Way back when I was in "Grammar School," one of the teaching philosophies was that it was best to teach kids in groups that were intellectually similar. Early on, we were given an IQ test, and every grade was divided into three "groups," by IQ. The top IQ group was Group A, and so on. We used the same textbooks, but in some cases not all of the groups finished them by the end of the school year. At the end of 8th grade, the acceptance rate at the selective Catholic high schools (based on competitive testing) tracked very closely with the Groups. Basically all of the kids in Group A went to the Catholic high schools and all of the kids in Group C went to the public high school.
The same philosophy was carried on in the Catholic High Schools, albeit with much larger numbers. The mandatory classes (including science and math) were taught generally by IQ groupings. Admission to AP was done literally by a competitive test. The high IQ groups learned chemistry and physics in labs, while the lower groups who actually took those subjects were taught in regular classrooms, where the teacher did the experiments and the students watched. Fewer explosions in those classes, obviously.
And the results were what you would expect. The kids in the higher classes went to the "better" colleges and the kids in the lower classes went to "community college" or equivalent (essentially all went on to higher ed of one kind or another, at least initially).
I believe that this philosophy allowed the students to better reach their individual academic potentials. It would serve no purpose for bright kids to be sitting next to dullards and having the teacher move slowly through the material to accommodate the slowest students, or, conversely, for the dullards to not understand what's going on all the time in class.
Obviously, today's public schools don't adopt this philosophy, and seek to accommodate the top students with "AP" classes and whatnot, while everyone else sits in classrooms with very bright kids sitting alongside very slow kids and the teachers trying not to allow anyone to fall too far behind. This is apparently why so many kids are graduating HS with preposterous QPA's: the material is taught at the level of the slowest students, so that an above average student looks like a brilliant all-star, by comparison.
And why is this? One simple reason: If "we" separated kids by IQ, then there wouldn't be any Black or Hispanic kids in the top classes and this would offend the sensibilities of School Boards and other subversives. The schools would be accused of racial and ethnic discrimination, when in fact they would only be practicing logical and efficacious intellectual discrimination. Which is kinda their job, eh?
Indeed, in large, racially mixed school districts, there is constant fretting about the "achievement gap" between "white" and non-white students. They are constantly seeking strategies to fight this evil statistic, and grouping all the kids together tends to reduce it. Can you imagine how it would explode if those schools adopted the philosophy of intellectual grouping?
That would be better for every student's intellectual development, but it would look bad, statistically speaking because of the dreaded achievement gap.
Compulsory stupidity. Don't you just love it?
The same philosophy was carried on in the Catholic High Schools, albeit with much larger numbers. The mandatory classes (including science and math) were taught generally by IQ groupings. Admission to AP was done literally by a competitive test. The high IQ groups learned chemistry and physics in labs, while the lower groups who actually took those subjects were taught in regular classrooms, where the teacher did the experiments and the students watched. Fewer explosions in those classes, obviously.
And the results were what you would expect. The kids in the higher classes went to the "better" colleges and the kids in the lower classes went to "community college" or equivalent (essentially all went on to higher ed of one kind or another, at least initially).
I believe that this philosophy allowed the students to better reach their individual academic potentials. It would serve no purpose for bright kids to be sitting next to dullards and having the teacher move slowly through the material to accommodate the slowest students, or, conversely, for the dullards to not understand what's going on all the time in class.
Obviously, today's public schools don't adopt this philosophy, and seek to accommodate the top students with "AP" classes and whatnot, while everyone else sits in classrooms with very bright kids sitting alongside very slow kids and the teachers trying not to allow anyone to fall too far behind. This is apparently why so many kids are graduating HS with preposterous QPA's: the material is taught at the level of the slowest students, so that an above average student looks like a brilliant all-star, by comparison.
And why is this? One simple reason: If "we" separated kids by IQ, then there wouldn't be any Black or Hispanic kids in the top classes and this would offend the sensibilities of School Boards and other subversives. The schools would be accused of racial and ethnic discrimination, when in fact they would only be practicing logical and efficacious intellectual discrimination. Which is kinda their job, eh?
Indeed, in large, racially mixed school districts, there is constant fretting about the "achievement gap" between "white" and non-white students. They are constantly seeking strategies to fight this evil statistic, and grouping all the kids together tends to reduce it. Can you imagine how it would explode if those schools adopted the philosophy of intellectual grouping?
That would be better for every student's intellectual development, but it would look bad, statistically speaking because of the dreaded achievement gap.
Compulsory stupidity. Don't you just love it?
