
Treating Students as Gifted Yields Impressive Academic Results, Study Finds - tokenadult
http://today.duke.edu/2011/03/darity.html
======
sc68cal
There is a good quote that is always passed around in education circles: "The
soft bigotry of low expectations"

Educators that have low expectations for certain students will not challenge
them and hold them accountable for their work and studies. The student will
pick up on this fact. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I'm glad that they are beginning to quantify this piece of common wisdom.
Perhaps this will break the bad habits and mindsets of some educators out
there.

~~~
lionelhutz
Exactly, you take one group and label them "gifted" and tell them how
wonderful they are and how they all are and going to become doctors,
engineers, lawyers, and accountants. Then you take the other group and tell
them they're "sufficient" and "average".

No wonder the kids who are gifted are going to excel--they have confidence.
The "average" kids have already had their dreams crushed. No more
art/photography, jazz band, advanced chemistry or computer labs for you! Now
all your electives are college readiness programs and that suck the fun out of
learning.

I remember honors chemistry at my high school was allowed to do experiments,
but regular chemistry wasn't. No wonder the kids in honors chemistry liked
chemistry more and were excited to learn. I remember watching my chem teacher
taking pure sodium and dropping it in water and watching it explode. The other
class had to read out of a textbook.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
_No wonder the kids who are gifted are going to excel--they have confidence.
The "average" kids have already had their dreams crushed._

This hypothesis has been tested and refuted. When identical twins are
separated at birth and adopted by different families, they often have wildly
different environments. Some go to good schools, some to bad. Some go to
families that nurture academic achievement, some to sports families.
Nonetheless, the achievement level of one twin is predicted mostly by that of
the other twin, not by the adoptive environment. The underlying cause appears
to be general intelligence, as measured by IQ.

The effect holds even for highly intelligent people who are diverted from the
university track. They simply direct their achievements in other directions.

~~~
kragen
As explained in other branches of this discussion thread, this hypothesis has
also been tested and confirmed: kids of different countries are distributed on
dramatically different bell curves, much further separated than kids of
different ethnicities in the same country. Probably the twin studies you're
describing didn't find much of an environmental effect because the
environments they were looking at were actually very similar, in part because
only extremely bad families have a major environmental effect.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Compare the study in question[1] with a list of the nations ranked by IQ[2].
The lists are in about the same order, because math accomplishment is driven
by IQ, IQ is strongly influenced by genetics, and different countries tend to
have different genetics.

 _much further separated than kids of different ethnicities in the same
country_

No. African-Americans, for example, have an average IQ of 85, very much like
an up-market African country. Go read _The Bell Curve_.

 _only extremely bad families have a major environmental effect_

The siblings in the adoptive families have nearly the full range of
accomplishments of the general public. The possible explanations are (1) a
sibling's accomplishments are mostly determined by internal causes, or (2) a
sibling's accomplishments are substantially influenced by environment, and
they experience a wide range of environments (even within the same family).

Other studies use twins raised together. The twins are more similar to each
other than to their non-twin siblings, and the differences are explained
mostly by IQ. This suggests that accomplishment comes mostly from internal
causes.

 _the environments they were looking at were actually very similar_

In terms of opportunity, they are extremely similar by adulthood. In the U.S.,
annual income at age 30 depends mostly on IQ, regardless of race, ethnicity,
and other factors.

