.

And it’s not liberals who oppose research based education, common core, etc. Trump just basically dismantled the department of education and conservative states are mostly concerned with getting rid of books that teach American history including the bad parts and forcing the 10 commandments to be posted and teach that the election was stolen in 2020.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/22/okla...

Are you really trying to argue that conservatives want fact based education and not Christianity, Creationism, “The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it wasn’t about slavery”.

> But it ends up often being segregation by another name

This is an outrageous claim, and you haven’t justified it at all, only suggested that you personally benefitted from nepotism; despite the fact that gifted programs have a history of greatly elevating minorities in this country.

And again, you’re ignoring evidence based pedagogy so you can feel better about yourself and chase a false equality

> Are you really trying to argue that conservatives…

Please call me when you’ve met a conservative more recently than 1990

Gifted programs are based on test scores. Test scores have always been biased toward those who are better off economically.

https://hechingerreport.org/gifted-educations-race-problem/

Again let’s take two examples. I had the highest SAT score in my high school and the second highest in my county the year I graduated. Yes I was kind of smart. But I also had a parent who was not only a high school math teacher who never pushed me to study advanced math and do SAT prep in middle school. But as a person who proctored SAT tests, volunteered to do SAT training and had dozens of books about it before the Internet was a thing, don’t you think I had an advantage?

The second example is my stepson who raised his ACT scores enough to get into the college of his choice after we spent $100 per session for 10 sessions to be tutored one on one by an ex school teacher with a masters.

As far as modern conservatism, today there are states that forcing teachers to display the 10 commandments in school, the Florida education commission (where I live) wanted to teach that slavery was good for Black people.

But you can also look statewide - which states have worse education outcomes - Republican leaning states or Democratic leaning states?

I gave you a citation of one state that is pushing to teach that the election was stolen in 2020.

But again today the Republican administration has department of health and human services run by people with no medical background and are anti-vax.

I am looking at the evidence that you are ignoring.

And in your first reply you mentioned “rent control”. How is that any different from the president imposing tariffs and then telling companies like Walmart and car manufacturers to not raise their prices? That is a form of price control.

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