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Comment by LUmBULtERA | Hacker News Reader

>But, the Left's problem is that instead of trying to raise everyone up they're bringing people down. It was that way in the USSR, and it's that way here. Where I used to live the Talented and Gifted program (which was state mandated) had a $1000 budget systemwide. The "equity" fund was almost a third of the budget. At that point why bother with public schools? It's taxation without representation.

Whether or not to cut gifted and talented programs is very much debated on the "left".

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I've never heard much debate in the US on this, but in the UK it was very much the left that eliminated selective education in most of the country, and it's a political third rail to talk about it for any mainstream political party today (other than, no doubt, Reform - even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I suppose).

This seems to refer to separate advanced schools vs. advanced classes that most in the US would be familiar with.

One analog in my area (Boston) is perhaps METCO, where ambitious students in impoverished districts can be bussed to wealthier suburban schools. It's fairly benign compared with the infamous forced bussing of the 1970s- a judge forced lower class black and white parts of the city to bus students to each other's schools in order to eliminate segregation- it caused riots. Sure there was racism, but the main complaint was that rich suburban towns were not included.

Another ongoing debate is over "charter schools"- where public funds are used for private schools that can be selective about their students. There are good arguments both for and against them. One against is that they can be for-profit even though they are not supposed to be. For example, they often pay rent to somebody- this never happens as far as I know for public schools.

Yes, the original policy in the UK was for separate schools rather than advanced classes - the equivalent policy for advanced classes was (is?) known as "streaming". I don't know of any charter schools which are for-profit (funding state students attendance at fee-paying schools was eliminated at some point in the 90s I believe also), but the nearest equivalent would be a "free school" which must be a non-profit.

Yes, but it's the furthest left that is for cutting gifted and talented programs, by and large. So while not all of the left wants to, the left left does.

i don’t think this is true at all. if anything the people i know with far-left tendencies want significantly more funding for school programs, including gifted.

what makes me question what you’re saying even more is i have right-wing friends who most certainly do not want more funding for any school programs, including gifted. and i have classical liberal friends who think we should give tax breaks for private schools for “gifted”.

> i have right-wing friends who most certainly do not want more funding for any school programs, including gifted

This is a strawman, though it may not seem like one. I agree that much of the right wants less funding for public education in general, and/or wants more funding for parochial schools and the like. But that is not who I'm talking about.

Those on the right who support public education also support funding gifted/talented schools/programs, because they base it on 'merit' and you may have seen that word thrown around recently by that orange guy. G&T programs explicity fit into their policy and world view, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

> i have classical liberal friends who think we should give tax breaks for private schools for “gifted”.

Cool, but they're not 'left' by the American standards. Classical liberals are more akin to American libertarians in terms of beliefs/opinions. Which again, is not who I'm talking about.

I suspect your right wing friends would agree if you said “society should focus additional resources developing people who are naturally gifted.” If you frame it in terms of “school funding,” what you’re actually measuring is their beliefs about whether school funds actually reach the kids they’re supposed to help.

Interesting, but this is also presumably ( if partially ) why it is not phrased that way.

Complete rubbish. Far left tendency is to claim any promotion of children to gifted classes is racist and sexist unless its the right gender and race.

It's so sad to see such vehement energetic invented madness. Pure fabrication & delusion, and there's such a massive podcaster and regular media system pumping out false idols to flail against.

Most public school districts in America spend north of $20,000 per student per year. That’s $400,000 a year for a classroom of 20 students.

Anyone who thinks money is the limiting factor in education is either delusional or is receiving a chunk of that money that never makes it into the classroom.

Countries all over the planet provide superior education to students for a tenth of the cost.

Your right wing friends are correctly but ambiguously stating that if we can’t have a gifted program at these funding levels, there will never be a gifted program at any funding level.

But the "left" that the parent post is referring to would argue their detractors aren't the "left".

Yeah, “left” isn’t a useful term in this context. As noted elsewhere, Soviet Russia focused on developing gifted kids. On the other hand, so does Iran, which has a super right wing government.

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