[1] <http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations>

~~~
kragen
In fact, although IQ explains more academic achievement and income than any
other measurable psychometric factor, it still doesn’t explain very much of
them. It explains only about 15-25% of variation in individual income and only
about 25% of variation in individual academic achievement. Most of the rest is
due to factors that are not measured.

By contrast, per capita income explains 46% of variation in average IQ among
countries, and even more of the variation in academic performance. (Average
academic performance explains over 50% of the variation in average IQ among
countries.)

So, does high average income cause people to have high IQs and good academic
performance, or the other way around?
[http://sitemaker.umich.edu/salas.356/more_money__better_grad...](http://sitemaker.umich.edu/salas.356/more_money__better_grades)
documents a study that found children’s academic performance improves when
their parents’ income increases.

The TIMSS data you’re citing show the opposite of what you claim them to. The
variations in academic achievement between countries are much larger than
variations in IQ between ethnicities.

TIMSS doesn’t include a lot of African countries, but of those it does
include, 8th-grade achievement in Ghana is 309, in Botswana is 364, in Egypt
is 391, and in Tunisia is 420, compared to 508 in the US. The TIMSS scale is
normalized so that one standard deviation is 100 points. If we estimated that
the 508 score were a weighted average of 85% “white people” and 15% “black
people” one standard deviation lower, then the “white people” would be at 523
and the “black people” would be at 423 --- closer to the “white US people”
only one s.d. higher than to the Ghanaians 1.14 s.d.s lower. Even Botswana
(perhaps the “upmarket” African country you’re thinking of?) would be 0.59
s.d.s below the “black US people”.

(The above breakdown is roughly correct. In the NAEP, the grade 8 mathematics
average score for white students in 2009 was 293, the s.d. was 33, and the
average for black students was 261, almost exactly one s.d. lower.
<http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/> doesn’t let me link the
results, though.)

In general, the TIMSS rankings are much better explained by median income than
by average intelligence. The Taiwan average is almost two s.d.s above the
international average, which would be like an average IQ of 130, while the
Qatar average is almost two s.d.s below, which would be like an average IQ of
just over 70, “borderline mentally retarded”. If you’ve ever traveled, it’s
obvious that Qatar isn’t actually half populated with mentally retarded people
and Taiwan isn’t actually half populated with geniuses.

According to the book you linked, the measured average IQs are 105 for Taiwan
and 78 for Qatar.

If you look at this map, you can see how little relationship there is between
ethnic composition and national IQ:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_IQ_Lynn_Vanhanen_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_IQ_Lynn_Vanhanen_2006_IQ_and_Global_Inequality.png)
There are enormous differences between Brazil and Congo, between Vietnam and
China, between Singapore (which you can’t even see) and Indonesia.

 _The Bell Curve_ has been amply debunked already, and in any case is decades
out of date.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
_By contrast, per capita income explains 46% of variation in average IQ among
countries, ..._

Correlation is not causation. If race, nutrition, and parasite load (e.g.,
malaria) are causative factors of IQ (they are!), we would expect per capita
income to be highly correlated with IQ. And indeed nutrition and parasites
explain why equatorial Africa cranks out hideous poverty _and_ average IQs in
the 50s.

 _The Taiwan average is almost two s.d.s above the international average,
which would be like an average IQ of 130, ..._

Many Asians place a high priority on math practice, which readily increases
ability. Islands of high math accomplishment have been created in the U.S.
ghettos when a gifted teacher gives the students a culture transplant.

 _If you’ve ever traveled, it’s obvious that Qatar isn’t actually half
populated with mentally retarded people ..._

Mental retardation is actually defined by deficient global neurological
abilities: physical coordination, verbal fluency, procedural memory, emotional
perception, emotional control, and so forth. In other words, what are called
skills of daily living. These talents are partially independent of general
intelligence. It is perfectly possible for someone to be friendly, well
spoken, and a great cook without having much abstract reasoning ability.

 _... while the Qatar average is almost two s.d.s below, which would be like
an average IQ of just over 70, “borderline mentally retarded”._

Those thresholds were designed for tracking white children into special
education classes for developmental disabilities. In a homogenous group, IQ is
highly correlated with mental retardation, because global brain damage
necessarily reduces IQ. However the thresholds are much less meaningful across
races. A white kid with an IQ of 70 will probably need special help to learn
to tie their shoes, and will lack the curiosity to care. A black kid with an
IQ of 70 is nearly normal except for abstract reasoning ability, and has
trainable worker written all over them.

 _The Bell Curve has been amply debunked already, ..._

[citation needed]

Preferably a citation that lets hard data do the talking, looks at all the
data, and understands the difference between correlation and causation.

------
disgruntledphd
This is not news.

This idea, in fact, has been around since the mid 1960's.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_Effect> Well done to Duke for
replicating and publicising it though, as it never seemed to percolate into
practice.

------
dolinsky
Along side the findings reaffirmed in this study, I think it's prudent to
mention the impact that language can have on a child's confidence.
Specifically, the work done by Carol Dweck [1] and her colleagues have shown
just how influential language can be in setting a fixed-mindset vs a growth-
mindset in children.

In short, praise effort, not intelligence.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck>

~~~
bermanoid
_In short, praise effort, not intelligence._

Intelligence is vastly overrated and widely misunderstood.

By which I mean, it's not a fixed quantity that an individual has no control
over; it is _not_ the same thing as natural aptitude. And responses like
"Great job, even though you did poorly on that math test you studied really
hard!" are not helpful if you actually want someone to get better. [Note: I'm
not saying that "Bad Timmy, you clearly suck at math and I'm giving you an F!"
is any better, though unfortunately belief in that false dichotomy is pretty
common in the world of education]

When someone "intelligent" gets a bad grade on a math test despite having
studied hard, they realize that something is wrong with the way they studied.
Or that they have a deficiency in earlier material that they need to correct.
Or that they need to sleep more before the test. Etc. They never accept that
they didn't work hard enough (they did!), and they never accept that they're
not smart enough (they are!) - they assume that they somehow worked _wrong_ ,
and they set about fixing that problem.

When someone "unintelligent" gets a bad grade on a test, they chalk it up to
the fact that they're not very good at math, but hey, they tried hard, and
that's what's important, right?

That's _not_ what's important. Learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on
its own if you don't learn to work _better_ at the same time (or at least it's
not the most worthy goal). This is as true in programming as it is anywhere.

Now, when it comes to child psychology and keeping a child engaged, maybe
you're right and it's better to praise effort. But that should not come at the
expense of praising intelligence; "intelligence" is the end product of many
years of effort directed at the process of learning and thinking, not
something that's doled out of a box at birth. Unfortunately it's something
that we've never really learned to effectively teach, which is a shame.

[Edit: I'm also not claiming that there's no natural difference in smarts that
_does_ come "for free" at birth, there is absolutely some sort of Bell curve
happening there, and some people are destined to be at the high and low ends
of it, for sure. But my point is that the way the people at the top handle
failure is vastly different from the way people at the bottom handle it, in
that they're never satisfied with mere effort.]

~~~
zamfi
Hmm. Your point is valid, but does not contradict Dweck's version of "praise
effort, not intelligence".

Dweck's main point is to avoid praising in such a way that it makes kids
believe that they're naturally good at something. For example, don't say "You
got 100% on that test? You're so good at math!" because that causes kids to
believe that they're _intrinsically_ good at math, and that they don't need to
continue working at it. The result is that these kids shy away from learning
new math, because whenever they encounter math they don't "intrinsically"
understand, it violates their "I'm good at math" worldview and makes them feel
stupid.

Instead, she suggests praising good results with phrases like "See? You worked
hard to solve the problem, and you did it!" - because this encourages the
obvious desired behavior that kids see themselves as able to solve problems if
they work at them. These kids relish challenges because challenges give them
opportunities to validate their worldview - that they're good at figuring out
how to solve problems - by solving them.

The aspect of "Learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on its own if you
don't learn to work better at the same time" is clearly there, because it's
the good results that are praised in both cases. It's just a question of _how_
you praise those good results: don't make the kid think that intelligence is
intrinsic - but instead make them think that it can and must be worked at.

(And Dweck doesn't suggest praising poor results, as you suggest with your
example "Great job, even though you did poorly on that math test you studied
really hard!")

Hope this helps clear things up.

~~~
bermanoid
_(And Dweck doesn't suggest praising poor results, as you suggest with your
example "Great job, even though you did poorly on that math test you studied
really hard!")

Hope this helps clear things up._

That absolutely does, thank you.

I've always bristled at the idea that poor results should be excused and
rewarded as long as effort is expended, which is, on second reading,
definitely not what she claims.

------
MarkMc
There's a great book called Teaching As Leadership which devotes a full
chapter to the effect of expectations on a student's performance.

