[extropy-chat] it's all understandable, except

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

Lee Corbin wrote:
> 
> The schools in the Santa Clara Valley and Fremont here in northern
> California, I do know from personal experience are doing excellent
> jobs with the brightest kids.  (There are some unfortunate counter-
> examples:  the Palo Alto high school district has been taken over by
> some levellers who have taken the pressure off the brightest kids to
> such an extent that parents I know have withdrawn their kids and are
> sending them to private schools. One teaching math spot remains
> open because the primary job qualification is that the teacher be black.
> The main focus (goal) in that high school district now---I kid you not
> ---to have everyone perform at the same level insofar as it is possible.)

Current in-house SIAI research personnel:

Marcello Herreshoff - recently graduated from Gunn high school, in the 
Palo Alto district.  If they took any pressure off him to perform, it 
sure doesn't show.

Eliezer Yudkowsky - gave up on the dying American educational system 
after completing eighth grade.  Went to a private religious school for 
K-8.  Would things have gone differently if I'd been in Palo Alto with 
decently atheist parents?  Maybe, but in that case I probably wouldn't 
be me.

Sometimes the System works.  Sometimes it doesn't.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence