Seattle public schools shuts down gifted and talented program(nypost.com)
3 pointsby bilsbie5 hours ago1 comment
  • matchbok35 hours ago
    Quite amazing how progressives continue to try to dismantle public education in the name of "equity". This will just push more to private schools, further harming public education.
    • zippyman555 hours ago
      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.
      • matchbok34 hours ago
        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.

        • tstrimple2 hours ago
          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

    • bigyabai5 hours ago
      Public schools generally don't receive enough funding to provide the bare-minimum. If the gifted/talented coursework was preventing normal students from graduation, why should they keep it?
    • tstrimple2 hours ago
      Mostly the is down to conservatives being completely incurious to the science of education and actual data around it. Especially because of the news sources they use. For example Seattle wasn't ending gifted programs. They were redistributing them so that students could go to the school they lived closest to instead of being bussed across the city. The article doesn't mention that the decision was reversed in 2025 and they are going to operate a hybrid model where the cohort schools still exist and parents can opt into either model. But go off on a deliberately misleading headline from an obviously biased source. It's the conservative thing to do.
      • matchbok32 hours ago
        Looks like they did reverse course a bit, aka a "delay". My comment is still valid. Progressives around the country view these programs as bad.

        Please avoid personal attacks, do better.

        • tstrimple2 hours ago
          I'm progressive. I don't view them as bad. So you're wrong again. Where I do think they are problematic is when they are introduced incredibly early. No kindergartner needs to be segregated into a gifted program. Especially gifted programs which don't have universal screening which allows teacher bias to influence class demographics.