My Kindle reader for Mac won't let me copy and paste, but the following
extract from the book is so good that I will type it out:

\---------------

While the self-fulfilling prophecy of high expectations is well established by
research, in our experience, the most compelling evidence of this idea's power
comes from the many testimonials we receive from strong teachers. Crystal
Brakke, for example, is a teacher who in her first year teaching eighth grade
in Henderson, North Carolina, took her students from almost 70% failing the
state literacy assessment to over 80 percent passing it. Ms Brakke shares how
her high expectations helped change the academic trajectory of one
particularly challenging student.

"The Wilson," the self-appointed nickname of a young man named Scott, was a
living legend at Henderson Middle School. He was nearly sixteen years old and
had already spent three years at the middle school. The crowds would part in
the hallways for him. He ruled the school, and he knew it. He also knew that,
probably quite realistically, he would be promoted to high school no matter
what he did this school year - we just couldn't keep him in middle school
another year. So my second-period class quickly became his personal
playground...and I realised that if I didn't do something soon, the year would
be lost for both him and the other twenty students I needed to teach...Scott
wasn't ready for high school - he was reading at a fifth-grade level.

So I got together with the other teachers on my team, who were facing their
own struggles with Scott, and we came up with a plan that was supported by
both Scott's grandmother (his guardian) and his older brother, Richard, whom
he idolised. We called him into a team meeting, and he sauntered in, ready for
whatever we could give him - in-school suspension, after-school detention.
He'd seen it all before. Instead, I told him that is schedule had changed: he
would now be coming to my class first period and working with the cluster of
"gifted and talented" students in that class. Honestly, you could see the
color draining from his face. I explained that I realised what the problem was
- that it wasn't him; it was me. I wasn't teaching him what he needed; wasn't
teaching to his level and expecting from him what I knew he was capable of
doing. That's when he just flat out called me "crazy".

But the next day, Scott came to my first-period class. He sat down, and didn't
say a word for the next ninety minutes. That's when I knew we were on to
something. I can tell you for certain that progress came slowly, very slowly.
Some days I had to fight just for him to keep his head up, but then one day,
he brought a pen and pencil to class. I almost cried, I was so executed.
Another day, he raised his hand to answer a question. He had started
participating, and that was the end of behaviour problems with "The Wilson".

By January, he was just another kid in my class and was sharing insights into
"Romeo and Juliet" that made my jaw drop. My favourite memory from that year
came when one of the seventh-grade teachers approached me after a staff
meeting, asking, "What are you doing up there with Scott Wilson?". It turns
out "The Wilson" had made a visit to the seventh-grade hallway to chat with
some of his old teachers and let them know that we had finally figured it out:
he's gifted.

~~~
bermanoid
_Crystal Brakke, for example, is a teacher who in her first year teaching
eighth grade in Henderson, North Carolina, took her students from almost 70%
failing the state literacy assessment to over 80 percent passing it._

A good teacher can certainly work wonders with students. But it's never as
simple as making one change in a vacuum; when I read the anecdote that you've
presented, it's pretty clear to me that we're dealing with a good teacher.
Even if she's young, she's clearly attentive to the students, and she's smart
enough to tailor her approach to best fit what she sees from them.

That's a pretty good sign that she's an exceptional teacher overall - it's a
level of attention that you don't often see in schools (it's also one that
fades with age, but that's another matter). I'm skeptical that the one
technique she happens to credit this particular success to is a silver bullet
that would help all students, especially those whose teachers are nowhere near
as bright or caring.

Further, having spent some time in the trenches, I'd say a large part of this
student's achievement gains are simply due to the fact that he was put in a
room with better students, so he was uncomfortable and he fell in line with
the way they behaved and acted in the class. That's easy to do for one
student, but it's not a trick that scales.

Show me that a simple change in expectations can get an overpacked classroom
of 35 disinterested, loud, and sometimes violent C-level students to step up
their game and care about Romeo and Juliet (esp. when a sizable percentage of
the class _can't read at all_ ), and I'll be impressed...

