A couple of nights ago, I attended the high school orientation for Jonah. (Holy crap! My baby is going to high school!) The parents squeezed into the auditorium to hear about all the course offerings in the school, and the school's philosophy about education. They gave us a handout with a breakdown of the SAT scores, the number of AP classes, and a list of all the colleges that their graduates were attending. Then we watched several boring powerpoint presentations. I checked Twitter and looked up periodically.
After telling us about the wonderful achievements of their graduates, they told us that nearly 9% of the middle school kids did not attend the local public high school and instead went to private school. They said that they planned to start advertising the benefits of the local high school earlier in middle school to try to keep those students in town.
A few years ago, a county-wide magnet school opened up. It's a highly selective public school with a rigorous entrance test and interview process. There are town quotas, with slots for the smartest kids in each town. The local public schools are pissed, because it's pulling away the top students from each town, depressing the school averages, and lowering their rankings. Jonah said that the smartest kids in his class have taken the entrance exam and are awaiting the results.
Jonah did not take the test, mostly because I didn't think he's mature enough yet for such a competitive environment. If and when the kid ever remembers to hand in his homework, then he'll be ready for it. (He does the homework, but forgets to hand it in. Ugh.) But even if he matured over night, I still have mixed feelings about a magnet school for smart kids.
The great brain sort out is happening. Smart kids will go to honors classes. They will go to the more elite schools. They will move to cities that attract smarter people. They will get jobs that recruit smart people. They will marry other smart people and then move to towns with other smart, successful people. And they will miss out meeting people who are successful and smart in non-school things.
The populist in me hates the brain sort out. I would like my kids to be in diverse environments. Well, the diversity is still pretty limited in this wealthy town, but there is certainly a big range of talents and IQs. So, the regular old high school is for us.
Apt. 11d 
We’ve made the opposite decision, but the populist in me also hates the brain sort out. As with the debate about open access, we do it partially because we think everyone else does it. These days, everyone wants a critical mass of people like them. I’m not sure what the critical mass is, but I do think its more than one. My kiddoes are the competitive type (also organized and all that). In search of that critical mass, though, we end up creating environments where 50% of the kids are like them (which, really, might not be good for any of them). But, I don’t really think they’d benefit from being the only kid like themselves either. There’ll be thinking to do as we make the transition.
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I went to a serious brain drain high school (city wide test, at the time really really nominal tuition). It was the best thing for me and probably saved my life, no joke. It wasn’t just the quality of the teaching and academics but of the peer group.
I have the same ideals but if we can swing it and my child qualifies, high school is kind of where I give up on the public system.
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Grade level does make a big difference. Anyway, the same sorting phenomenon is happening on a class-by-class basis within the normal high school, no matter how good or bad the school. Consider how many students make it into calculus or physics or third year French or what have you. It just becomes more pronounced the further up you go. College is the ultimate sorting machine.
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I am totally sincere when I say that family seems to be the last bastion of completely unsorted interactions. The only time of year I sit at the table with people who have “Peace Through Bushmasters” bumper stickers? Christmas dinner with extended family. When I want to hear what life is like for people with no health insurance? I talk to my sister-in-law.
Kind of sad that blood ties are the only ones strong enough to overcome the sorting, at least in my life.
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I just interviewed 4 prospective students of my alma mater at a local private school, and wow. These kids are so interesting and seem to have so many opportunities. My kid-with-AS might not fit all that well in this environment, but I really wonder if my prospective HSer would love it there. She will fight me tooth and nail simply because if I say up, she has to say down, but maybe I can get her to go at least to an open house. *sigh*
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Here’s the thing you might be forgetting — you seem to think that it is a shame that there are kids who are getting ‘excluded’ from all the high flying, olympic level high school competitiveness — but just maybe they don’t want to hang out with you and your kids either.
The sorting actually works both ways — There are guys and girls at my kid’s high school who will get married when they finish high school (maybe sooner if they get pregnant), who aspire to own a truck and a rifle and a good hunting dog, and would probably tell you to take your AP French and shove it if you asked them.
It’s kind of the way that I used to feel really guilty giving a student a B because in my world a B was a failure because it wasn’t an A, until a student clued me in that for him, a B represented a really good grade.
You seem to be equating the sorting with some form of hierarchy in which the people who don’t end up in AP French end up getting thrown away — but I don’t think that’s correct. FOr a lot of those people, you’re the sucker because you have to go to school for four more years after high school. As much as Barack Obama states that he wants everyone to go to college, there are actually a lot of people who probably wouldn’t go even if you made it free and maybe even if you paid them to go.
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“The sorting actually works both ways — There are guys and girls at my kid’s high school who will get married when they finish high school (maybe sooner if they get pregnant), who aspire to own a truck and a rifle and a good hunting dog, and would probably tell you to take your AP French and shove it if you asked them.”
I know these people and I like them and I want my kids to know them.
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“I am totally sincere when I say that family seems to be the last bastion of completely unsorted interactions.”
Yes, indeed. You can see the same sort of thing writ large at a family reunion. I went to one a few years back where the tie was that we were all descended from a set of my great-great-great-grandparents, and there was a huge range, from the annoying delusional Southern California bobo cousin to assorted local rednecks.
“She will fight me tooth and nail simply because if I say up, she has to say down, but maybe I can get her to go at least to an open house.”
There’s got to be a sneaky way to do this. Other people may think of better suggestions, but have you thought of sending her for a summer program there? I had a really good time doing a summer course at the University of Washington when I was 14, although I confess I didn’t wind up going to UW.
“As much as Barack Obama states that he wants everyone to go to college, there are actually a lot of people who probably wouldn’t go even if you made it free and maybe even if you paid them to go.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but I agree that there’s a large chunk of the population (especially young men) who think of school as being like prison and are dying to get out.
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They grow up quickly, don’t they? Our girls go to the local HS but it’s also a bit of a magnet with the IB located there. That really draws in the super-focused students. All but a handful of Eldest’s peers are applying for engineering programs at university.
Autistic Youngest is not IB material because of her diagnosis. She’s integrated in several university-prep classes. She complains about the noise and off-focus behaviour of her classmates, especially in Grade 11 math. She’d be better off with the intensity and focus the IB class provides but she can’t handle the demands, especially in terms of time management and independent work.
I don’t know that she’ll be able to handle calculus and functions given the likelihood of a similar class environment. It’s sad that those criteria are more important in her decision than her academic ability but there you go – if you can’t manage the classroom soft skills, you can’t excel in the class!
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We go against the grain and keep our kids in the high-poverty, very diverse schools that most of our neighbors flee. And it has worked out just fine. Yes, my daughter is the *only* kid in the entire 7th grade who is moved up for Algebra. There aren’t a lot of kids at school who match her background (white, middle class, high test scores). But she’s doing great. And her best friend at school recently arrived from an African nation that I had to look up on a map.
In my son’s 4th grade class, they had to write essays about an experience that was important to them. My son wrote about the day he got his X-box. It was a mechanically well-written essay and scored a high grade.
But the boy sitting next to him wrote an incredibly moving story about fleeing a refuge camp, losing his mother, coming to America and riding in a car for the very first time. This boy is kind, wise-beyond-his-years, generous, and resilient.
Immigrants/poverty/test scores are the main reason that my neighbors flee the school. We hear a lot of “there aren’t any academic peers/people like us” when people leave. And they aren’t wrong.
But we’ve decided that we truly prefer the diversity of kind/generous/resilient friends from all over the world over than the high pressure, high test scores and academic peers. For us, it’s working out very nicely.
As always, your mileage may vary.
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I teach in one of those schools, and there are pluses and minuses. I love the small classes, the amount of support the kids get from teachers, and all the extra opportunities. But the environment is competitive. My daughter is smart enough to know how to balance. She thinks kids who are doing 50 after school activities to beef up their résumé in middle school are crazy. But her peer group definitely encourages making good grades, having big goals for life, and participating in things beyond the classroom. I like that. It challenges her, and I trust her enough to know where to draw the line. I do see some girls who get pushed too far, either by their parents or in trying to keep up with their peer group.
