The SECOND there is no longer a rational administration in charge, the DOE is going to go right back the being the rouge commie organization it has been for the past 30+ years.
The only right approach is to raze the building and salt the earth upon which it sat. And put up a big monument that says, Sic Semper Tyrannis.
not to beat my one-track dead horse, but i fear the current criteria for being labeled "gifted" or "talented" is a vibe check with zero objective metrics...
...and i worry that this won't get fixed prior to any kind of massive influx of resources to these gifted programs
i'd feel more comfortable if we actually *knew* that kids referred to gifted programs had higher test scores or higher IQs... but as far as i can tell, it's as much of a coin flip as math tracking
I'm still reading through, but this stuck out "Gifted education programs, for example, receive little more than 1/1000 of the federal funding special education programs receive." Is that per student or overall? It's much more meaningful if it's per student in the program, less so if there are 1/500 as many student in GT programs than special ed. Depending on which, you're either saying "why don't these GT kids get more funding" or "we need to grow GT programs to cover more students".
And your response to the racial and ethnic imbalance that is sure to result from segregating school kids based on IQ? How are you going to justify classes filled with Asians (East and South) and whites, with a smattering of Latinos, and almost no blacks? Take your time, I'll wait...but I doubt "let the chips fall where they may" is gonna do the trick.
at present, using IQ instead of the current tracking methods would increase, not decrease, minority representation in advanced classes in most school districts
that is because IQ is only somewhat racistly and classistly distributed, whereas school counselor vibechecks are *extremely* racistly and classistly distributed
this is not true in all districts or all contexts, but it's true enough to be clearly visible in what data we do collect. see the previous post on this blog, "the algebra gatekeepers"
So you disagree with the classic mean IQ "hierarchy"? (A105, W100, H90, B85)
Where is your evidence showing radical changes in what has been found time and time again for as long as IQ has been systematically measurable and measured? Again, I have no argument that the current tracking systems, such as they exist at all in K-12 education are fair, or adequate, or fit for purpose. But (and a HUGE 'but' it is), IQ-based tracking would produce a racial composition that you and other tracking advocates MUST be able to justify. I can't see how you do that in American society. I'm willing to learn...
my boss and i wrote like a hundred paragraphs which touched on this issue, as a guest post on this blog
it was like 4 posts ago and it was titled "the algebra gatekeepers"
but also i don't think you understood my comment tbh?
basically, as it stands, access to rigorous coursework is distributed in ways that are so counterproductive and incoherent, that moving to a pure IQ meritocracy would be an *improvement* for the groups you name, even though it still would not be directly proportionate representation
let's examine the worst case scenario. take steve sailer at face value re: iq distribution, and suppose that there's a meaningful iq threshold at 110 below which getting access to 8th grade algebra doesn't actually have a positive impact. then let's take some hypothetical school district with a 40/40/10 black/white/asian population ratio. what will the population of 8th grade algebra look like, with the various strategies?
in the progressive utopia where we allocate everything based on race, it will be perfectly proportional, 40/40/10
in the IQ meritocracy, my fermi estimate says 8th grade algebra will be about 20/50/30 b/w/a (correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not actually sure the distribution of iq scores at the .66 standard deviations point)
in the real world that we actually live in, the actual distribution is more like 5/45/45
5% -> 20% is an improvement in black representation
i can understand where you're coming from. but i do not think that merit-based tracking should need to answer for the "race-based hierarchy", when changing to a merit-based tracking system would do much to ALLEVIATE the race-based hierarchy. the fact that it wouldn't actually get us all the way to a progressive racial utopia doesn't feel like a meaningful criticism.
If anybody should need to answer for the current race-based hierarchy, it should be the schools that sort high IQ black kids into the bottom track in order to protect them from white supremacy or whatever
I'll look up your (and your boss') guest post. Thanks for your response here. The mistake you're making is not in your reasoning or (I'm guessing) in your math. It's in assuming you'd be dealing with rational people of goodwill, charity, and pure motives in the leadership of the racial and ethnic groups involved. You're not and you never will be.
It's the mythical 40 -> 20 demotion that damns you, and no trumpeting of an actual 5 -> 20 improvement will save you from being burned at the stake as a racist heretic. It's a tough thing, but there it is. (Be sure to tell your boss.)