~~~
klbarry
Change the environment, change the person. It can be done en masse, though
it's not as east. The reason the KIPP schools work, even though they take
children randomly from extremely substandard environments, is that they
completely control most aspects of the students lives. The school itself
enforces a discipline that spreads like a contagion through the children from
the start. In addition, they keep the kids there from 7 AM till 5-6 PM, before
they go home, and for the most part keeps them in summer as well. So you can
recreate this effect, but you need complete control from the top down, at
least at the start.

~~~
gnosis
Do a Google search for: KIPP brainwashing

~~~
klbarry
Very interesting! I had never read anything like that before. Truthfully
though, it makes me like the KIPP program even more, as I am glad that tools
of mass persuasion can finally be used for good.

------
Darmani
I initially did terribly in school. I often refused to do assignments or did
them in a smart-alecky way, acted out violently, and became one of the
principal's most frequent visitors.

In second grade, I entered the school's gifted program, and my academics
improved greatly. Was it because of the quality of the instruction? No; it
primarily consisted of hanging out with a few of the smarter kids in my year,
playing computer games, and occasionally learning the names of Roman gods.

Of course, my problems did not disappear either; I still did not fit in with
the kids who surrounded me over 90% of the time. It was not until I left my
school district for a magnet program that my problems began to disappear and I
began to develop ambition (and it still took some time to adjust).

I expect a lot of people will try to interpret these results to say that kids
are smart because they went through a gifted program. For me, that's not what
happened.3

------
temphn
Highly implausible "study". In reality unintelligent kids in gifted classes do
very poorly. This is not about hope, it's about convincing kids who would be
perfectly happy as mechanics to go into debt quixotically pursuing a degree in
mechanical engineering.

If true, every company could turn their employees into geniuses by telling
them they were. No need for genes, slogans will do the trick.

In other words, more of the same neo-Lysenkoism that was behind "No Child Left
Behind". Lysenko maintained that rye could become wheat if people just wanted
it enough. In its pop manifestation today, Gladwell similarly maintains that
ten thousand hours of training can turn anyone into an expert on anything.

HN readers nod at such articles and then ignore them in real life, hiring the
super smart regardless of prior experience.

~~~
scotty79
> If true, every company could turn their employees into geniuses by telling
> them they were.

Only if they were hiring children.

~~~
temphn
It's always funny to see this kind of selective deference accorded to biology.
Though there is no mention of an adult control group in this "study", I guess
we are to extrapolate that one group (children) has neurological advantages
over another (adults), even as we are enjoined from noting even the
possibility of similar neurological differences between any other two groups
(such as 20 year old programmers and 40 year old programmers...or geniuses and
neurotypicals).

Hard to predict when and how a true egalitarian will allow for biological
constraints on their ambitions.

~~~
scotty79
I don't quite follow you... Do you doubt that there are significant
neurological differences between children and adults that enable children to
perform feats (involving neural plasticity and learning ability) that are out
of reach of adults?

~~~
temphn
Of course there are. But I gather you doubt that there is significant
variation in intelligence in the population at large, due to factors just as
biological as those leading to the child/adult differential. That is the
purpose of all this 10000 hours stuff: to deny that some people can't learn
some things.

------
onan_barbarian
I've seen this result before. I think it's generally under-emphasized as it
calls into question the justice* of setting aside resources for 'gifted'
students if said resources also improve the outcomes for average students.

The rather sad, obvious truth here is that _everyone_ could benefit from
better teaching - not just the kids with known issues at the top and the
bottom.

Note "resources" != "money thrown at the problem". There are plenty of
expensive interventions that don't work.

* this will probably provoke the usual hysterical stuff from the self-proclaimed HN geniuses that were terribly bored in school (unlike everyone else, who was, I suppose, riveted).

------
ak217
Treating students as gifted requires extra resources. Which comes back to the
basic notion of getting what you pay for.

