[ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future

[Adrian Tymes]

On Jan 21, 2014 2:20 PM, "Kelly Anderson" <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was offered a gifted placement, but it would have involved my parents
driving me 12 miles to school every day because my school didn't have a
program. The special education kids didn't have to do that. So perhaps this
is just a personal rough spot with me.

Like Spike said, a cheap "program" that works is to make sure the gifteds
are doing the minimums everyone else is doing, then get out of their way as
they go beyond.

> I don't want to abandon them. I want to give them the best education we
can. I just don't want to stop the truly gifted to do it, which is what
common core and no child's behind left alone do, IMHO.

I don't see how these stop the truly gifted...other than by not focusing
more resources on them, at the expense of ("abandoning") everyone else.
And again, the truly gifted don't need as much as the rest (though more
would of course be nice).

> It worked well for several thousand years in China. People were picked to
be the top of government based on passing exams. Since this is the longest
lasting civilization since Egypt, I would hardly call it a failure.

For thousands of years, there was a group of kingdoms - sometimes more
united than others - in that part of the world.  It is known as China.  But
don't mistake for a moment that it was the same century to century, any
more than the collection of kingdoms known as medieval Europe were.

Also, the exams had a greater (by the numbers) effect on those who failed,
by ensuring that most people at least studied a common culture.  Arguably
the same is true of public education today for those who do not go for
postgraduate degrees.  (It used to be "who do not go to college", but that
has changed in recent years.)

> I don't want AI to creep into this particular conversation. We could
start a new thread though.

Just noting one likely long term solution.
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