The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
There are so many topics that are hard to talk about nowadays without getting into politics but politics and structural inequality are at the core of this.For the benefit of non-US readers, know that how the US funds public education (K-12) is rather unique. It's done through property taxes essentially. Depending on your state and city your property taxes can vary a lot with the same value property.But what this means is the wealthier localities have more tax revenue and thus better schools. This can be a vicious cycle of improving property values by having better schools and thus generating more tax revenue and so on. I say "vicious" because it is absolutely exclusionary to lower-income people who cannot possibly afford to live in these areas. And that's by design.Twenty years ago Bush (43) passed the No Child Left Behind Act, which many dubbed the No Child Gets Ahead Act. A lot of this was also in the name of "equity".I know people who send their children to public schools in NYC. NYC seems to be in the mood to eliminate these "gifted" programs because of "equity" too. The result? Those who can afford to send their children to private schools will. For those who are left, there are no more gifted programs.How does that help anyone?