One of the most frustrating articles I've read in a while. Is everything in the US just well-off people colluding to keep everyone else down? Most countries don't have this advanced classes thing. Everyone just takes the same classes. It does not make sense to have admins and other parents with vested interests block kids from whatever classes they want to take!
I know you only said "well-off", not rich/entrepreneurial class. But given what I've seen on HN lately I feel this must be emphasized -- this is not another "blame the rich" scenario. This is beaurocract class/college-educated-but-barely-passed education master's degree class. This is a government/administrative bloat problem. This problem is one you're much more likely than not to hear an entrepreneurial class member rail against and maybe even try to fix (to no avail).
The article says that administrators are giving in to the demands of very involved, upper-middle class parents. What other incentives would an administrator have to keep low-income and minority students out of 8th grade algebra?
Just as an example,
"The enrollment process created additional barriers for students and families. When students went online to select their courses, in many school districts they could not see classes that required teacher recommendations and may not have known those courses existed. Students who requested placement in advanced classes were frequently told they could not enroll, even when they had strong academic credentials. Students had no pathway to demonstrate their readiness or earn their way into these courses through their academic performance. They had to be recommended by a teacher."
Maybe this system shouldn't be set up this way? Who set up the system I wonder.
> Most countries don't have this advanced classes thing.
They actually do. They just group the advanced classes in an elite "prep schools" track, whereas everyone else gets the crappy "vocational schools" track. The worst part about this is the pathological incentives it creates among teachers. No one wants to teach bad students, so the "vocational" track gets the worst teachers, and the divergence in outcomes becomes ingrained.
> No one wants to teach bad students
That's not true, but maybe there are too few good teachers who do that...
It's true enough to a first approximation for individual teachers, and what's more relevant, it's systemically true for the educational establishment as a whole. Which means that effective methods for remedial education (such as Direct Instruction) are not taught in Schools of Education and not known among teachers, except for those who opt to go quite deep into "special" education. (And even then, those teachers are not going to teach your average class at a vocational school.)
Most countries don't have this advanced classes thing.
UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany and France are the systems I'm aware of and they all have different levels of maths you can study at high school. I'd be surprised to learn of any country the offers no options or specialisation before University.
> It does not make sense to have admins and other parents with vested interests block kids from whatever classes they want to take!
Sure it does. There is a vested interest in some to ensure a desired peer group of the classes their kids take. More generally, to ensure 'space's at the top for those that get the teacher recommendations. Bluntly speaking, it's racist as shit. The data presented is a case study of systemic racism.