"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free." —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
25 years ago when my daughter was enrolling in high school, I met with her new counselor to work on getting her into the schools gifted program. The counselor told me, "Smart kids are a pain in the neck." He repeated this and explained why he thought it was true. I moved her to an outstanding private school who provided generous financial aid, as I didn't have the money to pay full tuition. There she learned to work hard (she was cruising in public school) and is now a physician. This idea of holding back smart kids is not only destructive to the kids but can deprive society of people who will be the movers and shakers of the next generation. Such a bad idea.
The proponents of DEI are very clear that "equity" refers to equality of outcome while "equality" refers to equality of opportunity. Since opportunity is never equal (your friend's daughter had the unfair advantage to be gifted in math), equity demands that she be held back while the less gifted students catch up. This is exactly why DEI ideas are so popular, as the recent election so clearly showed.
That is why 90%+ of Ph.D. students in ANY top US/Canadian STEM program are foreign-born, and usually have undergraduate degrees from abroad. The preparation is much better, plus it is much easier to identify top talent. E.g., in Iran (and in many other countries) all high school students going to college write the same exam and are nationally ranked. So if you get someone in the top 1000 from a good school, you know you are getting someone very smart and well prepared. Much more of a crapshoot with US/Canadian grads given the grade inflation and non-informative effusive letters of recommendation. But open national ranking system would, of course, violate all three components of DEI.
Excellent article! I completely agree that this practice has done our young people a huge disservice. DEI in the workplace also does employees a disservice, as it encourages the gravitational pull toward falling to the lowest common denominator. I’m hopeful that DEI in all its forms is on its way out. I’m glad that it’s on your radar, Vinay, and I hope this is not news to you because the school situation you describe has been going on for at least a decade or so, since I was aware of it when my children were in school. “ No child left behind “ was a policy enacted by Congress during the Bush administration which then morphed into the,” Every child succeeds “ act by the Obama administration, and both are foundational to the rise of DEI in schools. One of many reasons why the DOEducation needs to be abolished, and possibly reconstituted in a different, smaller, less powerful form, or left to the states entirely.
VP you would freak out if you had any school age kids right now in public school (especially in CA)…. The stuff is happening everywhere and I suspect worse in your state. This and many other things is the main reason why we pulled three of our four kids out of public two years ago & put them into private….& it was like instantaneously getting back to academics! It was a shocking comparison! The time for connecting and problem-solving is on recess and lunch and maybe at snacktime… Not 15 “sharing circles” during the day. Some kids might need to see a counselor for an issue… They should do that and the rest of the class get back to the academics & engagement time in the class! Help the kids that need some extra help… Accelerate the kids that need accelerating! It is eye-opening when you do a deep dive into exactly how time is used in whatever grade in public school… primarily from 5th grade up…
Totally agree! One of the only things keeping the educational system in CA from moving from 49th in the nation to 50th in the nation, is the fantastic teachers that are out there teaching the basics that they know are really what the kids need to succeed in this world. It is becoming an increasingly dismal landscape for these good ones who are bucking the system, like some that I know personally, for example. There are so many children with learning disabilities (ADHD and on the Autism spectrum), as well as the ones that are the product of what is now called "Gentle Parenting", which is a politically correct way to say that the kid runs the household instead of the other way around, or free range parenting. Apparently getting help for those who really need it has become increasingly difficult, and the hoops that the teacher has to go through increasing in layers of red tape bureaucracy. The CA educational system is in dire straights, and needs serious reforms that throwing more money on the problem will not help. My aunt, also a teacher, says that every year the schools gets so much money that has to be spent on improving the physical plant or it will be taken away that they have a meeting to figure out how to spend it, and this is a difficult task because there is nothing that needs to be done. What a waste of taxpayer dollars this is as well... I do not have the answers, but it is important that people like Vinay and others who have large followings increase awareness.
Almost all leftist ideas are born with high intentions and immediately captured by people who want to just game the system. One has to start with the right assumptions though, and unfortunately most people on the left have an unconscious commitment to a "blank slate" model of human existence -- essentially the notion is unconsciously held that if all human suffering were removed, everyone would have the same capacities.
Yeah. Nope. Every person really is unique and every attempt to cut uniqueness down is an assault on our essential humanity.
There are ways to create fairness without fucking everyone over in the process.
Highly recommend Charles Murray's book -Real Education (2008)- when we hold back the gifted-in any subject- we do society a disservice. Children should be allowed to advance as fast and as far as they can with mastery. Zoom interviews are lazy. You are interviewing an applicant for a job that requires a high amount of interpersonal skill, sometimes to specific demographic subsets of society. In person will always be best.
20 years ago one of our kids was in the 3rd grade gifted and talented class in a public school in NYC. As far as I could tell the entirety of the math curriculum was calculating the "number of the day" - showing N arithmetic methods for calculating the Nth day of school. Very tedious. Our son started doing some of the N calculations using division. The teacher told him to stop because division wasn't in the curriculum. This followed the confiscation of "free reading" books from several students because they were beyond grade level. Stupid bureaucracy pre-dates equity.