On the other hand, this economics doesn't work that well in American public
schools. They are crippled by teachers' unions which deny performance-based
compensation, and funding is seriously skewed toward athletics (though I think
in most schools that's funded more by the parents' direct contributions).

~~~
anamax
> funding is seriously skewed toward athletics (though I think in most schools
> that's funded more by the parents' direct contributions).

(1) How are we measuring "seriously skewed"? Sure the football stadium may
have just been remodelled, but how much did that cost relative to other
things? (Note that a huge fraction of "school spending" doesn't make it to the
school.)

(2) When someone pointed out that he (Babe Ruth) made more than the US
president, Ruth replied "I know, but I had a better year than (President
Herbert) Hoover."

My point is that the parents may be responding to better performance. I agree
that education can be more valuable, but that doesn't imply that spending more
is always a good idea. Good money after bad, ROI and all that.

------
jasonkester
Maybe the definitions of "Gifted" and "Gifted Program" have changed a bit in
the last 30 years, but this definitely would not have worked on the program I
was in.

Back then, there was one gifted classroom per grade for the entire school
district, and the kids in it were just plain smart. Little 9 year old me,
fresh off being hands down the smartest second grader at Audubon Elementary
School, was now just about the dumbest kid in class. I could hang with Math,
but the reading and writing they were doing in that 3rd grade classroom put me
squarely in the remedial group.

Having regular kids in that classroom would have been pure torture for them,
and a drain on the rest of the class. Hell, _I_ was a drain on the class at
times, and I'd just scored in the 99th percentile on my entrance exams.

I think it's still probably a good idea to split off kids based on ability.
This article seems to be more about giving good teachers to everybody, which
is certainly a good idea. It just doesn't have any relevance in a discussion
about gifted education.

~~~
aik
I think this study is being misunderstood here. Giftedness in most cases isn't
something you either have or don't. Often it's a result of a better
intellectually stimulating environment when growing up. Students of the same
age that grew up in less stimulating environments will naturally be behind in
a number of areas due to having less developed (or less extensive) neural
structures in the areas of background knowledge, mental models, and other
various mental procedures. In a lot of cases I believe these students can
catch up, but placing them in even less stimulating environments will not
accomplish this, and rather widen the gap.

Secondly and in addition, a major part of this study is about the effects
various influences have on an individuals' intelligence theories and
motivation -- effects of expectations, stereotypes, and also teacher behavior
in class. Plenty of studies have shown how various external influences have a
massive effect on a students' achievement due to the theory on intelligence
they form from these influences.

So I agree giving good teachers to everybody is the solution, however there
are definitely other environmental factors involved that complicate the issue.
For one, breaking up students into gifted/non-gifted categories adds yet
another stereotype that could potentially be harmful to both the non-gifted
and gifted students.

I believe the solution would encompass having teachers that understand how
these influences affect students, which will give them the capability to
structure their classes and their instruction in such a way to dissipate any
damage these influences can make, and instead turn them into catalysts for
growth.

------
balloot
This study doesn't tell us anything we didn't know. Yes, when you give kids
the best instructors and best resources, they do better.

The "success" in this study is that regular kids in a regular class end with
10% of kids testing for gifted, and regular kids in a "gifted" class show
15-20%. That simply is not that impressive or surprising.

The problem is that good instructors and resources are limited. And while
those things would help anyone, you maximize their value by giving them to the
kids on the gifted track. We, as a country, would be worse off if we didn't do
this because we would be letting the truly talented go to waste in the name of
"fairness."

~~~
scott_s
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/>

~~~
gwern
There's nothing hindsight about this. We can make confident predictions:
whatever this is, it will prove to be of very limited use or none at all. Why
am I so confident? Because like with boosting IQ, researchers keep trying, and
they keep failing. Their repeated failures tell us a lot about the probability
the next study will succeed...

Education is _full_ of big gains promoted to anyone who will listen as the
answer to this or that gap - like this one! - which turn out to be flukes
(p=0.05 means you just need to keep trying...), statistical or data gaming
(what does it really mean to have some specially treated kids reclassified
into the gifted program? are the people choosing for the gifted program even
blinded as to which kids they are expected to choose and vindicate this
expensive program?) and Goodhart's law, regression to the mean or 'fade out'
_, and outright fraud_ _.

