Pay for child's tuition?

[partgypsy]

Now I see where the complaints about distribution of wealth are coming from and growing inequality.  Not only are people helping their kids pay for some of their college tuition, but room and board, new car, down-payment on a house, etc.  Are you going to wipe their ass for them for the first five years out of college too? I feel sorry for their future spouses. Everyone should have to learn how to scrimp and save for a few years at least.  I had student loans and bought my own car and paid for my own apartment out of college and never had any money issues.  My car was a few years old Cavalier that I paid off after two years, my apartment was full of low income people, and my furniture was all from Craigslist or Walmart. But it was all mine, no handouts. I think that's what gives me the confidence in myself even today, that no matter I will always be fine because I can take care of myself.

ETA - 10 yrs and $1M networth later, I still have the same $100 kitchen table and chairs set from Walmart and the same couch I bought for $100 on Craigslist.

(raises hand). Um. Both can exist at the same time? That is, parents can both pay for college, and kids can learn how to manage their money. I had a 1/4 scholarship (paid 1/4 of tuition all 4 years), my parents paid the remainder of the tuition bill (WHICH I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL!) and then 1K per year any other expenses (room, board, books, etc). Needless to say the 1K was not able to cover all other living expenses, so I both lived very inexpensively plus had summer jobs, and tutoring jobs during the school year. If I had in addition to living expenses also cover tuition, other major bills, honestly it would have been so stressful it would have been hard to focus and stay in school (I went to a private liberal arts college). Because my parents did what they did, I was able to get a top notch education as well as learn and grown in a college environment, and set me up to get acceptance and a full ride to obtain my PhD. I thank my Mom by doing things like getting her a new bed, down jacket, whatever the heck she asks for Christmas because I can afford it and have more net worth than her. I also am old enough, to remember that college costs when I attended, was a fraction of what college costs are now. People who are in their late 40's onward who "paid their way" and feel their child should do the same, are comparing apples to oranges.

[StarBright]

Personally, pipelines to the elite power class is not a value that I wish to instill or a practice I'm willing to support.  Saying that something is "the way that it is" like we have no control or responsibility is definitely, a position.

I get what you mean in terms of instilling values and stuff. I also want to instill values in my kids.

But they are values like, "Be a good person." I'm not sure, "You are categorically excluded from ever being president." is a value though.

I had no interest in being president. I had no interest in being a Supreme Court justice. I had no interest in going to Harvard and writing for the Lampoon and then trying to get a job writing for Letterman. Or going to an expensive Lib Arts school and falling in with the Safdie Brothers.  I'm sure there is a pathway from community college to the Supreme Court or Letterman or prestigious art filmmaker. But it seems to be a much narrower path.

Re: Presidential pipeline and elite schools - in the 90s there was this rumor that Harvard only held one spot per year for students from less desirable states (ie. Flyover Country - excluding Chicago) unless they were a celebrity or political child.

So I was an ambitious kid, and I wanted to go to Harvard. I did not get in. But I did end up in Boston and my freshman year was at a party at a Harvard where I met THE* kid who had gotten in from Indiana. That kid was Pete Buttigieg.

*I don't really know if Harvard took only 1 student from crappy states, but I like to think that Mayor Pete was the only Hoosier accepted to Harvard in 2000.

[wageslave23]

Now I see where the complaints about distribution of wealth are coming from and growing inequality.  Not only are people helping their kids pay for some of their college tuition, but room and board, new car, down-payment on a house, etc.  Are you going to wipe their ass for them for the first five years out of college too? I feel sorry for their future spouses. Everyone should have to learn how to scrimp and save for a few years at least.  I had student loans and bought my own car and paid for my own apartment out of college and never had any money issues.  My car was a few years old Cavalier that I paid off after two years, my apartment was full of low income people, and my furniture was all from Craigslist or Walmart. But it was all mine, no handouts. I think that's what gives me the confidence in myself even today, that no matter I will always be fine because I can take care of myself.

ETA - 10 yrs and $1M networth later, I still have the same $100 kitchen table and chairs set from Walmart and the same couch I bought for $100 on Craigslist.

(raises hand). Um. Both can exist at the same time? That is, parents can both pay for college, and kids can learn how to manage their money. I had a 1/4 scholarship (paid 1/4 of tuition all 4 years), my parents paid the remainder of the tuition bill (WHICH I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL!) and then 1K per year any other expenses (room, board, books, etc). Needless to say the 1K was not able to cover all other living expenses, so I both lived very inexpensively plus had summer jobs, and tutoring jobs during the school year. If I had in addition to living expenses also cover tuition, other major bills, honestly it would have been so stressful it would have been hard to focus and stay in school (I went to a private liberal arts college). Because my parents did what they did, I was able to get a top notch education as well as learn and grown in a college environment, and set me up to get acceptance and a full ride to obtain my PhD. I thank my Mom by doing things like getting her a new bed, down jacket, whatever the heck she asks for Christmas because I can afford it and have more net worth than her. I also am old enough, to remember that college costs when I attended, was a fraction of what college costs are now. People who are in their late 40's onward who "paid their way" and feel their child should do the same, are comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not saying it's either or. I'm saying it's no big deal to pay off your student loans after college if you are smart about it.  I didn't work at all during college. A good rule of thumb is your starting salary should be double the cost of one year of tuition.  That way you can pay them off in 5 years after graduating.

[Metalcat]

I think saying if you want to be fed chairman or treasury secretary then you need to an elite school is right up there with "you can't win the lottery if you don't play".  It's a technically true statement.  But I'm willing to bet my stache that your kid doesn't win the lottery or become the next fed chairman regardless of schools.  And even if that was the case, you ever hear of one those people complaining about student loans they can't afford to payoff themselves? If you are going to be that successful you can pay for college yourself, even ivy league. A friend of mine racked up a couple hundred thousand in student loans going through med school. I told him don't worry about it. Now he makes enough in one year to pay the whole balance off with 50% of his salary.

Now replace "med school" with "vet school", where you (most likely) literally will never pay off those loans.

But, golly, I would no more send my 4.7 GPA (advanced and AP courses are weighted here) 10+ AP classes (with mostly scores of 5), already finished up the calc sequence and moving on through Linear Algebra student to the local community college (ASSUMING I COULD AFFORD NOT TO) then I would tell him to go get a landscaping job for a couple of years.

Although my kid (a few yrs younger than yours), did just get a job - starts as soon as the work permit goes through (he's 16).  But it's <10 hr a week for a few months.

And swap out "literally will never pay off those loans" with "will likely spend much of their career contemplating suicide and/or struggling with raging addiction problems."

I literally held a major conference about burnout in the various medical professions. It's extremely disturbing how bad things have gotten for these professionals in general.

[Laura33]

We seem to do a really good job at reverse snobbishness here.  Which suits me, because that's kinda how I think in general.  But it does bug me when we apply it to kids' educations; there seems to be this implication that wanting to go to a high-powered school or have a big career is bad, and that parents who prioritize things like paying for private school are simply chasing status/throwing away money/raising entitled twits/[insert other negative connotation here].  And really, I think that's bullshit. 

My own analysis has been based around a few specific facts:

1.  We make more money than we need.  That's due in large part to our own parents' investment in our educational success, which put us in a position to take advantage of good career opportunities.

2.  DH and I are both smart and ambitious.  We chose demanding careers for Reasons, and those careers have served us well on many fronts.

3.  The reality is that certain career paths are either foreclosed to, or much harder for, kids who don't follow particular paths.  I know this for a fact, because I was never in the class that had those opportunities -- I was always the poor kid on scholarship, who had neither the background nor the connections to succeed in something like hedge funds or white-shoe law firms.  (Luckily, I never really wanted power/fame enough to put in the work necessary to succeed in that sort of environment)

4.  I don't give a shit whether my kids choose a similar career path, a more demanding/higher-profile path,* a non-demanding career path that values personal satisfaction over income, or something completely different.  What I do care about is providing my kids better opportunities than I had, to the extent that it is reasonably within my ability to do so.  Ultimately, I want my kids to be able to follow whatever path suits their skills and personalities and goals (and to think through the costs and tradeoffs of each possible path, of course).

5.  No matter what path my kids take, they're going to get jack shit as financial aid, because 1 above.  And frankly, they shouldn't; morally and ethically, I should be the one paying full freight, because there are many many many other kids who need the aid money far more than my kids do. 

6.  Ergo, I have saved money to allow my kids to attend whatever school best serves their long-term goals, because I can afford to do so.  But we're not just throwing money at them and calling it good; rather, we have had years of conversations about the tradeoffs of the various career paths, the cost-effectiveness of various choices for school and major, and what the different types of schools require and provide.  The ultimate goal is to give my kids both the financial ability to choose whatever path best suits their own particular goals, along with the knowledge and analytical ability to figure out what their own goals should be and make a good choice about the best path to get them there. 

So far, for DD, the choice has been a full-pay private liberal arts school with an engineering program (but not a high-profile "pipeline" school), because Reasons.  For DS, it's going to be a pure engineering program, but many details TBD.  We may well pay less for him than her (boy I hope so) because of the type of schools that do what he wants to do, and I couldn't possibly tell you right now which type of career path either kid will choose.  But it's not about achieving a specific end; its about giving my kids the widest possible opportunities to pursue what most interests them, along with (I hope) the ability to use those opportunities wisely.     


*DH and I have impressive titles but not the power/fame sort of paths.  We have both been driven by intellectual curiosity/escape from boredom/not wanting to be poor -- basically, we are geeks, though of different varieties -- so once we got to the career level where we had choice, we chose paths that were personally interesting vs. those that could provide more power or fame or whatever.   

[Metalcat]

^not necessarily bad, just not as shiny/happy/perfect as society makes it out to be.

Some kids would rock the hell out of high pressured, elite education. But it shouldn't be the default assumption that that's best for every single kid who *can* manage it

[Laura33]

^not necessarily bad, just not as shiny/happy/perfect as society makes it out to be.

Some kids would rock the hell out of high pressured, elite education. But it shouldn't be the default assumption that that's best for every single kid who *can* manage it

Now that ITA with.

