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DanArmak comments on [Link] Why the kids don’t know no algebra - Less Wrong
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I'm not sure I buy into this narrative very much. If this were the case, one would expect that one would see similar educational problems in other countries. One could claim that that's due to different gene pools but if that were the case, one would expect to see schools which have homogeneous populations to be similar to their home countries. But one doesn't see this. For example, schools with predominantly Irish background don't have data that looks like Irish schools.
As a matter of anecdote (I've done some teaching and a lot of math tutoring), there are a lot of stupid kids out there, but most of the kids I've tutored were able to get concepts fine if they were taught well.
Yes, we probably aren't acknowledging nature enough in many respects. But that doesn't mean that there aren't deep problems with our school system that are connected to who the teachers are, what their training is, and what the school environment it. That's part of why for example there's strong evidence that smaller classroom size really does help a lot with performance across a wide variety of subjects.
A smaller classroom contributes to better results, but how exactly?
Does it make easier to explain (to answer every student's questions and check every student's mistakes), or does it make easier to maintain discipline (to keep the class quiet and make sure everyone is really doing the exercises)? I think both these effects are helpful, but what proportion do they have in the outcome?
In my opinion, the difficulty of explaining is not that different. It's not like 2× more students will ask 2× more questions; many questions will be the same. And having more questions asked and answered could help better understanding. There is always a chance another student will come with an unexpected question and make an original mistake, but on the other hand, you can make a Khan Academy video for the whole planet and many people will get it.
The critical part is maintaining the order in the classroom. If there is too much noise, students can't learn. If you have one disruptive student, that's bad, but if you have two of them, that's ten times worse because they will encourage each other. So with a larger classroom there is more noise and a higher chance of disruptive students.
If this analysis is correct, there seems to be an easy fix -- just throw the disruptive students out of the classroom, and you can have rather good results with large classrooms too. Unless your population already contains too many disruptive students, in which case pretty much your only chance is to separate the other students in special classrooms and teach only them.
The reason this isn't implemented is that children are forced to attend school. If they could get out of classes without consequent punishment, not just one or two 'disruptives' but many students might opt out. A school doesn't have anywhere to keep such a group; classes are in large part make-work to occupy students.
On the other hand, if you punished disruptive students but did so outside of class, the habitual disruptives would spend a lot of time in punishment sessions, and would definitely not learn their lessons / pass end of year exams / etc. Schools in the US* prefer to have everyone barely pass exams, to 80% passing with high scores and 20% failing irretrievably. The failing students' parents have too much political power over the schools.
I can't believe I didn't think of that before. The unwillingness to risk (localized or individual) failure is the strongest guarantee of mediocrity.
It also explains the state of gifted & talented education, incidentally.
Does it? By many metrics the US does better with gifted and talented education than much of the world. For example, the US has some of the highest per a capita rates of Noble Prize winners and Fields Medal winners, more than Britain or France. If anything, the US is doing badly on the average case but is doing a lot better with the very smart students.
Edit: This claim is massively wrong, see Douglas's remark below.
What is your source for per capita rates?
France has 4x Fields medalists per capita as the US. (and the UK is the geometric mean). (or try wikipedia) For science Nobels, the UK beats the US, which beats France.
Someone a while ago told me this I think and I must have not bothered checking it. Yeah, this is unambiguously wrong as of right now. It is possible that this was true until some point quite a few years ago, but is clearly false today. Thanks for catching me on that.
You shouldn't reason from Nobel Prize per capita all the way back to gifted & talented education without bringing in many other factors to your regression.
The US is the wealthiest economy in the world with the best elite higher education establishment with some of the largest investments in STEM or R&D in general, with the largest Jewish population outside Israel (which, IIRC, beats the US on per capita measures), and as wedrifid pointed out, for all these factors attracts the best students from across the world. Just off the top of my head.
This means that our G&T programs could easily be underperforming and a simple gross observation of per capita Nobelists not make this instantly obvious. A better approach would be to simply look for experiments, natural or otherwise, on funding for G&T programs and seeing how they do.
Either that or they are doing well at acquiring very smart students (either by immigration or the genetic inheritance from historic immigration patterns.)
One wonders what they would get up to without school's much-maligned, factory-style indoctrination. Speedier life lessons? Roving gangs?