_ like Head Start; there are benefits - and then they fade away:
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Head_Start_Pr...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Head_Start_Program#Mixed_studies_and_statements)
or [http://edlibertywatch.org/2011/03/studies-on-
effectiveness-o...](http://edlibertywatch.org/2011/03/studies-on-
effectiveness-of-early-childhood-programs/) __Suppose this study had been
conducted in this[http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-
cheating-1001...](http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-
cheating-1001375.html) recently exposed nest of crime?

~~~
scott_s
You're addressing something different. I interpret the grandparent as "this
study tells us what was intuitively obvious" which is hindsight bias.

------
scelerat
The corollary is that just because you went through a gifted program and were
a high-achiever doesn't mean you're necessarily smarter or better than anyone
else. You just had more help along the way.

------
Vivtek
Jesus.

 _Educating students works. Film at 11._

If schools had the resources to give everybody a tailored gifted program, then
yeah, America might not suck. Unfortunately, we have other priorities.

------
Shenglong
Being a _gifted student_ is no great feat in today's education system. This
article is a perfect example of poor information. Just because you manage a
5-10% increase in the number of _gifted students_ (which is arbitrarily
defined), does not mean you get any sort of increase in the quality of the top
students.

Some students are simply smarter than others - and I don't think that's a
point anyone can argue. Some debate on different types of learning, and
specialized subjects, but from my experience, the gifted students do well in
every subject (music/arts an exception). By having more _gifted students_ in a
class, it is absolutely inevitable that more time will be spent teaching
certain subjects, more clarification will be required, and material will
probably need to be dumbed down at least a bit.

While this can create an increase in the pure number of students who reach a
certain level, it is unfair to the actually gifted students who require an
absolute top level of stimulation.

We've seen that economic communism doesn't work, and I'd bet an arm and a leg
that intellectual communism doesn't work either.

~~~
SlyShy
I didn't downvote you, but I'm not certain you really understand the results
presented. This operates just like labeling theory. If teachers stopped
treating kids as dumb kids and boring them with idiotic busy work, then those
kids wouldn't feel so bored and demotivated at school. There's a huge
detrimental effect to any student's learning when they feel that the teacher
has a low opinion of them. Why should they work their butts off to try to earn
the respect of a teacher when the teacher has had their mind made up about the
kid from day one? I've had friends who were labeled "slackers" try to work
hard and reverse the label only to be accused of cheating when their test
scores were no longer in line with the teacher's expectation of them.

Most teachers have no awareness of how the petty status games they play in
their classrooms deeply impact the performance of their students. Many
teachers also don't understand that if they can't communicate an enthusiasm
for the subject, then they've failed as educators.

~~~
Shenglong
I understand the concept behind this, and I understand your argument as well.
The reasoning, I think, is pretty simple.

Let me try to better explain what I'm trying to say, as a series of steps:

1\. Teachers start treating everyone as smart

2\. To treat everyone as gifted, more challenging material has to be
introduced.

3\. As a result of increased motivation/whatever, the size of the _gifted
student_ pool doubles. 80% of the class is still not at a gifted level.

4\. _No Child Left Behind_ , morality, failing students, angry parents come
into play, and educators are forced to answer questions about the other 80%.

5\. Two problems are now in play: First, there is the failing 80%. Second, of
the 20% of gifted students, 10% is smarter than the other 10%.

6\. Because there can be no tier separation of students (gifted/not gifted),
material must be taught the same way, and the same material must be taught
(otherwise, discrimination?)

7\. Educators have a decision to make: Teach dull material that suits the last
10% and 80%, or teach engaging material that suits the top 10%, but is
difficult for the second 10%, and near impossible for the 80%.

8\. Choice A results in the top 10% of students losing out on an education,
and Choice B results in 80% of the class failing.

9\. I hate to bring this up for a very liberal and optimistic audience but:
the 20-80 rule is very prevalent in society. It's inevitable that the top 10%
will probably account for a good 50% or so of the nation's GDP and innovation
when they're older (no, I have no evidence, but it makes sense).

Are you beginning to see my point? I went on a first-date last night, and
compared my high school experience (didn't learn a thing, wasn't told about
SATs, people were stabbed, no AP/IB) with my date's high school (UTS in
Toronto... 2 entrance exams to get in, contests and opportunities made
available, etc). I'll tell you now, that I feel like I missed out on a lot of
opportunity. By changing education to this model, you'll find more people who
feel that way (maybe not as extreme).

PS. My education was _so_ bad, in fact, that by the time I took my SAT II
subject tests, I know I needed 800s and I hadn't learned 70% of the material
in Math II, Physics, or Chemistry. I bought books, and for the first time in
high school, I actually studied.