[mathlete]

Personally, pipelines to the elite power class is not a value that I wish to instill or a practice I'm willing to support.  Saying that something is "the way that it is" like we have no control or responsibility is definitely, a position.

I get what you mean in terms of instilling values and stuff. I also want to instill values in my kids.

But they are values like, "Be a good person." I'm not sure, "You are categorically excluded from ever being president." is a value though.

I had no interest in being president. I had no interest in being a Supreme Court justice. I had no interest in going to Harvard and writing for the Lampoon and then trying to get a job writing for Letterman. Or going to an expensive Lib Arts school and falling in with the Safdie Brothers.  I'm sure there is a pathway from community college to the Supreme Court or Letterman or prestigious art filmmaker. But it seems to be a much narrower path.

Re: Presidential pipeline and elite schools - in the 90s there was this rumor that Harvard only held one spot per year for students from less desirable states (ie. Flyover Country - excluding Chicago) unless they were a celebrity or political child.

So I was an ambitious kid, and I wanted to go to Harvard. I did not get in. But I did end up in Boston and my freshman year was at a party at a Harvard where I met THE* kid who had gotten in from Indiana. That kid was Pete Buttigieg.

*I don't really know if Harvard took only 1 student from crappy states, but I like to think that Mayor Pete was the only Hoosier accepted to Harvard in 2000.

Interesting. Mayor Pete is also a great example of a "pipeline" guy. Harvard and Oxford to McKinsey and the Navy to elected office to a cabinet level position, all before 40.

I think pretty highly of Pete. I think he's extremely smart and hardworking. But so are a lot of people. Going to Harvard for Pete likely was the reason he worked in the campaign of fellow "upper crust-er" and perennial top 10 democrat, John Kerry.

[jeninco]

^not necessarily bad, just not as shiny/happy/perfect as society makes it out to be.

Some kids would rock the hell out of high pressured, elite education. But it shouldn't be the default assumption that that's best for every single kid who *can* manage it

Once again, @Laura33 has said this much more graciously than I can manage. Thanks! (I also agree: my kids SHOULDN'T be getting financial aid, because we've been saving since their birth, and we can swing it. I'd much prefer that the $ go to kids who need it!)

Yes, both these things. And you have to know your kid, because if you have one who is going to kick absolute ass at such a place, s/he probably should be there if you can swing it. 

This conversation is reminding me of the high school counselors going to a middle-school assembly for the about-to-be-entering high school 8th graders, and cautioning the kids against taking too many advanced classes at once. Probably good advice for many, many students, but the top 10%-20% (guessing on numbers, pretty sure it was >10%) of kids were just fine taking every advanced class they could get their hands on, and enough AP tests to choke a horse. They were not drowning in stress, or hating their lives, or struggling with their classes, at least not the students I saw. (They were working together to get an immense amount of work done their Junior year, which strikes me as a good thing.)

I like the Harvard story. Many places, in an attempt to construct a "diverse" (in many ways) entering class, look for geographical diversity as well as financial, racial, distribution of first-generation students, etc. etc.

[Metalcat]

^not necessarily bad, just not as shiny/happy/perfect as society makes it out to be.

Some kids would rock the hell out of high pressured, elite education. But it shouldn't be the default assumption that that's best for every single kid who *can* manage it

Once again, @Laura33 has said this much more graciously than I can manage. Thanks! (I also agree: my kids SHOULDN'T be getting financial aid, because we've been saving since their birth, and we can swing it. I'd much prefer that the $ go to kids who need it!)

Yes, both these things. And you have to know your kid, because if you have one who is going to kick absolute ass at such a place, s/he probably should be there if you can swing it. 

This conversation is reminding me of the high school counselors going to a middle-school assembly for the about-to-be-entering high school 8th graders, and cautioning the kids against taking too many advanced classes at once. Probably good advice for many, many students, but the top 10%-20% (guessing on numbers, pretty sure it was >10%) of kids were just fine taking every advanced class they could get their hands on, and enough AP tests to choke a horse. They were not drowning in stress, or hating their lives, or struggling with their classes, at least not the students I saw. (They were working together to get an immense amount of work done their Junior year, which strikes me as a good thing.)

I like the Harvard story. Many places, in an attempt to construct a "diverse" (in many ways) entering class, look for geographical diversity as well as financial, racial, distribution of first-generation students, etc. etc.

And yet educational inequality is rapidly and drastically worsening in the US.

[jeninco]

^not necessarily bad, just not as shiny/happy/perfect as society makes it out to be.

Some kids would rock the hell out of high pressured, elite education. But it shouldn't be the default assumption that that's best for every single kid who *can* manage it

Once again, @Laura33 has said this much more graciously than I can manage. Thanks! (I also agree: my kids SHOULDN'T be getting financial aid, because we've been saving since their birth, and we can swing it. I'd much prefer that the $ go to kids who need it!)

Yes, both these things. And you have to know your kid, because if you have one who is going to kick absolute ass at such a place, s/he probably should be there if you can swing it. 

This conversation is reminding me of the high school counselors going to a middle-school assembly for the about-to-be-entering high school 8th graders, and cautioning the kids against taking too many advanced classes at once. Probably good advice for many, many students, but the top 10%-20% (guessing on numbers, pretty sure it was >10%) of kids were just fine taking every advanced class they could get their hands on, and enough AP tests to choke a horse. They were not drowning in stress, or hating their lives, or struggling with their classes, at least not the students I saw. (They were working together to get an immense amount of work done their Junior year, which strikes me as a good thing.)

I like the Harvard story. Many places, in an attempt to construct a "diverse" (in many ways) entering class, look for geographical diversity as well as financial, racial, distribution of first-generation students, etc. etc.

And yet educational inequality is rapidly and drastically worsening in the US.

Sure, by the time you're qualified to get into any of these fancy colleges and universities you already won the lottery on parents, elementary schools, and secondary schools.  I've spent coming round about two decades helping students in K-12, and even in my town, where the education  isn't bad, it stinks for underprivileged and minority students in general.

[2sk22]

Sure, by the time you're qualified to get into any of these fancy colleges and universities you already won the lottery on parents, elementary schools, and secondary schools.  I've spent coming round about two decades helping students in K-12, and even in my town, where the education  isn't bad, it stinks for underprivileged and minority students in general.

One more factor is tracking in schools. I am not sure how it works in other parts of the country but here in NJ, a kid’s achievement levels in middle school will likely affect their career options for the rest of their lives in significant ways.

If a kid gets into the advanced math track in 5th grade, it means that they will complete Algebra-1 in 8th grade itself. So then in high school, the student starts with Algebra-2 and can complete AP Calculus AB by junior year (and Calculus BC by senior year if they are upto it). It progressively gets harder to transfer into the advanced math track after fifth grade, although it is technically possible.

Nowadays with the elimination of the standardized testing requirement, universities really look at the rigor of the high school courses that the student has taken. So AP Calculus is a strong signal in that regard. Consequently, admission into more math-heavy programs in universities like science and engineering is affected by things that happened years ago. All of the kids who were in my daughters' advanced math class in fifth grade were the ones who got into the top universities.

[partgypsy]

Sure, by the time you're qualified to get into any of these fancy colleges and universities you already won the lottery on parents, elementary schools, and secondary schools.  I've spent coming round about two decades helping students in K-12, and even in my town, where the education  isn't bad, it stinks for underprivileged and minority students in general.

One more factor is tracking in schools. I am not sure how it works in other parts of the country but here in NJ, a kid’s achievement levels in middle school will likely affect their career options for the rest of their lives in significant ways.

If a kid gets into the advanced math track in 5th grade, it means that they will complete Algebra-1 in 8th grade itself. So then in high school, the student starts with Algebra-2 and can complete AP Calculus AB by junior year (and Calculus BC by senior year if they are upto it). It progressively gets harder to transfer into the advanced math track after fifth grade, although it is technically possible.

Nowadays with the elimination of the standardized testing requirement, universities really look at the rigor of the high school courses that the student has taken. So AP Calculus is a strong signal in that regard. Consequently, admission into more math-heavy programs in universities like science and engineering is affected by things that happened years ago. All of the kids who were in my daughters' advanced math class in fifth grade were the ones who got into the top universities.

. I think this stuff is so interesting. My oldest daughter starting in first grade was put in the Aig (academically and intellectually gifted) track. Regularly testing 99% to her peers on many tests. And while she did take ap and college level classes in HS, she turned down participating in a lot of programs she was nominated for, including Duke Tip and the engineering track at school. She had her reasons, and i didn't want to be a tiger mom, but sometimes I wonder if I pushed her more, she'd actually be happier. In particular be at a rigorous liberal arts or ivy, vs decent  but not outstanding state school. She says she's happy so maybe I shouldn't care. I just know for myself going to a liberal arts school, to learn not just subjects but how to think, how to write, the world of inquiry, was formative to me.

[Chris Pascale]

Late to the party, and my answer is not in the survey options.

This year I have one in community college and one in the local state university.

They pay $500 per semester, plus books, and I pay the rest.

My oldest is 21 so files independent tax returns, benefiting from the tax credits. Since she'll be a senior next year I'm talking to her about dorming (which I'll pay for), but it may not be an option since she is taking the NYC exam for sanitation workers. If she ends up starting, let's say, next summer, I'll help set her up with a modest apartment near the route she is working and she'll complete her degree online.

Working in sanitation relates to her degree, but she's also very interested in the income and pension opportunities.

[Sanitary Stache]

Is “sanitation” the collection of garbage or operation of the sewer? I have learned some cool history about both garbage collection and the creation of sanitary sewers in NYC and other cities having to do with pack of nearly feral pigs.

[StarBright]

Personally, pipelines to the elite power class is not a value that I wish to instill or a practice I'm willing to support.  Saying that something is "the way that it is" like we have no control or responsibility is definitely, a position.

I get what you mean in terms of instilling values and stuff. I also want to instill values in my kids.

But they are values like, "Be a good person." I'm not sure, "You are categorically excluded from ever being president." is a value though.