Thanks for pointing out the absurdity of the education system in so many parts of the country that is hurting our children in so many ways. As to the interview process I could not agree more. I spend so much time with my medical students that rotate with me talking about why they should visit the places that they are interested in and get to know as much as possible, especially when not in the formal part of the interviews. In addition, I tell them to think twice about being a resident at an institution that is not offering live interviews and opportunities to really get to know the culture and expectations of their residencies and the people they will spend the next number of years with. After all, even in the most prestigious institutions, it is not only if they want you but do you want to be there and that cannot be answered in Zoom interviews. Appreciate your making this point.
DEI - didn't earn it. But why do so many seem to have "faith" in something that seems so incontrovertibly wrong, abstract and grossly oversimplified? So far as abilities, resources, advantages/disadvantages, fairness etc. in life goes, the combination of factors, both positive and negative, is essentially infinite. Every single human being has their own unique advantages and disadvantages that it is impossible to accurately and meaningfully try to "make up" for our "unfair" positions. When I look at my life, the deficits and disadvantages have become a source of strength for me as I had to struggle to overcome many things, including the low expectations of others. What we see is a race to the bottom by people trying to argue who has had it worse - our current values are the we "win" by seeing who can be the biggest loser, which is short sighted.
It is indeed abusive. Smart and gifted kids are the most bored in class. Some act out, but some turn inward and are lonely and depressed. Some turn to daydreaming to stay sane and have trouble paying attention later.
On top of that, the kids who already know the subject matter already are discouraged from participating in class. My son would raise his hand to answer questions, and the teacher would constantly say "Does anyone other than ___ know the answer to this question?"
What does that tell a kid? It tells him "You don't belong here." It tells him not to participate. Which I knew already that he didn't belong in that class, but the school refused to let him move up or just work out of a textbook on his own. We moved him the next year to a school that does math by stage not age, and he was much much happier.
"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free." —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
25 years ago when my daughter was enrolling in high school, I met with her new counselor to work on getting her into the schools gifted program. The counselor told me, "Smart kids are a pain in the neck." He repeated this and explained why he thought it was true. I moved her to an outstanding private school who provided generous financial aid, as I didn't have the money to pay full tuition. There she learned to work hard (she was cruising in public school) and is now a physician. This idea of holding back smart kids is not only destructive to the kids but can deprive society of people who will be the movers and shakers of the next generation. Such a bad idea.
You, sir, are one of my online heroes.
The short story "Harrison Bergeron" is worth reading in this context. Not Solzhenitsyn, but very apt.
Was just thinking about this one. We read it in high school years ago.
The proponents of DEI are very clear that "equity" refers to equality of outcome while "equality" refers to equality of opportunity. Since opportunity is never equal (your friend's daughter had the unfair advantage to be gifted in math), equity demands that she be held back while the less gifted students catch up. This is exactly why DEI ideas are so popular, as the recent election so clearly showed.
Except that China (and other countries) don't hold their gifted students back.
With this equity model, all the innovations, patents and Nobel prizes will start going to non-Americans.
That is why 90%+ of Ph.D. students in ANY top US/Canadian STEM program are foreign-born, and usually have undergraduate degrees from abroad. The preparation is much better, plus it is much easier to identify top talent. E.g., in Iran (and in many other countries) all high school students going to college write the same exam and are nationally ranked. So if you get someone in the top 1000 from a good school, you know you are getting someone very smart and well prepared. Much more of a crapshoot with US/Canadian grads given the grade inflation and non-informative effusive letters of recommendation. But open national ranking system would, of course, violate all three components of DEI.
Why not apply this brilliant concept to sports too?
Don't help train the fastest runners until the slower ones can catch up.
Don't help train the best tall players in basketball until the short ones can play equally well.
I’m old, 5’2”, a female and I think it’s disgusting that that I haven’t ever been invited to the NFL Scouting Combine.
Excellent article! I completely agree that this practice has done our young people a huge disservice. DEI in the workplace also does employees a disservice, as it encourages the gravitational pull toward falling to the lowest common denominator. I’m hopeful that DEI in all its forms is on its way out. I’m glad that it’s on your radar, Vinay, and I hope this is not news to you because the school situation you describe has been going on for at least a decade or so, since I was aware of it when my children were in school. “ No child left behind “ was a policy enacted by Congress during the Bush administration which then morphed into the,” Every child succeeds “ act by the Obama administration, and both are foundational to the rise of DEI in schools. One of many reasons why the DOEducation needs to be abolished, and possibly reconstituted in a different, smaller, less powerful form, or left to the states entirely.