I think my son would have done well in a different kind of school, perhaps a Friends school or some other hippy type philosophy and approach to education. I’m hoping college will provide that for him. I’ve been pretty satisfied with the public high school. They’ve been great about handling his depression. The classes are small enough, especially for the honors/AP courses, that his teachers know him and keep an eye on him. The peer issue is somewhat of an issue. Over the years, he’s had plenty of peers aiming high. In fact, his best friend graduated early. But he’s also had friends who fall into the slacker category, or who at least put that persona forward. This is especially true for boys, where I find the culture is still about it not being cool to be good at school. GB never fell in with the truly geeky, those who are crazy smart, and not interested in social structure. So he’s hung out with a mix of kids, which is good, but he also sometimes adopts their modes of living. Sigh. 5 more months!
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“This is especially true for boys, where I find the culture is still about it not being cool to be good at school.”
That’s interesting. I guess kids vary a lot in how peer-driven they are. I went to a “diverse” school (socioeconomically, not racially–practically all the American Indians had dropped out or gone over to the alternative school by high school). It wasn’t a disaster, but I kind of wish I had had real Biology II and real physics (my teachers for those classes were jokes), not to mention second and third year French that weren’t combined in the same room with first year French (that was a disaster for my French, which I had been very enthusiastic about). More APs would also have been nice–we had just two. Also, there wasn’t really a full course load left for me to take, which was one of the reasons I skipped 12th grade and went straight to college. High school was OK, though, for the following reasons: 1) I wasn’t a peer-driven kid 2) By my junior year, it was actually a vary rarefied environment–the sifting process had done its work by that time and my classes were small and full of very academic-minded girls.
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When I say my high school physics was a joke, I’m not exaggerating. I wouldn’t be prepared to swear that we covered more physics in that high school class than my daughter did in 4th grade last year.
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My high school physics teacher was very good and there were only two students in the class.
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“I know these people and I like them and I want my kids to know them.”
You like them, but do they like you? Or just a version of you who doesn’t seem to have a PhD or write for the Atlantic? More importantly, do their kids like your kids? I went to a public high school, and by the end I was only friends with smart kids. It wasn’t because I was a snob – I was a quiet, nice kid; it was because they were the only people who didn’t think I was extremely weird. Obviously there are exceptions, and that’s great, and perhaps they are the reason to stay in non-magnet schools. But for the most part if you have to be self-conscious about not “showing off” to someone by talking about what you actually like and care about, it’s hard to be friends. It may work in grade school, but I suspect it usually gets harder later on.
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“My high school physics teacher was very good and there were only two students in the class.”
There were four girls in my class. The teacher was a nice, unqualified lady who was distracted by the fact that she was running a political campaign. She had a tendency to eat up class time with talking about the campaign.
Looking back, I would have been better off taking a good home ec class instead. The college admissions people wouldn’t have understood that, though.
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I have mixed feelings about this, Laura. I grew up in a place where people hunt and bowl and drive trucks and only venture east to DC to march with Limbaugh (or was it Beck? I forget).
I had friends from a wide socioeconomic range – from one whose single mom was a waitress to the daughter of the president of the local bank. Which is cool, but on the other hand, I was peer-driven in a culture that placed no value on academic excellence and squandered my chances to a competitive college. There, college-bound students went to one of two state schools, so who the hell do you think you are, studying to go out of state, never mind one of those godless Ivies? Honestly, I’d never expose my kids to the kind of contempt for academics that I grew up with.
So my kids have grown up in a town with with very homogenous values (if you’ve bought here in the last fifteen years, you’ve paid a premium for the schools, whether you bought a tiny cape or a McMansion) but infinitely more racial and religious diversity and I think I value that kind of diversity more. We’re sorted by values rather than race, is that so bad?
I can see how the sorting can go too far, certainly. I just wouldn’t want the pendulum to swing back too far the other way.