I had no interest in being president. I had no interest in being a Supreme Court justice. I had no interest in going to Harvard and writing for the Lampoon and then trying to get a job writing for Letterman. Or going to an expensive Lib Arts school and falling in with the Safdie Brothers.  I'm sure there is a pathway from community college to the Supreme Court or Letterman or prestigious art filmmaker. But it seems to be a much narrower path.

Re: Presidential pipeline and elite schools - in the 90s there was this rumor that Harvard only held one spot per year for students from less desirable states (ie. Flyover Country - excluding Chicago) unless they were a celebrity or political child.

So I was an ambitious kid, and I wanted to go to Harvard. I did not get in. But I did end up in Boston and my freshman year was at a party at a Harvard where I met THE* kid who had gotten in from Indiana. That kid was Pete Buttigieg.

*I don't really know if Harvard took only 1 student from crappy states, but I like to think that Mayor Pete was the only Hoosier accepted to Harvard in 2000.

Interesting. Mayor Pete is also a great example of a "pipeline" guy. Harvard and Oxford to McKinsey and the Navy to elected office to a cabinet level position, all before 40.

I think pretty highly of Pete. I think he's extremely smart and hardworking. But so are a lot of people. Going to Harvard for Pete likely was the reason he worked in the campaign of fellow "upper crust-er" and perennial top 10 democrat, John Kerry.

100% why I shared the anecdote - Plenty of people WANT to try and get in that pipeline. But had he gone to Notre Dame instead of Harvard, the pipeline would have been a lot harder.

Every single McKinsey guy I knew back in my 20s went to Harvard, MIT, Yale or Wharton or Stanford for an MBA. The Pipeline is real and is a real reason to swing for the Ivies if that is what you want.

[Metalcat]

Personally, pipelines to the elite power class is not a value that I wish to instill or a practice I'm willing to support.  Saying that something is "the way that it is" like we have no control or responsibility is definitely, a position.

I get what you mean in terms of instilling values and stuff. I also want to instill values in my kids.

But they are values like, "Be a good person." I'm not sure, "You are categorically excluded from ever being president." is a value though.

I had no interest in being president. I had no interest in being a Supreme Court justice. I had no interest in going to Harvard and writing for the Lampoon and then trying to get a job writing for Letterman. Or going to an expensive Lib Arts school and falling in with the Safdie Brothers.  I'm sure there is a pathway from community college to the Supreme Court or Letterman or prestigious art filmmaker. But it seems to be a much narrower path.

Re: Presidential pipeline and elite schools - in the 90s there was this rumor that Harvard only held one spot per year for students from less desirable states (ie. Flyover Country - excluding Chicago) unless they were a celebrity or political child.

So I was an ambitious kid, and I wanted to go to Harvard. I did not get in. But I did end up in Boston and my freshman year was at a party at a Harvard where I met THE* kid who had gotten in from Indiana. That kid was Pete Buttigieg.

*I don't really know if Harvard took only 1 student from crappy states, but I like to think that Mayor Pete was the only Hoosier accepted to Harvard in 2000.

Interesting. Mayor Pete is also a great example of a "pipeline" guy. Harvard and Oxford to McKinsey and the Navy to elected office to a cabinet level position, all before 40.

I think pretty highly of Pete. I think he's extremely smart and hardworking. But so are a lot of people. Going to Harvard for Pete likely was the reason he worked in the campaign of fellow "upper crust-er" and perennial top 10 democrat, John Kerry.

100% why I shared the anecdote - Plenty of people WANT to try and get in that pipeline. But had he gone to Notre Dame instead of Harvard, the pipeline would have been a lot harder.

Every single McKinsey guy I knew back in my 20s went to Harvard, MIT, Yale or Wharton or Stanford for an MBA. The Pipeline is real and is a real reason to swing for the Ivies if that is what you want.

The pipeline is very real, but again, the value of it should be highly questioned when it comes to pressure put on kids.

The data coming from the people who have gone through those pipelines is a little scary in terms of life satisfaction, mental health, addiction, and suicidality. The more elite the career, paradoxically often the less career satisfaction.

The more elite a career, the more status anxiety tends to come with it, and the lower the job satisfaction. So ironically, the American dream of working really, really, superordinately hard and achieving your lofty goals of obtaining great wealth and status is a pretty reliable way to feel like it isn't worth it.

Funnily enough, a lot of the research on this has been put out by Harvard.

If I had a kid gunning for that life, I would personally err more on the side of cautioning them rather than enthusiastically encouraging them. I would try to ensure that they can grasp the very real trade offs and sacrifice of elite schooling and ultra competitive careers.

There are always exceptions to the rules, but I would want my kid to understand what the rule is and why it's improbable that they will be the exception. Wanting to go through the elite pipeline an actually work one of those careers and be a happy, healthy, well adjusted person is about as probable as talented kid becoming a successful actor...maybe a little less probable, several of my classmates became successful actors, but the ultra elite career ones are universally miserable, demented fucks.

Thankfully I don't have kids and don't live in the US, so it's a non-issue for me. Here in Canada, I actually went to one of our most elite schools because it was the cheapest option. Lol. Still a miserable experience, but cheap nonetheless.

[Abe]

The pipeline is very real, but again, the value of it should be highly questioned when it comes to pressure put on kids.

The data coming from the people who have gone through those pipelines is a little scary in terms of life satisfaction, mental health, addiction, and suicidality. The more elite the career, paradoxically often the less career satisfaction.

The more elite a career, the more status anxiety tends to come with it, and the lower the job satisfaction. So ironically, the American dream of working really, really, superordinately hard and achieving your lofty goals of obtaining great wealth and status is a pretty reliable way to feel like it isn't worth it.

Funnily enough, a lot of the research on this has been put out by Harvard.

If I had a kid gunning for that life, I would personally err more on the side of cautioning them rather than enthusiastically encouraging them. I would try to ensure that they can grasp the very real trade offs and sacrifice of elite schooling and ultra competitive careers.

Thankfully I don't have kids and don't live in the US, so it's a non-issue for me.

My kid is far too young to have any opinions on this, but my wife and I do agree with your comments. This comes from our experience going through a separate (but similar high-pressure, pun intended!) pipeline even with eyes wide open (mostly from my parents' experiences). I'm pretty sure if my job's purpose was solely to make money for a company selling/doing unimportant things, it'd be not worth it. I'd say if the pipeline sprays you out into a meaningful career, it's kind of worth it. Aiming for that landing spot requires foresight that many kids just don't have (especially if they get sucked into it during the early college years and just go with the flow). They require a lot of guidance to decide if it's worth the sacrifice, and figuring out what they want (opposed to what society / family wants of them).

After all this, if my kid decides he prefers a lower-pressure education leading to a low-pressure career that pays the bills and lets him chill out, then we'd be happy. If that requires paying for his education so he doesn't deal with loans, extra awesome for him.

[Metalcat]

The pipeline is very real, but again, the value of it should be highly questioned when it comes to pressure put on kids.

The data coming from the people who have gone through those pipelines is a little scary in terms of life satisfaction, mental health, addiction, and suicidality. The more elite the career, paradoxically often the less career satisfaction.

The more elite a career, the more status anxiety tends to come with it, and the lower the job satisfaction. So ironically, the American dream of working really, really, superordinately hard and achieving your lofty goals of obtaining great wealth and status is a pretty reliable way to feel like it isn't worth it.

Funnily enough, a lot of the research on this has been put out by Harvard.

If I had a kid gunning for that life, I would personally err more on the side of cautioning them rather than enthusiastically encouraging them. I would try to ensure that they can grasp the very real trade offs and sacrifice of elite schooling and ultra competitive careers.

Thankfully I don't have kids and don't live in the US, so it's a non-issue for me.

My kid is far too young to have any opinions on this, but my wife and I do agree with your comments. This comes from our experience going through a separate (but similar high-pressure, pun intended!) pipeline even with eyes wide open (mostly from my parents' experiences). I'm pretty sure if my job's purpose was solely to make money for a company selling/doing unimportant things, it'd be not worth it. I'd say if the pipeline sprays you out into a meaningful career, it's kind of worth it. Aiming for that landing spot requires foresight that many kids just don't have (especially if they get sucked into it during the early college years and just go with the flow). They require a lot of guidance to decide if it's worth the sacrifice, and figuring out what they want (opposed to what society / family wants of them).

After all this, if my kid decides he prefers a lower-pressure education leading to a low-pressure career that pays the bills and lets him chill out, then we'd be happy. If that requires paying for his education so he doesn't deal with loans, extra awesome for him.

To be fair, I'm not talking about the low end of elite jobs, the doctors, lawyers, high end software engineers, or anything in that range.

I'm specifically talking about the pipeline referred to before of ultra, ultra elite jobs that basically require you to do specific education at specific institutions. The kind of careers that have annual compensation in the millions and many with bonuses several times that amount. Or very high level public office, etc.

A lot of those careers are highly "meaningful" but that doesn't stop them from being absolutely soul crushing at the same time.

[mm1970]

Sure, by the time you're qualified to get into any of these fancy colleges and universities you already won the lottery on parents, elementary schools, and secondary schools.  I've spent coming round about two decades helping students in K-12, and even in my town, where the education  isn't bad, it stinks for underprivileged and minority students in general.

One more factor is tracking in schools. I am not sure how it works in other parts of the country but here in NJ, a kid’s achievement levels in middle school will likely affect their career options for the rest of their lives in significant ways.

If a kid gets into the advanced math track in 5th grade, it means that they will complete Algebra-1 in 8th grade itself. So then in high school, the student starts with Algebra-2 and can complete AP Calculus AB by junior year (and Calculus BC by senior year if they are upto it). It progressively gets harder to transfer into the advanced math track after fifth grade, although it is technically possible.

Nowadays with the elimination of the standardized testing requirement, universities really look at the rigor of the high school courses that the student has taken. So AP Calculus is a strong signal in that regard. Consequently, admission into more math-heavy programs in universities like science and engineering is affected by things that happened years ago. All of the kids who were in my daughters' advanced math class in fifth grade were the ones who got into the top universities.

Same with my kid, but this is tricky.  At our potluck last night, some of the older parents were lamenting the dismantling of the tracking system.

