I do not write this to contradict particular claims in the article above, but @cremieux should be read cautiously.
> With all the pieces on the board, the key to Romania’s Olympiad success is three-fold: put the best students in the same classrooms, put the best teachers with the best students, and then incentivize schools, teachers, and students each to win Olympiads.
This could have been much shorter, but then the reader might notice the abject lack of supporting evidence for these central claims. I don't blame the author for burying them at the end.
I do not understand why you say that it lacks supporting evidence.
Before this conclusion, the author has explained the system of national exams and of distribution into high schools and inside high schools, that ensures that the best students are grouped together and also that the best teachers are assigned to them.
There is no doubt that even if the average level of education is bad, this system guarantees that the best become very good and much better than students with similar native qualities who have stayed in high school in the middle of less capable colleagues, while being not taught things deemed too difficult for the general population. Moreover, the author has mentioned that the state provides rewards for good results at the International Olympiads, both for teachers and for students.
I do not see what more evidence could be brought. In my opinion the conclusion of the author is well supported and it explains why these students compete successfully against students from much bigger countries.
> Much of Lasker's work and commentary focuses on race and IQ, and he has promoted eugenics.
I have a genetic mutation (de novo) that leads to a disability and that I don't want to pass on. Natural approach: Die, due to the lack of therapeutic modalities. No chance of offspring. With the help of medicine, I am alive. Now, to prevent passing on mutated genes but still have children, I could use something like IVF and reproductive genetics. This is textbook eugenics(?)
Obviously I disapprove of the stereotypical eugenics of the century. Ranging from Germans murdering disabled children to Danes forcing Greenland women on birth control.
This struck me as…odd…before I even saw the parent comment.
The author of an article about how an education system is or should be structured, however, very much matters.