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What Artemisa said. Most kids in our public high school go to one or two of the state school. Right now, I’d say my son is hanging around the anguished smart kis, those who care enough about popularity to strive to be “normal” but who may hide their intelligence in damaging ways.
AmyP, I find that girl culture encourages academic success while boy culture does not. There are subcultures for sure, but it’s easier for a girl to be smart than for a boy.
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“AmyP, I find that girl culture encourages academic success while boy culture does not. There are subcultures for sure, but it’s easier for a girl to be smart than for a boy.”
An important gender distinction may be that girls are more likely to be interested in academic success per se, whereas boys are more likely to be interested in particular subjects. I think that explained much of the difference between my sister and I and our brother and our school careers. There was a simply terrible culture clash between my brother and the liberal divorcee English teacher at our high school. (I mention her marital status because the word was that she had a chip on her shoulder about the entire male sex.) My brother wasn’t interested in the stuff she was interested in, and I can only imagine what his teacher made of his carefully written essays on military history which tended to be handed back with low grades and few corrections. (He’s a Marine officer now, served two tours in Iraq, and is doing quite well.) I expect a lot of boys are like that–if they’re not interested, they’re not interested. Their interests are often both narrower and deeper than girls’ interests.
There’s also the problem of disorganization and not turning in completed work, which is often a gendered problem.
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Somebody was mentioning here or elsewhere that video games seemed to be particularly fatal to male achievement. I’d venture that the reason for that is that for some smart boys, video games may be monopolizing the intensity, encyclopedic knowledge, and passion that would normally have flowed into actual hobbies or academic interests.
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This is beginning to sound like an argument for single sex education. If the student body is 100% male, the teachers will be less prone to perceiving boys as simply defective girls.
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I don’t tell anyone that I have a PhD or write for the Atlantic or that I have a blog or I read books or whatever. But there is still a lot to talk about. I have a group of friends that I can talk about smart things and then there’s other friends where I talk about other things.
High educational achievement is very intimidating for people who were humliated and discouraged by schools. For most people, school is a place where grades are given randomly, where they constantly feel stupid, and where a small group of people are given all the respect and smiles from the teachers. And you wonder why they don’t like us?
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“video games may be monopolizing the intensity, encyclopedic knowledge, and passion that would normally have flowed into actual hobbies or academic interests.”
Video games have been around since the early 1980s. To say nothing of D&D’s capacity to absorb intensity and encyclopedic knowledge… Or does it count as an actual hobby?
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“Video games have been around since the early 1980s.”
See chart 2, on page 2: http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/Commentary/2011/2011-21.pdf
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On a related note, we beat the last level of Skylander Giants today. This was entirely because we have a whole collection of old school pieces that were basically cannon fodder.
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“Video games have been around since the early 1980s.”
That’s not my milieu, but hasn’t it changed from being a niche to a mass preoccupation? Pac Man was absorbing in its way, but it was literally not as multi-dimensional as contemporary games. Also, eventually you run out of quarters.
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There’s no evidence that boys are achieving less today than in the past. There is some evidence that playing video games increasing IQs and spacial skills.
Boys do struggle to keep up with girls, because they are simply too immature to handle the tests and homeworks and all that. Their brains don’t catch up until sophomore year of high school. I have had many chats with Jonah’s teachers about this. I think it is unfair to start the sorting process until boys are developementally ready to handle that pressure. Our system is better than the European system, which starts sorting kids in elementary school and there are plenty of opportunities for second chances in this country, so it’s not a huge crisis. However, schools could still do a much job of helping the organizationally-challenged kids.
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I wouldn’t assume “all the smart kids” leave the school. Some of the private schools in our area cater to families who feel their children “would be lost” at our local public high school. Or they fear their children wouldn’t get any playing time at the high school.
I recommend you pay attention to the tracking. My kids would forget their homework if the class weren’t interesting (i.e., fast-paced enough). If your school weights grades, you want your children to take honors courses. Or, to put it another way, if they can handle the work, they should be in honors courses, as the weighting will depress their class rank if they aren’t in honors (or AP, if offered).
I hear “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport is good.
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