The SECOND there is no longer a rational administration in charge, the DOE is going to go right back the being the rouge commie organization it has been for the past 30+ years.
The only right approach is to raze the building and salt the earth upon which it sat. And put up a big monument that says, Sic Semper Tyrannis.
not to beat my one-track dead horse, but i fear the current criteria for being labeled "gifted" or "talented" is a vibe check with zero objective metrics...
...and i worry that this won't get fixed prior to any kind of massive influx of resources to these gifted programs
i'd feel more comfortable if we actually *knew* that kids referred to gifted programs had higher test scores or higher IQs... but as far as i can tell, it's as much of a coin flip as math tracking
I'm still reading through, but this stuck out "Gifted education programs, for example, receive little more than 1/1000 of the federal funding special education programs receive." Is that per student or overall? It's much more meaningful if it's per student in the program, less so if there are 1/500 as many student in GT programs than special ed. Depending on which, you're either saying "why don't these GT kids get more funding" or "we need to grow GT programs to cover more students".
And your response to the racial and ethnic imbalance that is sure to result from segregating school kids based on IQ? How are you going to justify classes filled with Asians (East and South) and whites, with a smattering of Latinos, and almost no blacks? Take your time, I'll wait...but I doubt "let the chips fall where they may" is gonna do the trick.
at present, using IQ instead of the current tracking methods would increase, not decrease, minority representation in advanced classes in most school districts
that is because IQ is only somewhat racistly and classistly distributed, whereas school counselor vibechecks are *extremely* racistly and classistly distributed
this is not true in all districts or all contexts, but it's true enough to be clearly visible in what data we do collect. see the previous post on this blog, "the algebra gatekeepers"
So you disagree with the classic mean IQ "hierarchy"? (A105, W100, H90, B85)
Where is your evidence showing radical changes in what has been found time and time again for as long as IQ has been systematically measurable and measured? Again, I have no argument that the current tracking systems, such as they exist at all in K-12 education are fair, or adequate, or fit for purpose. But (and a HUGE 'but' it is), IQ-based tracking would produce a racial composition that you and other tracking advocates MUST be able to justify. I can't see how you do that in American society. I'm willing to learn...
my boss and i wrote like a hundred paragraphs which touched on this issue, as a guest post on this blog
it was like 4 posts ago and it was titled "the algebra gatekeepers"
but also i don't think you understood my comment tbh?
basically, as it stands, access to rigorous coursework is distributed in ways that are so counterproductive and incoherent, that moving to a pure IQ meritocracy would be an *improvement* for the groups you name, even though it still would not be directly proportionate representation
let's examine the worst case scenario. take steve sailer at face value re: iq distribution, and suppose that there's a meaningful iq threshold at 110 below which getting access to 8th grade algebra doesn't actually have a positive impact. then let's take some hypothetical school district with a 40/40/10 black/white/asian population ratio. what will the population of 8th grade algebra look like, with the various strategies?
in the progressive utopia where we allocate everything based on race, it will be perfectly proportional, 40/40/10
in the IQ meritocracy, my fermi estimate says 8th grade algebra will be about 20/50/30 b/w/a (correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not actually sure the distribution of iq scores at the .66 standard deviations point)
in the real world that we actually live in, the actual distribution is more like 5/45/45
5% -> 20% is an improvement in black representation
i can understand where you're coming from. but i do not think that merit-based tracking should need to answer for the "race-based hierarchy", when changing to a merit-based tracking system would do much to ALLEVIATE the race-based hierarchy. the fact that it wouldn't actually get us all the way to a progressive racial utopia doesn't feel like a meaningful criticism.
If anybody should need to answer for the current race-based hierarchy, it should be the schools that sort high IQ black kids into the bottom track in order to protect them from white supremacy or whatever
I'll look up your (and your boss') guest post. Thanks for your response here. The mistake you're making is not in your reasoning or (I'm guessing) in your math. It's in assuming you'd be dealing with rational people of goodwill, charity, and pure motives in the leadership of the racial and ethnic groups involved. You're not and you never will be.
It's the mythical 40 -> 20 demotion that damns you, and no trumpeting of an actual 5 -> 20 improvement will save you from being burned at the stake as a racist heretic. It's a tough thing, but there it is. (Be sure to tell your boss.)