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Comment by zippyman55 | Hacker News Reader

The economies of scale will still allow specialized classes for those qualified in the public system. A special program to tell people they are special is probably not the investment needed at this time.

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Tell people they are special? Are you joking or just uninformed?

These programs provide challenging material to kids who are more capable while leaving room for teachers to create more appropriate coursework for everyone. Do you think those kids should just nap all day?

Your preferred system seems to be to lower the standards instead of raising everyone up. Interesting, I wonder why.

You are factually wrong. According to actual studies which follow these things, high IQ students do not increase their scores when in gifted programs compared to being in general education. It's a wash. The ones who benefit most are disadvantaged kids. I know, you hate the idea of equity. But universal screening showed that Hispanic kids participation rate in gifted programs increased by over 100% when all kids were screened for access to gifted programs instead of relying on teacher + parent recommendation. For black children, they increased by around 75%. *Those* children were the only ones to actually see improved scores from gifted programs.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w20453

I have no issues w public schools offering advanced engineering, calculus, Latin, and other uncommon languages the many thousand students in the school system will give them an opportunity to have these classes for highly advanced students. I do not think blowing smoke up kids asses by telling them they are so special is the best way to go. In many areas, these kids may not be so special but their inflated ego may not pick up on it. My anecdotal observations of my youth was too many of my mentally gifted minor friends became potheads and sadly wasted the great opportunity they had.

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