In our district, they are doing everything they can to get all kids the ability and chance to take honors courses.  I think that's a good thing.

However, I don't know, from a kid's perspective, what that means if they don't WANT that.  One of my friend's kids is in JH and she wants/ needs the vocational track.  It still exists, but isn't as big as it used to be.  My nephew went vocational (went to school for diesel mechanics), and is now working on heavy equipment. 

[Laura33]

The pipeline is very real, but again, the value of it should be highly questioned when it comes to pressure put on kids.

The data coming from the people who have gone through those pipelines is a little scary in terms of life satisfaction, mental health, addiction, and suicidality. The more elite the career, paradoxically often the less career satisfaction.

The more elite a career, the more status anxiety tends to come with it, and the lower the job satisfaction. So ironically, the American dream of working really, really, superordinately hard and achieving your lofty goals of obtaining great wealth and status is a pretty reliable way to feel like it isn't worth it.

Funnily enough, a lot of the research on this has been put out by Harvard.

If I had a kid gunning for that life, I would personally err more on the side of cautioning them rather than enthusiastically encouraging them. I would try to ensure that they can grasp the very real trade offs and sacrifice of elite schooling and ultra competitive careers.

Thankfully I don't have kids and don't live in the US, so it's a non-issue for me.

I'd say if the pipeline sprays you out into a meaningful career, it's kind of worth it. Aiming for that landing spot requires foresight that many kids just don't have (especially if they get sucked into it during the early college years and just go with the flow). They require a lot of guidance to decide if it's worth the sacrifice, and figuring out what they want (opposed to what society / family wants of them).

Yeah, the problem is that kids don't have the maturity to know what will actually make them happy/satisfied until they've already made a bunch of those choices.  It's true that kids can get sucked into the pressure pipeline before they realize they don't want what it offers; but it's also true that kids can get tracked away from those various pipelines before the realize they might want that. 

My problem was that I never knew exactly what I wanted to do, so I defaulted to options that would keep the most doors open, unless/until I knew I wanted something different, on the theory that it would always be easier to choose "down" than to move up.  That worked pretty well for me; I knew I didn't want the super-competitive 100-hr/week lifestyle so didn't aim for the tippy-top, but sort-of self-selected to a level down from that (e.g., high-level but affordable schools instead big-name Ivies; starting at a big firm to keep my options open, but regional vs. national), and kept going until I found the right mix for me.  So my approach with my kids has been similar.  It's not about pushing for a big-name or high-achievement; it's about defaulting to the path that keeps the most options open for my kids unless and until they can tell that something else will suit them better -- and then doing whatever I can to help them get the information about the pros and cons of the various options so they'll recognize a good or bad fit when they see it. 

[StarBright]

The pipeline is very real, but again, the value of it should be highly questioned when it comes to pressure put on kids.

The data coming from the people who have gone through those pipelines is a little scary in terms of life satisfaction, mental health, addiction, and suicidality. The more elite the career, paradoxically often the less career satisfaction.

The more elite a career, the more status anxiety tends to come with it, and the lower the job satisfaction. So ironically, the American dream of working really, really, superordinately hard and achieving your lofty goals of obtaining great wealth and status is a pretty reliable way to feel like it isn't worth it.

Funnily enough, a lot of the research on this has been put out by Harvard.

If I had a kid gunning for that life, I would personally err more on the side of cautioning them rather than enthusiastically encouraging them. I would try to ensure that they can grasp the very real trade offs and sacrifice of elite schooling and ultra competitive careers.

Thankfully I don't have kids and don't live in the US, so it's a non-issue for me.

I'd say if the pipeline sprays you out into a meaningful career, it's kind of worth it. Aiming for that landing spot requires foresight that many kids just don't have (especially if they get sucked into it during the early college years and just go with the flow). They require a lot of guidance to decide if it's worth the sacrifice, and figuring out what they want (opposed to what society / family wants of them).

Yeah, the problem is that kids don't have the maturity to know what will actually make them happy/satisfied until they've already made a bunch of those choices.  It's true that kids can get sucked into the pressure pipeline before they realize they don't want what it offers; but it's also true that kids can get tracked away from those various pipelines before the realize they might want that. 

^ As a kid whose parents did not initially support my goals (because they were "too difficult"), I don't want to take any options away from my kids. I don't want to pre-emptively pull them off track.

And yet I agree that I would probably have been a less burned out adult if I hadn't been such an intense teen and twenty something. And yet, I also don't regret trying: I had amazing experiences in my 20s that only happened because I was ambitious. But I also sort of hope my kids grow up wanting to be accountants.

For all intents and purposes, you have to be on the AP track by the end of 4th grade in our school district. I don't think there is a healthy or appropriate way to lay those constraints on a 10 year old. And we absolutely shouldn't. And yet . . . the system is what it is, and you hate to take your kid out of the running because the system sucks.

(Just to show my cards here  - we opted to remove our oldest child from the AP track going into 5th grade because of an anxiety DX and he was not handling school well, but we are also very conflicted about it.)

[jeninco]

Our experience was that removing the tracked classes COULD work OK, if you have really, really excellent teachers. But most teachers aren't good enough, and then you wind up in the position of "I'm not going to spend time marking up your essay because you're getting a B+ or better, and I need to spend time on the kids not doing that well." Which is pretty much literally what each of my kids had (at least ) one teacher tell him.

Also, there are kids in the system who can learn in leaps and bounds, and they deserved to be challenged and see improvement, too! Putting them in, say, a math classroom with kids who are at or below grade level, unless the teacher can simultaneously teach two or three classes, isn't fair to anyone. (And before you start with the "they can help the struggling students", they could, in small doses. But they deserve to get to learn new material to them, too! And I don't see a district offering to pay those students to serve as assistant teachers, either.)

So, yeah -- I understand the problem with tracking, but I also watched my older kid get so bored and disengaged that he was starting to be disruptive (while finishing all the classwork accurately and reasonably neatly).  Reader, we switched schools.

Also, around here at least, you can take various AP classes in HS without necessarily having worked your way up the advanced track. Calculus, (and languages) sure -- you have to have gotten through the preliminary math classes for that. But Environmental Science, Psychology, Macro- and Micro-economics, World History, US Geography -- there are a ton that are basically stand-alone. I think we even teach an expanded (whole year, rather than 1 semester) AP Statistics class, for kids who will be helped by that.

[mm1970]

Our experience was that removing the tracked classes COULD work OK, if you have really, really excellent teachers. But most teachers aren't good enough, and then you wind up in the position of "I'm not going to spend time marking up your essay because you're getting a B+ or better, and I need to spend time on the kids not doing that well." Which is pretty much literally what each of my kids had (at least ) one teacher tell him.

Also, there are kids in the system who can learn in leaps and bounds, and they deserved to be challenged and see improvement, too! Putting them in, say, a math classroom with kids who are at or below grade level, unless the teacher can simultaneously teach two or three classes, isn't fair to anyone. (And before you start with the "they can help the struggling students", they could, in small doses. But they deserve to get to learn new material to them, too! And I don't see a district offering to pay those students to serve as assistant teachers, either.)

So, yeah -- I understand the problem with tracking, but I also watched my older kid get so bored and disengaged that he was starting to be disruptive (while finishing all the classwork accurately and reasonably neatly).  Reader, we switched schools.

Also, around here at least, you can take various AP classes in HS without necessarily having worked your way up the advanced track. Calculus, (and languages) sure -- you have to have gotten through the preliminary math classes for that. But Environmental Science, Psychology, Macro- and Micro-economics, World History, US Geography -- there are a ton that are basically stand-alone. I think we even teach an expanded (whole year, rather than 1 semester) AP Statistics class, for kids who will be helped by that.

Our school district is removing tracking this year. Not AP - those will remain the same (and anyone can sign up), but they are combining Honors and College prep and...

they aren't giving the teachers any more resources.  So some of the teachers were in the test run, and they think it's great!  (Mostly English teachers so far.)
The math teachers, not so excited.
Essentially, the class will have a mix of students, with 2 different enrollment lists (one for CP, one for Honors).  The teacher will teach both simultaneously, and if the CP student can move up to the honors coursework, they get the honors credit.

But...they aren't giving the teachers more resources.
They already removed the honors classes in junior high, so yay my kid's gonna be bored.

I was that kid in 11th grade who basically taught 1/3 of the class trig because I picked it up quickly and what else am I gonna do during "homework time".

[jeninco]

Our experience was that removing the tracked classes COULD work OK, if you have really, really excellent teachers. But most teachers aren't good enough, and then you wind up in the position of "I'm not going to spend time marking up your essay because you're getting a B+ or better, and I need to spend time on the kids not doing that well." Which is pretty much literally what each of my kids had (at least ) one teacher tell him.

Also, there are kids in the system who can learn in leaps and bounds, and they deserved to be challenged and see improvement, too! Putting them in, say, a math classroom with kids who are at or below grade level, unless the teacher can simultaneously teach two or three classes, isn't fair to anyone. (And before you start with the "they can help the struggling students", they could, in small doses. But they deserve to get to learn new material to them, too! And I don't see a district offering to pay those students to serve as assistant teachers, either.)

So, yeah -- I understand the problem with tracking, but I also watched my older kid get so bored and disengaged that he was starting to be disruptive (while finishing all the classwork accurately and reasonably neatly).  Reader, we switched schools.

Also, around here at least, you can take various AP classes in HS without necessarily having worked your way up the advanced track. Calculus, (and languages) sure -- you have to have gotten through the preliminary math classes for that. But Environmental Science, Psychology, Macro- and Micro-economics, World History, US Geography -- there are a ton that are basically stand-alone. I think we even teach an expanded (whole year, rather than 1 semester) AP Statistics class, for kids who will be helped by that.

Our school district is removing tracking this year. Not AP - those will remain the same (and anyone can sign up), but they are combining Honors and College prep and...

they aren't giving the teachers any more resources.  So some of the teachers were in the test run, and they think it's great!  (Mostly English teachers so far.)
The math teachers, not so excited.
Essentially, the class will have a mix of students, with 2 different enrollment lists (one for CP, one for Honors).  The teacher will teach both simultaneously, and if the CP student can move up to the honors coursework, they get the honors credit.