VP you would freak out if you had any school age kids right now in public school (especially in CA)…. The stuff is happening everywhere and I suspect worse in your state. This and many other things is the main reason why we pulled three of our four kids out of public two years ago & put them into private….& it was like instantaneously getting back to academics! It was a shocking comparison! The time for connecting and problem-solving is on recess and lunch and maybe at snacktime… Not 15 “sharing circles” during the day. Some kids might need to see a counselor for an issue… They should do that and the rest of the class get back to the academics & engagement time in the class! Help the kids that need some extra help… Accelerate the kids that need accelerating! It is eye-opening when you do a deep dive into exactly how time is used in whatever grade in public school… primarily from 5th grade up…
Totally agree! One of the only things keeping the educational system in CA from moving from 49th in the nation to 50th in the nation, is the fantastic teachers that are out there teaching the basics that they know are really what the kids need to succeed in this world. It is becoming an increasingly dismal landscape for these good ones who are bucking the system, like some that I know personally, for example. There are so many children with learning disabilities (ADHD and on the Autism spectrum), as well as the ones that are the product of what is now called "Gentle Parenting", which is a politically correct way to say that the kid runs the household instead of the other way around, or free range parenting. Apparently getting help for those who really need it has become increasingly difficult, and the hoops that the teacher has to go through increasing in layers of red tape bureaucracy. The CA educational system is in dire straights, and needs serious reforms that throwing more money on the problem will not help. My aunt, also a teacher, says that every year the schools gets so much money that has to be spent on improving the physical plant or it will be taken away that they have a meeting to figure out how to spend it, and this is a difficult task because there is nothing that needs to be done. What a waste of taxpayer dollars this is as well... I do not have the answers, but it is important that people like Vinay and others who have large followings increase awareness.
Vote against any new bonds for schools and colleges. As in some recent CA propositions.
Completely agree!!!! They try to pull on your heartstrings to get the green light to borrow more money!! It's a terrible idea.
A destructive progressive policy.
Equity means less quality. DEI has ruined many things.
Almost all leftist ideas are born with high intentions and immediately captured by people who want to just game the system. One has to start with the right assumptions though, and unfortunately most people on the left have an unconscious commitment to a "blank slate" model of human existence -- essentially the notion is unconsciously held that if all human suffering were removed, everyone would have the same capacities.
Yeah. Nope. Every person really is unique and every attempt to cut uniqueness down is an assault on our essential humanity.
There are ways to create fairness without fucking everyone over in the process.
Highly recommend Charles Murray's book -Real Education (2008)- when we hold back the gifted-in any subject- we do society a disservice. Children should be allowed to advance as fast and as far as they can with mastery. Zoom interviews are lazy. You are interviewing an applicant for a job that requires a high amount of interpersonal skill, sometimes to specific demographic subsets of society. In person will always be best.
20 years ago one of our kids was in the 3rd grade gifted and talented class in a public school in NYC. As far as I could tell the entirety of the math curriculum was calculating the "number of the day" - showing N arithmetic methods for calculating the Nth day of school. Very tedious. Our son started doing some of the N calculations using division. The teacher told him to stop because division wasn't in the curriculum. This followed the confiscation of "free reading" books from several students because they were beyond grade level. Stupid bureaucracy pre-dates equity.
Thanks for pointing out the absurdity of the education system in so many parts of the country that is hurting our children in so many ways. As to the interview process I could not agree more. I spend so much time with my medical students that rotate with me talking about why they should visit the places that they are interested in and get to know as much as possible, especially when not in the formal part of the interviews. In addition, I tell them to think twice about being a resident at an institution that is not offering live interviews and opportunities to really get to know the culture and expectations of their residencies and the people they will spend the next number of years with. After all, even in the most prestigious institutions, it is not only if they want you but do you want to be there and that cannot be answered in Zoom interviews. Appreciate your making this point.
DEI - didn't earn it. But why do so many seem to have "faith" in something that seems so incontrovertibly wrong, abstract and grossly oversimplified? So far as abilities, resources, advantages/disadvantages, fairness etc. in life goes, the combination of factors, both positive and negative, is essentially infinite. Every single human being has their own unique advantages and disadvantages that it is impossible to accurately and meaningfully try to "make up" for our "unfair" positions. When I look at my life, the deficits and disadvantages have become a source of strength for me as I had to struggle to overcome many things, including the low expectations of others. What we see is a race to the bottom by people trying to argue who has had it worse - our current values are the we "win" by seeing who can be the biggest loser, which is short sighted.
It is indeed abusive. Smart and gifted kids are the most bored in class. Some act out, but some turn inward and are lonely and depressed. Some turn to daydreaming to stay sane and have trouble paying attention later.
On top of that, the kids who already know the subject matter already are discouraged from participating in class. My son would raise his hand to answer questions, and the teacher would constantly say "Does anyone other than ___ know the answer to this question?"
What does that tell a kid? It tells him "You don't belong here." It tells him not to participate. Which I knew already that he didn't belong in that class, but the school refused to let him move up or just work out of a textbook on his own. We moved him the next year to a school that does math by stage not age, and he was much much happier.