~~~
tokenadult
_1\. Teachers start treating everyone as smart

2\. To treat everyone as gifted, more challenging material has to be
introduced._

Thank you for the detailed step-by-step reply to the comment above yours.
Looking at your first two steps on the basis of international comparisons, I
would say that the empirical observation of what happens in countries where
step 1 and step 2 are followed is that learners IN GENERAL become smarter and
reach higher levels than learners in the United States generally do. I am most
familiar with the situation in Taiwan (where my nieces and nephews live, and
where my wife grew up and I and my children lived for a time). The
international comparative study TIMSS

<http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf>

shows that the entire bell curve for certain countries is shifted to the
right, with "average" level of students in those countries being close to the
gifted level in the United States, or, from another point of view, the
"gifted" level of the United States being barely above the "average" level of
those countries. (See Exhibit 1.1 on pages 34 and 35 of the linked document
for a beautiful example of a statistical chart comparing score levels in
different countries.)

The international comparisons show that learners rise to higher expectations.
Examination of the poor (by international standards) performance of the top
students in the United States

<http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/>

suggests there is plenty of headroom in the United States population that
hasn't been explored by the typical United States curriculum. So it is
commendable that the researchers mentioned in the submitted link are trying to
test the limits of the United States population and see how much academic
performance can increase here, as it has in other countries I know during my
lifetime.

~~~
Alex3917
While I don't think that anyone would argue there is plenty of headroom, using
international comparisons to make this case seems somewhat dubious for
philosophical reasons. (Some people also strongly criticize the methodology of
these international comparisons, but I don't know enough about this to say
anything intelligent.)

------
schiptsov
I used to call it The Naive Psychology - people are trying to isolate some
barely observable phenomena and then prove that it is correct (very scientific
approach) forgetting that an isolated phenomena is mere creation of the mind.
^_^

These "results" also depends of:

    
    
      Animated or depressive mood of teachers (private schools vs. ghetto schools).
      Conditions of classrooms (illumination, cleanness, colors of walls, furniture).
      The dress of the teachers.
      Male/female students ratio.
      Location of the school (suburbs vs. city).
      Noise level (traffic outside, etc).
      Weather (season) and time of day (morning/evening classes).
    

to name a few.

btw, It is much more important to emphasize the harmful effect of the parent's
violence, childhood abuses and other negative feedback which is just a mirror
image of observed phenomena known for centuries.

------
kstenerud
All I know is that I was so deathly bored in school that I stopped showing up.
It got so bad that they threatened to expel me despite my protestations that I
was maintaining high grades without even showing up to class, and getting
scholarships.

Would I have excelled in a "gifted" program? Probably, provided the material
wasn't so trivial, dull, and repetitive. Would everyone benefit from a
significantly increased difficulty? I'm not so sure.

Holding students to a high standard, and taking time to engage with them such
that you earn their respect will of course raise student performance. However,
applying the word "gifted" en masse simply dilutes the earlier meaning of the
word.

------
jeggers5
I observed something similar with dyslexia. A friend of mine is dyslexic.
However he was only told that he was dyslexic a few months ago. Before he was
told, he could read fine, and was quite good maths. Almost immediately after
he was diagnosed, he started stumbling over words, and skipping sentences; he
also dropped down to the 2nd last maths class from the 2 highest.

It's v. unscientific I know but it's an interesting observation all the same.

~~~
tsellon
Just to offer a counter anecdote, a friend of mine had the opposite
experience. She'd struggled all through school, until her dyslexia was
diagnosed, and she could be taught compensation strategies. After that, she
was much more successful.

~~~
jeggers5
Weird. Guess it's completely dependent on the person's personality then.

------
keithnoizu
How is this news? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect>

------
noduerme
There's a corollary too, which the University failed to study (but
should've)...which is that if you treat people like infants and feed them fox
news garbage 24/7, they act like idiots and society collapses. Go figure.