But...they aren't giving the teachers more resources.
They already removed the honors classes in junior high, so yay my kid's gonna be bored.

I was that kid in 11th grade who basically taught 1/3 of the class trig because I picked it up quickly and what else am I gonna do during "homework time".

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

[wageslave23]

Our experience was that removing the tracked classes COULD work OK, if you have really, really excellent teachers. But most teachers aren't good enough, and then you wind up in the position of "I'm not going to spend time marking up your essay because you're getting a B+ or better, and I need to spend time on the kids not doing that well." Which is pretty much literally what each of my kids had (at least ) one teacher tell him.

Also, there are kids in the system who can learn in leaps and bounds, and they deserved to be challenged and see improvement, too! Putting them in, say, a math classroom with kids who are at or below grade level, unless the teacher can simultaneously teach two or three classes, isn't fair to anyone. (And before you start with the "they can help the struggling students", they could, in small doses. But they deserve to get to learn new material to them, too! And I don't see a district offering to pay those students to serve as assistant teachers, either.)

So, yeah -- I understand the problem with tracking, but I also watched my older kid get so bored and disengaged that he was starting to be disruptive (while finishing all the classwork accurately and reasonably neatly).  Reader, we switched schools.

Also, around here at least, you can take various AP classes in HS without necessarily having worked your way up the advanced track. Calculus, (and languages) sure -- you have to have gotten through the preliminary math classes for that. But Environmental Science, Psychology, Macro- and Micro-economics, World History, US Geography -- there are a ton that are basically stand-alone. I think we even teach an expanded (whole year, rather than 1 semester) AP Statistics class, for kids who will be helped by that.

Our school district is removing tracking this year. Not AP - those will remain the same (and anyone can sign up), but they are combining Honors and College prep and...

they aren't giving the teachers any more resources.  So some of the teachers were in the test run, and they think it's great!  (Mostly English teachers so far.)
The math teachers, not so excited.
Essentially, the class will have a mix of students, with 2 different enrollment lists (one for CP, one for Honors).  The teacher will teach both simultaneously, and if the CP student can move up to the honors coursework, they get the honors credit.

But...they aren't giving the teachers more resources.
They already removed the honors classes in junior high, so yay my kid's gonna be bored.

I was that kid in 11th grade who basically taught 1/3 of the class trig because I picked it up quickly and what else am I gonna do during "homework time".

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education. It's hard for some people to admit that there are kids that are just plain dumb. They don't understand that it behooves society to stop trying to teach the future garbage man advanced math and focus on teaching the future engineer the math he will use to build our future infrastructure.

[jeninco]

<snip>

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education. It's hard for some people to admit that there are kids that are just plain dumb. They don't understand that it behooves society to stop trying to teach the future garbage man advanced math and focus on teaching the future engineer the math he will use to build our future infrastructure.
[/quote]

Kindly don't use my family's problems with the educational system as a justification for your Huxley-ian beliefs. I neither said or implied what you're saying, nor do I believe it. Rant away on your own time, but don't make it look like it logically follows from anything I've said.

And the garbage man needs to understand math too, and has every right to learn as much as s/he can! I'm saying is that kids move at different paces through different parts of math, and it's a much more manageable teaching task if you have a group that moves at approximately the same pace. And I'd point out that some of the differences are more dependent on family stability (regular meals, not having to be responsible for taking care of your siblings, not having to parent your parents, access to a safe place to sleep, and a washing machine, for fuck's sake) and your parent's education level then the student's own "intelligence".

[charis]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

[wageslave23]

<snip>

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education. It's hard for some people to admit that there are kids that are just plain dumb. They don't understand that it behooves society to stop trying to teach the future garbage man advanced math and focus on teaching the future engineer the math he will use to build our future infrastructure.

Kindly don't use my family's problems with the educational system as a justification for your Huxley-ian beliefs. I neither said or implied what you're saying, nor do I believe it. Rant away on your own time, but don't make it look like it logically follows from anything I've said.

And the garbage man needs to understand math too, and has every right to learn as much as s/he can! I'm saying is that kids move at different paces through different parts of math, and it's a much more manageable teaching task if you have a group that moves at approximately the same pace. And I'd point out that some of the differences are more dependent on family stability (regular meals, not having to be responsible for taking care of your siblings, not having to parent your parents, access to a safe place to sleep, and a washing machine, for fuck's sake) and your parent's education level then the student's own "intelligence".
[/quote]

I must have used some trigger words because I thought I was agreeing with you that it doesn't make sense to punish the advanced kids in order to help the less advanced by teaching to the lowest denominator.  Maybe if I used an example that was less emotionally charged. You are coaching a baseball team. Half the kids are excellent at baseball and know all the rules and very enthusiastic. The other half are not very athletic and still need to learn the fundamentals. It would be best for the second half to stay with the first half. They would learn from and be challenged by the first group. The first group would be bored and maybe act out, but would not improve or learn anything.  Or you can teach each group where they are at. They all maximize their potential and some of the second group end up catching and surpassing the first group.  But not at the expense of the first group. I don't know why this is a controversial position.  If my daughter was a lot better at basketball than my son then I would teach them differently by meeting them where they are at. Not dumb it down so that my daughter's growth is stifled. Maybe my son excels at art and my daughter struggles.  I'd rather have a daughter that excels at basketball and a son that excels at art than both be equally mediocre at basketball and art.

[wageslave23]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

[getsorted]

One thing I will say against tracking-- there is some evidence that older children have better test scores and educational attainment than younger children because teaching a near-peer who doesn't understand the subject as well as you do helps cement your learning. In other words, there is an educational knock-on effect from teaching younger siblings.

I know this was a big part of my learning, including helping people in my classes who were struggling. I had one classmate who was an actual genius. I was always the top of our class until she showed up and did everything I did in less than half the time. We had a real dud of a trigonometry teacher one year-- he would sleep through class-- and this classmate and I ended up teaching ourselves trig, and the rest of the class as well. We are from the butthole of nowhere, and she went on to graduate from Cornell, while I went to a state college on a full (merit-based) scholarship. There are ways of teaching groups of people who are at different levels that benefit everyone, especially if class sizes are small enough that personalized attention is possible.

[DeniseNJ]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

In high school we had the regular classes for each subject, but each subject also had an honors class and an AP (advanced placement) class, so effectively each subject had 3 individual tracks.  You could take regular biology and honors physics and AP Spanish. Sounds like what you're talking about above.

[jeninco]

<snip>

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education. It's hard for some people to admit that there are kids that are just plain dumb. They don't understand that it behooves society to stop trying to teach the future garbage man advanced math and focus on teaching the future engineer the math he will use to build our future infrastructure.

Kindly don't use my family's problems with the educational system as a justification for your Huxley-ian beliefs. I neither said or implied what you're saying, nor do I believe it. Rant away on your own time, but don't make it look like it logically follows from anything I've said.

And the garbage man needs to understand math too, and has every right to learn as much as s/he can! I'm saying is that kids move at different paces through different parts of math, and it's a much more manageable teaching task if you have a group that moves at approximately the same pace. And I'd point out that some of the differences are more dependent on family stability (regular meals, not having to be responsible for taking care of your siblings, not having to parent your parents, access to a safe place to sleep, and a washing machine, for fuck's sake) and your parent's education level then the student's own "intelligence".

I must have used some trigger words because I thought I was agreeing with you that it doesn't make sense to punish the advanced kids in order to help the less advanced by teaching to the lowest denominator.  Maybe if I used an example that was less emotionally charged. You are coaching a baseball team. Half the kids are excellent at baseball and know all the rules and very enthusiastic. The other half are not very athletic and still need to learn the fundamentals. It would be best for the second half to stay with the first half. They would learn from and be challenged by the first group. The first group would be bored and maybe act out, but would not improve or learn anything.  Or you can teach each group where they are at. They all maximize their potential and some of the second group end up catching and surpassing the first group.  But not at the expense of the first group. I don't know why this is a controversial position.  If my daughter was a lot better at basketball than my son then I would teach them differently by meeting them where they are at. Not dumb it down so that my daughter's growth is stifled. Maybe my son excels at art and my daughter struggles.  I'd rather have a daughter that excels at basketball and a son that excels at art than both be equally mediocre at basketball and art.
[/quote]

OK, sorry -- the whole "some kid are just plain dumb" thing did, in fact, push my buttons. Because although I'm sure there are a few kids out there, especially the ones with intellectual disabilities, who aren't going to learn at the same speed as the gifted kids, there are a lot more who -- if we can help take care of their basically physical needs, and get them some good teachers -- can learn far, far more than they are now.

I have so many mixed feelings about both the existence of advanced classes and relying on students to teach other students. I have (and know) kids who are only marginally teachable in group settings, and if you make the groups more heterogeneous and have typical teachers, that probably becomes "not really teachable in group settings". In @sadiesortsitout 's case, it's fortunate that you were both girls conditioned to help other people, because had you been boys conditioned not to admit to being smart, that class could've gone in a completely different direction!

And, @charis, I know that "tracking" is systematically racist. However, telling wiggly second graders that they should sit quietly with their hands in their laps for half the class period after they've finished their work is terrible teaching, and is setting everyone up for failure. Worse if you make sure to tell them they're "racist" if they ask for something else to do.  I don't know the answer to this in the current system -- it's like, it could all work out if we selected for and trained excellent teachers and they paid them something close to their worth?

Anyhow, this thread has gone pretty far off the rails -- if we're going to continue to discuss this stuff, we should probably start a new one.

[Metalcat]

<snip>

Yeah, around here the mediocre English teachers loved it, because they got to kick back and do a lot less work -- The great English teachers took one look at the oncoming mess, and retired. So now Freshman (9th grade) year "Advanced LA" reads 5 books. In an entire year. With a unifying theme of "they're short".

I'm sorry about your kid. Junior High kinda sucks, and this really just makes it worse, because depending on how the social pressures work, the kid just lost his peer groups and it's not cool to be smart or intellectually curious. At least in the advanced classes, there was a critical mass of kids being interested in the material together.

