OMG. I'm starting to believe hawkeye

boomer, I don't know why you have this habit, but I don't understand why you choose to quote part of what I say, without the context.

If you were to quote ALL of what I said regarding "beating a dead horse", you would clearly see that my frustration lies in the fact that it seems in every single post one must state that a person can be eduated in something they will not be using for work, and that is a noble thing.

Does one really have to reiterate with every post that getting a degree in poetry, or philosophy, etc is fine, and that education is not all about learning how to place widget A into slot B?

Educational threads in themselves is not boring, it's the having to repeat the above over and over, or else get accused of feeling the opposite way.

I remember Bella Dea posted some kind of disclaimer in her signature. It feels like the same thing must be done here.

Isn't part of education learning how to retain information?

Huh?

My "habit" doesn't seem to bother you when other people do it so I suspect this comment is just some smug little grudge you've come up with since I won't roll over and say "Hey! If it was good enough for Chai, it's good enough for me".

I'm sorry that your childhood was so mediocre that you've decided "pretty good is good enough". Or maybe it was something else that led you to that conclusion, I don't know. But it's a shitty way to live and a shitty thing to wish on anybody else.

Absolutely I want Mo's childhood to be extraordinary.

Just like mine was.

And if it means going up to the school and calling bullshit so be it.

That's what my extraordinary parents did.

They WANTED me to be happy.

Go figure.

What about learning how to learn to learn to prepare you to prepare you for when you are out in the world, and need to learn to learn to do something new in your job?

Do you think sozlet being in TAG might have something to do with how happy you are with the quality of education she's getting?

That hour and a half a week could make a big difference on how you view things.

It's possible.

K-2nd grade she had nothing extra and I was happy with the quality of the education she was getting. (Just very individualized instruction for all -- her 2nd grade teacher in particular was really world-class. Amazing teacher.)

3rd grade she had some gifted stuff, but less than now. For half the year, she had I think a total of 40 minutes/ week. (The other half, nothing.)

edit: also, I base my view on how her school does on conversations with other parents + their kids, too, and those kids run the gamut. (Gifted, special needs, plain vanilla average, etc., etc.) People here are really quite happy with our schools.

I don't understand what that means, but it you're saying I don't mind when other people take just part of what someone says and quotes it, then you're wrong. I think it's wrong when anyone takes part of what someone says, so it's out of context.

As far as a grudge, or being smug, sorry, but that's all in your mind.

I don't know, ask drew dad.

Just to be clear, I'm saying something pretty narrow, which is:

So far, (through two years of preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and the beginning of 4th grade), I have been very impressed with the education that's being provided to my daughter.

So this experience means that I disagree with general assertions that education (especially public school education) in America just plain sucks. But it doesn't say much about whether there are some lousy schools out there -- I'm sure that there are.

Stumbled on this quote today and immediately thought of this thread.

"In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
— Eric Hoffer

Soz, I managed to track down one of the "detracking" studies I'd seen mentioned several times by other writers.

I've only read a few pages so far but it looks pretty interesting.

http://ed-share.educ.msu.edu/scan/TE/danagnos/te9203C.PDF

Oh, tracking is evil.

I'm very anti-tracking.

Tracking is different than gifted and talented programs per se, though.

I have four children in public schools, the oldest in high school and I agree with this sentiment. I've known parents who have pulled their children from public schools and I just shake my head wondering at the money they are tossing out so their children don't have to mingle with "disruptive elements."

In almost everything I've read, tracking and TAG are mentioned hand in hand.

That sounds good to me, if somewhat a luxury. It's a bit like my view that a university is not (primarily) a tool for a career. At its best, I mean.

I did come out of university headed to a career, and picked up a couple of others as I aged. But I saw the place as opening my eyes to the broad expanse of the world's knowledge, how much is out there to learn, and how much is out there to "play" with, in the sense of experimenting, thinking.

However, I was one lucky girl. My family, once middle class, had huge financial problems (father out of work something like 80 or 90% of the time after I was 13). I looked for a scholarship, but the previous year was one in which he worked enough to have an income that gave me a No from the california scholarship federation. I didn't have the savvy to look into scholarships again after that, including the next many years when he was out of work.

I was lucky because at that time the semester fee at UCLA was $19., and the next semester was $26. When I left years later, it was $76. I was lucky because my parents lived a bus ride away, even though that particular bus ran every hour and a half. I was lucky that I could live at home, however strange a house it was by then. I worked nearly a full work week, which paid for books and lunch.

Ronald Reagan (if I remember, not sure re the details) instituted tuition for the university. I'm a believer in tuition free universities. I know they are very expensive. So is war.

Anyway, now college/university is incredibly expensive, even those with the lowest tuitions, and people can be in hock near forever, and as someone else said, trapped in their lives to earn to pay off the loans. I think of it as a national misappropriation of priorities.


I also agree a lot with what Free Duck said re the opening up of new channels of education for the self learner.

No, they're different things.

I have to get going, but will come back to this.

Tracking was falling out of favor when I was in grad school and this was something I spent a fair amount of time on. I have to brush up before I can speak definitively but as I remember, tracking is a much more holistic thing -- it's what you are, in school, all the time. It's also something that applies to everyone... each kid is in a track. They're in this track, or that track. It's especially bad for the kids who are labeled as being in a lower track, as it's hard for them to get out of it.

Gifted programs are much more of a supplemental thing. (30-90 minutes a week vs. all day every day.) There isn't the same issue with segregation. (One of the evils of tracking is that it keeps high-functioning and lower-functioning kids away from each other -- while interaction actually benefits both. Peer-to-peer tutoring helps the tutor and the tutee. Sozlet is out of her class for 90 minutes/ week, but for the other [um 6 hrs X 60 minutes is 360 minutes x 5 is 1800 minutes] 1710 minutes/week she's learning right alongside her classmates.)

Definition of tracking from Wikipedia:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education)

I don't know. I'm still reading the study. But at this point TAG, and AP courses really sound like tracking.

The study really goes into how a lot of kids that score higher on tests are kept out of TAG/AP beause they don't have the "cultural capital".

I'm sure this isn't the only study out there but it is certainly cited by a lot of other studies.

Boomer, from your article one segment said - "One teacher noted that the advanced programs were designed to respond to a segment of the White community that felt "Oh, we'll send our kids to public school, but only if there's
a special program for them"....

I find that not necessarily to be true. My daughter has a friend from a quite
different socio-economic background. That girl is bussed into our school from
quite a distance and she's in all AP classes. She's extremely bright and knows that her only ticket out of her crumby neighborhood is a good education, and she's given the opportunity to do so.

I happen to think that advanced programs are great - not only for the students
who are in AP classes, but also as an incentive for the students who need a bit of a push. I also chime in with the ones who said that the public school system in general is good. Certainly there are bad schools in every city, but I definitely would move to a good school district, if we didn't live in one already. Being in the right school can make such a difference.

... what don't you know, though?

The study is about tracking, the definition of which is above.

Do you disagree with the definition?

You do think that being segregated for 1/2 of one percent of the total school time is different than being segregated all the time, right?

I'm definitely against tracking.

I don't think gifted programs are tracking.

"Tracking" is a term that has a specific meaning.