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education. It's hard for some people to admit that there are kids that are just plain dumb. They don't understand that it behooves society to stop trying to teach the future garbage man advanced math and focus on teaching the future engineer the math he will use to build our future infrastructure.

Kindly don't use my family's problems with the educational system as a justification for your Huxley-ian beliefs. I neither said or implied what you're saying, nor do I believe it. Rant away on your own time, but don't make it look like it logically follows from anything I've said.

And the garbage man needs to understand math too, and has every right to learn as much as s/he can! I'm saying is that kids move at different paces through different parts of math, and it's a much more manageable teaching task if you have a group that moves at approximately the same pace. And I'd point out that some of the differences are more dependent on family stability (regular meals, not having to be responsible for taking care of your siblings, not having to parent your parents, access to a safe place to sleep, and a washing machine, for fuck's sake) and your parent's education level then the student's own "intelligence".

I must have used some trigger words because I thought I was agreeing with you that it doesn't make sense to punish the advanced kids in order to help the less advanced by teaching to the lowest denominator.  Maybe if I used an example that was less emotionally charged. You are coaching a baseball team. Half the kids are excellent at baseball and know all the rules and very enthusiastic. The other half are not very athletic and still need to learn the fundamentals. It would be best for the second half to stay with the first half. They would learn from and be challenged by the first group. The first group would be bored and maybe act out, but would not improve or learn anything.  Or you can teach each group where they are at. They all maximize their potential and some of the second group end up catching and surpassing the first group.  But not at the expense of the first group. I don't know why this is a controversial position.  If my daughter was a lot better at basketball than my son then I would teach them differently by meeting them where they are at. Not dumb it down so that my daughter's growth is stifled. Maybe my son excels at art and my daughter struggles.  I'd rather have a daughter that excels at basketball and a son that excels at art than both be equally mediocre at basketball and art.

OK, sorry -- the whole "some kid are just plain dumb" thing did, in fact, push my buttons. Because although I'm sure there are a few kids out there, especially the ones with intellectual disabilities, who aren't going to learn at the same speed as the gifted kids, there are a lot more who -- if we can help take care of their basically physical needs, and get them some good teachers -- can learn far, far more than they are now.

I have so many mixed feelings about both the existence of advanced classes and relying on students to teach other students. I have (and know) kids who are only marginally teachable in group settings, and if you make the groups more heterogeneous and have typical teachers, that probably becomes "not really teachable in group settings". In @sadiesortsitout 's case, it's fortunate that you were both girls conditioned to help other people, because had you been boys conditioned not to admit to being smart, that class could've gone in a completely different direction!

And, @charis, I know that "tracking" is systematically racist. However, telling wiggly second graders that they should sit quietly with their hands in their laps for half the class period after they've finished their work is terrible teaching, and is setting everyone up for failure. Worse if you make sure to tell them they're "racist" if they ask for something else to do.  I don't know the answer to this in the current system -- it's like, it could all work out if we selected for and trained excellent teachers and they paid them something close to their worth?

Anyhow, this thread has gone pretty far off the rails -- if we're going to continue to discuss this stuff, we should probably start a new one.
[/quote]

All of these posts are just making it sound like the quality of teaching has taken a huge hit.

I'm not saying the quality of teachers, but the quality of teaching sounds just awful in all of these posts I'm reading in this thread.

It boggles my mind. I was both a learning disabled kid and a gifted kid. I needed personalized accommodation throughout my schooling as a result. This was never an issue unless I had a bad teacher, which sometimes happened.

I'm having a hard time grasping what systemic changes have happened to make teaching so much worse?

Is it class sizes? Lack of funding?

Why do all of your descriptions of schools sound like post apocalyptic shit holes where no one actually teaches kids unless they're segregated into little rich-kid pods?

What the fuck happened?

[wageslave23]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

In high school we had the regular classes for each subject, but each subject also had an honors class and an AP (advanced placement) class, so effectively each subject had 3 individual tracks.  You could take regular biology and honors physics and AP Spanish. Sounds like what you're talking about above.

Yes, that's what we had too.  And I think it worked out great.

[StarBright]

All of these posts are just making it sound like the quality of teaching has taken a huge hit.

I'm not saying the quality of teachers, but the quality of teaching sounds just awful in all of these posts I'm reading in this thread.

It boggles my mind. I was both a learning disabled kid and a gifted kid. I needed personalized accommodation throughout my schooling as a result. This was never an issue unless I had a bad teacher, which sometimes happened.

I'm having a hard time grasping what systemic changes have happened to make teaching so much worse?

Is it class sizes? Lack of funding?

Why do all of your descriptions of schools sound like post apocalyptic shit holes where no one actually teaches kids unless they're segregated into little rich-kid pods?

What the fuck happened?

Both? Lots has happened in the last 20 years, and then COVID exacerbated a lot of the existing issues.

Funding is mostly based on property taxes through all (most?) of the US. Wealthy areas= better schools (and there is the whole history of red lining, white flight etc, so racially segregated). Even well funded schools often have crappy class sizes. Our school district is tops in our state and my son had 30 kids in his 4th grade class last year.

Most schools don't do tracking outside of gifted programs - so you have one teacher having to teach a range of abilities for 30 kids in the elementary and intermediate schools years. Teachers are evaluated based on scores improving over the year, so a disproportionate amount of time is spent bringing up the low and medium scores. Kids who get good grades can't improve their scores by much and actually hurt the teacher's and school's scores. Kids on the lower end of the spectrum also have trouble and there is concern that most people just teach to the lower middle now.

This is based on federal education policy - No Child Left Behind Act (Bush 2) and Every Child Succeeds Act (Obama). Basically the federal government set a bunch of minimum standards 20 year ago (theoretically good), but implementation was all standardized test based and not great, and I'm not sure that there was much increased funding to support the mandates. If I recall, a lot of NCLB was punitive - like if your scores went down you lost funding. It didn't even make sense and it disproportionately hurt poorer schools.

And teaching sucks - entry level teachers in my state make around 30k, and it is thankless, and half of the teachers in the US leave the profession after 5 years. When a bachelor's degree costs between 60-80k at a second tier state U, education isn't really a major that pays off.

Unless someone is passionate about teaching, the best and the brightest typically aren't even entering the field because why would you? You can make more money working at Costco for a lot less stress.

Covid made everything worse. My daughter was in kindergarten in 2020 and she received no school instruction at all from March 2020 - September 2020. Just whatever we could manage to teacher her in between working.

Throw in book bans, protests against inclusive education, etc. and education in the US feels very tenuous right now - even in good school systems.

[Arbitrage]

Every single McKinsey guy I knew back in my 20s went to Harvard, MIT, Yale or Wharton or Stanford for an MBA. The Pipeline is real and is a real reason to swing for the Ivies if that is what you want.

For the MBA, yes, I agree.  For undergrad?  Whether they maybe did community college for two years before finishing up their Bachelor's?  Nobody asks or remembers. 

I don't agree with the sentiment expressed by many here that is focusing so much on undergrad as key to "the pipeline."  The last school/degree is what matters for most cases, so if someone is planning on graduate school, that needs to be the focus.  Is it easier to get into a prestigious graduate school if you graduated from an Ivy or the like?  Sure, but it's far from rare to get there from another path. 

I went to a top tier university for my doctorate.  My undergraduate degree was from a second-tier school, but that didn't stop me from having grad school offers from everywhere I applied.  I didn't do anything meaningful as far as research/internships outside of school until my junior year, with one small research project at school during sophomore year.  Yes, some in my program were from other top-tier schools, but others in my program hailed from state schools, and not just the better state schools.  They did just fine.  I wouldn't even have known if they started out at community college. 

I'm sure there are cases where community college for two years kills your prospects, but as others have noted it's realistically very rare and isn't going to lock you out of success by nearly any measure. 

I'm not planning on that route for my kids, but neither am I going to mortgage the next ten years my life to guarantee that I'll have enough money saved up in the unlikely event they qualify and opt for an Ivy.  If they do, then they're going to have to cover part of the cost. 

Of course, with several prestigious schools reducing or eliminating tuition for lower-to-middle income families, that might not even be a worry for the FIRE crowd.

[charis]

All of these posts are just making it sound like the quality of teaching has taken a huge hit.

I'm not saying the quality of teachers, but the quality of teaching sounds just awful in all of these posts I'm reading in this thread.

It boggles my mind. I was both a learning disabled kid and a gifted kid. I needed personalized accommodation throughout my schooling as a result. This was never an issue unless I had a bad teacher, which sometimes happened.

I'm having a hard time grasping what systemic changes have happened to make teaching so much worse?

Is it class sizes? Lack of funding?

Why do all of your descriptions of schools sound like post apocalyptic shit holes where no one actually teaches kids unless they're segregated into little rich-kid pods?

What the fuck happened?

In my "liberal" northern state community - it's segregation, plain and simple.  Most white and/or relatively wealthy people have abandoned the crumbling urban centers for "good school districts" or private schools and they are not looking back except to complain about the schools and lack of family "culture."

There is zero support for teachers anymore, it's not surprising there's been a dramatic number of experienced teachers resigning.

[mm1970]

One thing I will say against tracking-- there is some evidence that older children have better test scores and educational attainment than younger children because teaching a near-peer who doesn't understand the subject as well as you do helps cement your learning. In other words, there is an educational knock-on effect from teaching younger siblings.

I know this was a big part of my learning, including helping people in my classes who were struggling. I had one classmate who was an actual genius. I was always the top of our class until she showed up and did everything I did in less than half the time. We had a real dud of a trigonometry teacher one year-- he would sleep through class-- and this classmate and I ended up teaching ourselves trig, and the rest of the class as well. We are from the butthole of nowhere, and she went on to graduate from Cornell, while I went to a state college on a full (merit-based) scholarship. There are ways of teaching groups of people who are at different levels that benefit everyone, especially if class sizes are small enough that personalized attention is possible.

Wait, did you have my same trig teacher?  Except I didn't go to Cornell (they were #7 engineering school in my day, and I went to #8).

[Laura33]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

In high school we had the regular classes for each subject, but each subject also had an honors class and an AP (advanced placement) class, so effectively each subject had 3 individual tracks.  You could take regular biology and honors physics and AP Spanish. Sounds like what you're talking about above.

Yes, that's what we had too.  And I think it worked out great.

Well, and this is basically tracking.  Kids get put into one of the groups based on what some teacher says at some early time (in our ES, 4th grade determined whether you went onto the G&T track in 5th).  And once you're designated in a group, inertia takes over.  Plus the schools tend to have certain numbers of each type of class to suit their expected composition, so if all of a sudden 100 kids want to take AP English when they have room for only 2 classes @30-35 each, someone isn't going to make it -- and do you think that's going to be the kid who's been in all advanced classes since kindergarten, or the kid who has been in average classes and really wants to challenge himself this year?  Which is precisely why many schools develop their own criteria for entry into AP classes (even though many of those classes themselves were not designed to actually require any prerequisites).  And so you end up with tracking for administrative reasons -- which is ironic, given that the expansion of AP tests was supposedly designed to open the doors to higher-level work and college credit beyond those who had historically had access to that.

Our ES did away with tracking when my DS was there, for precisely the reasons @charis mentions:  while having different-level classes was theoretically good, in practice it meant that if a kid wasn't identified as GT-track by second grade, they were shut out of that track permanently.  Instead, the school went to mixed classes, with all three levels of kids in the same classroom, and the teacher responsible for adjusting the lesson to ensure all of the levels learned what they needed to.

For us, the change worked just fine, because DS landed with an exceptional teacher who really did manage to keep him and the other more advanced kids challenged while teaching the less-advanced kids at an appropriate level.  But that was pure dumb luck.  The reality is that those kinds of mixed classes require much more of teachers than tracked classes do, both in terms of classroom management and in terms of how to teach to a variety of levels and adjust to what the kids need.  And yet the schools and teachers have no additional support, training, or funding to prepare them to do that effectively. 

tl;dr:  tracking vs. mixed classes are two different educational philosophies.  Both are designed with the best of intentions.  And neither lives up to anywhere near expectations when faced with the realities of the current US educational system. 

[mm1970]

Good old socialism and "equality" taking over education.

It's not equality, it's equity.
Tracking IS racist, that is true.
Also, there have been many many studies that show putting kids who are "challenged" by the subject material in classes with stronger students - by and large - this helps out the challenged students.

My thoughts are that it's not a race, but unfortunately, schools are set up as they are.  The schools that I know with lower-performing students who have done really well have done it by throwing money at the problem.  Meaning, an elementary principal will go and get hundreds of thousands of donations and grants, and hire retired teachers to give one-on-one or one-on-four reading or math lectures.  In JH, that means after school tutoring and a LOT of it.  Which is also not free.

The problem with combining a large group of kids in one class happens when the teachers just don't have the resources that they need. 

In order to "fix" some of the disparities locally, many years ago (9?) the district announced that they were going to test all 2nd graders for GATE.  We have a dedicated 3rd-6th program at one school for GATE.  Other GATE kids who don't get it may possibly get extra work at their own schools (but not really).  Well, the wealthy parents at the GATE school were kind of ticked, because until then - if their kid got into GATE, they got first dibs.  Also, only children whose parents requested testing or were recommended testing by teachers were tested.

With the new change and testing ALL 2nd graders, the hope was it would become more equitable.  And truly, a higher % of EL students were identified as GATE.  But the demographics at the school did not change - because how many of those kids' parents wanted to (or even could), drive them 8 miles across town for school?  If you really want equity, you need another program on the other side of town.

Also, yes, the quality of teaching has taken a huge hit.  I can't speak for JH and HS (my kid's teachers have been fab, and he's taking all AP this year).  I don't blame the teachers though.  With the advent of "Balanced Literacy" and Lucy Calkins in elementary school we killed our reading abilities, and since it takes a few years to see the trends, we are starting to see the results at my school.  Well, that was 5 years ago and now the reading specialists are going back to phonics.  Something like this - something like a broad sweeping trend in how we are teaching kids - can really screw things up when it's not science-backed.  (A lot of this comes back to - strong readers use decoding when they read, so that experts went "aha!" and then they start advocating decoding and skills.  But correlation =/= causation, and that sent us down the wrong path.

The "kids who don't want to be there" is also a thing, and I don't know how to fix that.  My son had classes where most of the kids didn't bother with homework at all (not the Honors classes).

[Metalcat]

All of these posts are just making it sound like the quality of teaching has taken a huge hit.

I'm not saying the quality of teachers, but the quality of teaching sounds just awful in all of these posts I'm reading in this thread.

It boggles my mind. I was both a learning disabled kid and a gifted kid. I needed personalized accommodation throughout my schooling as a result. This was never an issue unless I had a bad teacher, which sometimes happened.

I'm having a hard time grasping what systemic changes have happened to make teaching so much worse?

Is it class sizes? Lack of funding?

Why do all of your descriptions of schools sound like post apocalyptic shit holes where no one actually teaches kids unless they're segregated into little rich-kid pods?

What the fuck happened?

Both? Lots has happened in the last 20 years, and then COVID exacerbated a lot of the existing issues.

Funding is mostly based on property taxes through all (most?) of the US. Wealthy areas= better schools (and there is the whole history of red lining, white flight etc, so racially segregated). Even well funded schools often have crappy class sizes. Our school district is tops in our state and my son had 30 kids in his 4th grade class last year.

Most schools don't do tracking outside of gifted programs - so you have one teacher having to teach a range of abilities for 30 kids in the elementary and intermediate schools years. Teachers are evaluated based on scores improving over the year, so a disproportionate amount of time is spent bringing up the low and medium scores. Kids who get good grades can't improve their scores by much and actually hurt the teacher's and school's scores. Kids on the lower end of the spectrum also have trouble and there is concern that most people just teach to the lower middle now.

This is based on federal education policy - No Child Left Behind Act (Bush 2) and Every Child Succeeds Act (Obama). Basically the federal government set a bunch of minimum standards 20 year ago (theoretically good), but implementation was all standardized test based and not great, and I'm not sure that there was much increased funding to support the mandates. If I recall, a lot of NCLB was punitive - like if your scores went down you lost funding. It didn't even make sense and it disproportionately hurt poorer schools.

And teaching sucks - entry level teachers in my state make around 30k, and it is thankless, and half of the teachers in the US leave the profession after 5 years. When a bachelor's degree costs between 60-80k at a second tier state U, education isn't really a major that pays off.

Unless someone is passionate about teaching, the best and the brightest typically aren't even entering the field because why would you? You can make more money working at Costco for a lot less stress.

Covid made everything worse. My daughter was in kindergarten in 2020 and she received no school instruction at all from March 2020 - September 2020. Just whatever we could manage to teacher her in between working.

Throw in book bans, protests against inclusive education, etc. and education in the US feels very tenuous right now - even in good school systems.

That is seriously fucking depressing.

What a mess.

[Shane]

Our experience has been that teachers are under a lot of pressure from administrators to raise the standardized test scores of the lowest performing kids. Students teachers know, or suspect, will score at or above grade level, are therefore their lowest priority. Since kindergarten, our daughter has never really been challenged at school. She's always been the one put in a group with lower performing kids and instructed by the teacher to help explain things to the kids who are struggling. While DD has had many really nice and kind teachers over the years, I'm not sure that any of them actually succeeded at challenging her and the other more advanced kids in her classes. Public school teachers are always tasked by their bosses with raising standardized test scores and, unsurprisingly, that's generally where they focus their attention.

[Captain FIRE]

Another factor is not to discount how much parental involvement matters. 

Growing up, I moved a lot due to my dad's job (military). At each and every place my mom had to advocate for me to get into that state's variant of gifted and talented program. Each state/school didn't care that I had previously been in them my entire life, always scored high in standardized testing, etc.  I had to jump through each school's specific hoops and frequently take new tests each time. California was the worst - it took her 6 months just to get me scheduled to take the IQ test that they wanted.  (She felt it well worth it though, when I came home babbling about what I learned at school my first day in the advanced history classroom, though I imagine she did not particularly enjoy the topic of "French Revolution" and gory details of the guillotine...). She spent a lot of time on this - time that a parent working multiple minimum wage jobs wouldn't have.  And it's fortunate I was in Cali for a few years - a kid moving every year would have lost most of the year to tracking rules.

Obviously this applies to more than advocacy for particular programs, but to helping with homework, involvement in the classroom, etc.

[DeniseNJ]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

In high school we had the regular classes for each subject, but each subject also had an honors class and an AP (advanced placement) class, so effectively each subject had 3 individual tracks.  You could take regular biology and honors physics and AP Spanish. Sounds like what you're talking about above.

Yes, that's what we had too.  And I think it worked out great.

Well, and this is basically tracking.  Kids get put into one of the groups based on what some teacher says at some early time (in our ES, 4th grade determined whether you went onto the G&T track in 5th).  And once you're designated in a group, inertia takes over.  Plus the schools tend to have certain numbers of each type of class to suit their expected composition, so if all of a sudden 100 kids want to take AP English when they have room for only 2 classes @30-35 each, someone isn't going to make it -- and do you think that's going to be the kid who's been in all advanced classes since kindergarten, or the kid who has been in average classes and really wants to challenge himself this year?  Which is precisely why many schools develop their own criteria for entry into AP classes (even though many of those classes themselves were not designed to actually require any prerequisites).  And so you end up with tracking for administrative reasons -- which is ironic, given that the expansion of AP tests was supposedly designed to open the doors to higher-level work and college credit beyond those who had historically had access to that.

Our ES did away with tracking when my DS was there, for precisely the reasons @charis mentions:  while having different-level classes was theoretically good, in practice it meant that if a kid wasn't identified as GT-track by second grade, they were shut out of that track permanently.  Instead, the school went to mixed classes, with all three levels of kids in the same classroom, and the teacher responsible for adjusting the lesson to ensure all of the levels learned what they needed to.

For us, the change worked just fine, because DS landed with an exceptional teacher who really did manage to keep him and the other more advanced kids challenged while teaching the less-advanced kids at an appropriate level.  But that was pure dumb luck.  The reality is that those kinds of mixed classes require much more of teachers than tracked classes do, both in terms of classroom management and in terms of how to teach to a variety of levels and adjust to what the kids need.  And yet the schools and teachers have no additional support, training, or funding to prepare them to do that effectively. 

tl;dr:  tracking vs. mixed classes are two different educational philosophies.  Both are designed with the best of intentions.  And neither lives up to anywhere near expectations when faced with the realities of the current US educational system.

Nope, it wasn't like you describe, at least not in my school.  Very very few people took all higher level classes. Those classes were hard and no one would recommend that. You got into a higher class if you wanted to take the class, if you did well in that subject, and if your teacher in that subject recommended it.  Then they would have as many classes as needed.  You weren't going to get more kids in total just because more kids wanted to take honors bio. So instead of 5 regular bio and 2 honors bio, you would have 4 regular bio and 3 honors bio.  Also, it didn't matter what you took in kindergarten or grammar school or middle school.  If you want to take AP English, you applied for it, and based on your grade in English this past year, not all your life, and your current teacher's recommendation, you could take it. You wouldn't want to take it if you weren't prepared for it because it was hard. But if there were lots of kids who wanted to take it, then they'd just have fewer honors and regular English.

I took honors bio, but went on to fail physics.

[wageslave23]

I can't eye roll hard enough at what this thread has turned into. They've started to eliminate tracking because there's actual data to show that it's systemically racist. Sorry if that doesn't fit your family's personal experience. Yes, you are part of the unique group with gifted children and god forbid the system change to your detriment.

I'm not talking about tracking. That's bullshit.  I'm talking about putting kids who struggle with a subject in the same class as kids who find it easy. And then teaching to the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who find it easy.  This won't be the same group for each subject. I excelled at math but sucked at foreign language. To be more specific, I excelled at calculus and trig and struggled with geometry.  The more specifically you can teach to each individual at their level the better. This takes more resources because ideally you'd have one on one teaching catered specifically to the individual.  The more customization the better. Tracks are less customized.

In high school we had the regular classes for each subject, but each subject also had an honors class and an AP (advanced placement) class, so effectively each subject had 3 individual tracks.  You could take regular biology and honors physics and AP Spanish. Sounds like what you're talking about above.

Yes, that's what we had too.  And I think it worked out great.

Well, and this is basically tracking.  Kids get put into one of the groups based on what some teacher says at some early time (in our ES, 4th grade determined whether you went onto the G&T track in 5th).  And once you're designated in a group, inertia takes over.  Plus the schools tend to have certain numbers of each type of class to suit their expected composition, so if all of a sudden 100 kids want to take AP English when they have room for only 2 classes @30-35 each, someone isn't going to make it -- and do you think that's going to be the kid who's been in all advanced classes since kindergarten, or the kid who has been in average classes and really wants to challenge himself this year?  Which is precisely why many schools develop their own criteria for entry into AP classes (even though many of those classes themselves were not designed to actually require any prerequisites).  And so you end up with tracking for administrative reasons -- which is ironic, given that the expansion of AP tests was supposedly designed to open the doors to higher-level work and college credit beyond those who had historically had access to that.

Our ES did away with tracking when my DS was there, for precisely the reasons @charis mentions:  while having different-level classes was theoretically good, in practice it meant that if a kid wasn't identified as GT-track by second grade, they were shut out of that track permanently.  Instead, the school went to mixed classes, with all three levels of kids in the same classroom, and the teacher responsible for adjusting the lesson to ensure all of the levels learned what they needed to.

For us, the change worked just fine, because DS landed with an exceptional teacher who really did manage to keep him and the other more advanced kids challenged while teaching the less-advanced kids at an appropriate level.  But that was pure dumb luck.  The reality is that those kinds of mixed classes require much more of teachers than tracked classes do, both in terms of classroom management and in terms of how to teach to a variety of levels and adjust to what the kids need.  And yet the schools and teachers have no additional support, training, or funding to prepare them to do that effectively. 

tl;dr:  tracking vs. mixed classes are two different educational philosophies.  Both are designed with the best of intentions.  And neither lives up to anywhere near expectations when faced with the realities of the current US educational system.

Nope, it wasn't like you describe, at least not in my school.  Very very few people took all higher level classes. Those classes were hard and no one would recommend that. You got into a higher class if you wanted to take the class, if you did well in that subject, and if your teacher in that subject recommended it.  Then they would have as many classes as needed.  You weren't going to get more kids in total just because more kids wanted to take honors bio. So instead of 5 regular bio and 2 honors bio, you would have 4 regular bio and 3 honors bio.  Also, it didn't matter what you took in kindergarten or grammar school or middle school.  If you want to take AP English, you applied for it, and based on your grade in English this past year, not all your life, and your current teacher's recommendation, you could take it. You wouldn't want to take it if you weren't prepared for it because it was hard. But if there were lots of kids who wanted to take it, then they'd just have fewer honors and regular English.

I took honors bio, but went on to fail physics.

Same with me. It was very similar to college, in that you picked the classes that you wanted to take.  Most kids took 0-3 AP classes per semester.  Some started out taking a bunch freshman year and then said f this and went to regular because it was too much work. Others took more AP classes in junior and senior year because they were more mature and focused on school than they were were freshman year.

[charis]

This is not how it is in our area. Honors classes and certain prerequisites are required for AP classes and they start in middle school based on performance.  Most of the honors classes have the same general group of students and if you don't get into honors by 8th grade, you likely won't be the right track to proceed to advanced courses. I rarely saw students cross over although it did happen.

[StarBright]

This is not how it is in our area. Honors classes and certain prerequisites are required for AP classes and they start in middle school based on performance.  Most of the honors classes have the same general group of students and if you don't get into honors by 8th grade, you likely won't be the right track to proceed to advanced courses. I rarely saw students cross over although it did happen.

Same here. In our district the honors-style class had too many people qualify for the program for 5th grade. What an amazing problem to have - right?

Trouble is there is only one teacher qualified to teach the class and they teach all the 5th and 6th graders. So the school changed the guidelines for qualification and offered to let the bottom two thirds of the qualifiers retest to aim for the new threshold.

We opted not to retest my son.

But on the downside - he got a very good score on the state math test for 6th graders when he was in 4th grade.  Now that we've "untracked" him he will not learn any new math for two years.

I think of it as upper middle class scarcity. And not to get all weird and anti-capitalist about it, BUT - the window for social mobility is getting smaller and I think people feel it in their guts even if they don't like to admit it. You shouldn't have to be exceptional to afford a normal middle class life, which, in my opinion, includes good education, nice infrastructure, and healthcare.

As a parent I find myself both aching to fix the broken system but also ready to help my kids navigate it if it doesn't get fixed. I never thought I'd feel that way but now that I have children I have absolutely become more flexible with the idea of helping my children as they get older.

[jeninco]

This is not how it is in our area. Honors classes and certain prerequisites are required for AP classes and they start in middle school based on performance.  Most of the honors classes have the same general group of students and if you don't get into honors by 8th grade, you likely won't be the right track to proceed to advanced courses. I rarely saw students cross over although it did happen.

Same here. In our district the honors-style class had too many people qualify for the program for 5th grade. What an amazing problem to have - right?

Trouble is there is only one teacher qualified to teach the class and they teach all the 5th and 6th graders. So the school changed the guidelines for qualification and offered to let the bottom two thirds of the qualifiers retest to aim for the new threshold.

We opted not to retest my son.

But on the downside - he got a very good score on the state math test for 6th graders when he was in 4th grade.  Now that we've "untracked" him he will not learn any new math for two years.

I think of it as upper middle class scarcity. And not to get all weird and anti-capitalist about it, BUT - the window for social mobility is getting smaller and I think people feel it in their guts even if they don't like to admit it. You shouldn't have to be exceptional to afford a normal middle class life, which, in my opinion, includes good education, nice infrastructure, and healthcare.

As a parent I find myself both aching to fix the broken system but also ready to help my kids navigate it if it doesn't get fixed. I never thought I'd feel that way but now that I have children I have absolutely become more flexible with the idea of helping my children as they get older.

We helped our kids (and, let's be honest, some years that's all the help they got) and then we went into the schools and helped their friends. And the other kids. I've gone into the teacher who organizes the credit-recovery program (ie students have already failed one class) and said "I want to help you students: how can you use my skills?" We've also participated in data-heavy school committees that are mandated around here. We've worked as volunteers on the district level.

We've also told our kids to help out other people in their classes: if DS has a math question that requires help from parents, probably some of his classmates do to, and he should also help them out.

The suggestion that we shouldn't answer questions from our kids, or provide them with additional learning opportunities (including, I guess, family vacations) because "equity" is morally bankrupt, (and @StarBright, I'm not suggesting that you're saying that, but I have heard it elsewhere) not to mention no reasonable parent will follow it. However, the idea that I should take some of what I can do and help out other students -- that one makes sense to me.

[charis]

I don't think volunteering in schools, while nice, is going to accomplish anything in an education system that is based on wealth.  I also don't think that anyone is realistically telling any individual parents not to provide their kids with enriching opportunities.  I pay for my child to receive outside tutoring because he's not getting as much intervention in school as he needs to succeed in school.  I do that knowing that the other kid in his reading group's parents might not be able to afford tutoring.  But I also know that by staying at the school and  pressuring it and the district to provide the necessary resources to support academic success, it helps more students than just my own. 

I also find it really short sighted when posters act like other students aren't performing well because they are simply less intelligent.  That's ridiculous.  It's clear certain demographics are being left behind post-pandemic.  And it's clear that smaller class sizes, more money, and more intense academic intervention starting at a young age will bring most students up to grade level.  If middle and upper class parents and citizens came together and demanded equity in education, it would happen quickly.  The truth is that, as StarBright suggested, there is little interest in raising up other people's children in any significant manner.  Like ending segregation, sharing resources, changing the system.

What we can do is stop fleeing from poor school districts/schools to "good school" districts and participate in organizations and support community leaders that encourage other parents to do the same.  I promise that there are organizations and academics in your area that have come up with very good ideas to create equity in education, if there was enough public support.