The thing is that you have to adjust curriculum to the developmental stage of the INDIVIDUAL child. Teaching someone too early only wastes the time, resources and money of that teaching. Too late and you lose future options.
I didn't learn to read until 1st grade but many of my peers learned in kindergarten. Individuals do NOT all reach the same learning readiness phase at the same time or same age (two different things).
BTW this "teacher's credential 101".
Systems like Montessori focus on this dynamic and thus have fairly open-ended schedules for things. Falling behind is defined by not meeting ANY learning goals but being on schedule is meeting enough learning goals.
Naturally customization of education like this does not fit well into a "School as a Factory; Child as a manufactured Part" model or the efficiency metrics that factories typically have that are similarly applied to public schools in the US (standardized testing is akin to process control; you do want some type of testing but it has to be structured with more nuance because children are not factory parts with narrow distributions of variance).
At this point, home schooling probably can't be worse. But more focus on customization of education is pretty essential. US Schools are 80%-90% focused on the bottom 10%-20% of IQ based on actual school budgets and funding. And for those not in that bottom group, it's all 100% uniformity and low budgets. One size can never fit all.
Part of this is simply a function of specialization. Teaching high school let alone first grade to an extremely high academic standard doesn’t actually achieve anything significant for society. It’s arguably much better to give kids reasonable minimum standards and plenty of free time and the capacity to explore their interests. This avoids burnout and generally keeps people interested in their passions rather than simply getting through the slog.
On the other hand getting as many people as possible especially those with developmental issues to a minimum standard allows them to function in society. That pays real long term dividends and is worth significant investment.
What if the students are interested in learning a subject to a high academic standard and will be bored otherwise? I was getting lower grades at my easy "teach to the bottom 10%" public school than the very difficult private school I moved to. By just dismissing academic rigor, you are alienating the high-performers who WANT to care. That's a bad group of people for a society to ignore.
And that’s a bad thing because? You where receiving exactly the kind of minimum education that was seemingly enough even if your grades where poor.
Remember life doesn’t hold your hand, self motivation is just as important for long term success as innate intelligence. Hand holding the academically gifted to cram as much as possible into young minds has been traded before it doesn’t actually seem to accomplish anything of note beyond excelling in artificial milestones like the Putnam.
Do you really think that it is NOT bad for a society to demoralize and demotivate the people who might otherwise be very productive knowledge workers? There are arguably two goals to the public education system: giving a minimum education to everyone and raising up lower class folks who can't otherwise afford an education. It sounds like you only want the first one.
Considering how many of todays highly effective knowledge workers where demoralized and demotivated in public school, you are talking about a short term effect. Personally I and many people at know greatly befitted from an easy public school education that enabled me plenty of free time to dive extremely deep into various personal projects. In comparison I took plenty of difficult electives in collage like Differential Equations for the fun of it, but thinking back I would have been better served with more free time.
I still remember coming up with the equivalent of the Bit Torrent algorithm in collage before BT was a thing, and thinking I just don’t have time to build it. In the wider context not a big deal, but don’t assume you can simply ramp things up without any cost.
You're missing the point. The purpose of public school is to provide a basic education. If you want to do more work, or your parents want you to study more, you're free to do so.
In your very own example, you went to a private school and did well. That's great, that's what's supposed to happen. What's currently happening in public schools is that too many resources are being allocated to the over achievers and not enough to the under achievers. There's not enough money to fund all programs, so you have to ensure you fund the most needy first.
The point of public school is to educate the society. I still get a return on my investment (taxes) when some kid invents the new Google. I also do if that kid just works at McDonald's. The problem is treating everyone like they are the same and not as individuals.
Let's also mention that education is one of the best ways to climb the socioeconomic ladder. Advanced and higher education shouldn't only be available to those that are wealthy and/or have time to send their kids to extra schooling. Ensuring a high quality education in disenfranchised neighborhoods is one of the best tools we have for helping those people.
No matter how you frame it, I want children getting the best education that they can get. So if they're ready to achieve more, give it to them. We all, as a society, benefit.
> I want children getting the best education that they can get.
Again, the funding is not unlimited. We're sacrificing some less than average students' learning for the sake of the small minority of above average students.
> Let's also mention that education is one of the best ways to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
Currently, that is true. But, does it have to be true? Should the only way to leave poverty be an above average education? There used to be plenty of blue collar jobs that paid a comfortable middle class wage, now there's not. You know the guy that started KFC? Did he go to college? No, he dropped out in the 7th grade. You used to be able to work hard and be successful.
> No matter how you frame it, I want children getting the best education that they can get. So if they're ready to achieve more, give it to them. We all, as a society, benefit.
Except one thing - even if you're in private school you have to pay for both. For public via taxes and private from your own pocket. It sound more like double tax for smart kids - knowledge for rich only. And just to remind that school price can be on par with University.
The problem here is economic disparity. If people can't afford to send their children to the school of their choosing, then it's a signal wages are too low. This also applies to public schools, you can be the smartest kid in certain inner cities, and you're unlikely to do well compared to an average kid in a higher income area.
But even if we have unlimited funding for lower education, what's the purpose? The vast majority of society isn't fit for a traditional university education. And even if they are, the vast majority of university students go on to achieve what, exactly?
Sure, some kids might not be able to achieve their dreams, welcome to the club. Is the dream of a life being a scientist or some such any better than the dream of being a professional skier or race car driver? We're not robots, we're people. The obsession with academic excellence has to end.
Arguably the point of public school was to develop all bright kids, not just the rich ones. Providing everyone a basic level of education is a very different goal, and I question whether a college-oriented curriculum is good for educating the masses.
The fact that my parents had to pay for both the public school and some tuition for private school (I had financial aid) left a really bad taste in my mouth. On top of that, full tuition at the private school was less than the per-student cost of public school! To me, that is ridiculous.
I don't think that's particularly fair. We all pay into the basic social programs. I don't have children but I'm still paying into the public system and I don't believe I'm being unfairly taxed. To be able to afford to pay into the private school is a luxury.
That is always the struggle, isn't it? You're granted a certain level of education/health care/security/fire services/road maintenance via taxes, but in order to get services in addition to that you need to spend your own money.
Current Californian high school math classrooms may have sizes of 1 teacher to 40 students, with classroom size penalties ending at middle school. This is also true of the more prestigious areas mentioned in this forum. I cannot imagine a successful Montessori experience with 1:40 ratios.
When considering the issue of individual variability in math ambition and readiness, it's more plausible to have a student who is ready for Geometry to move into a classroom where a teacher has already been polishing a year-long discourse on Geometry, as opposed to expecting any teacher to be ready for a discussion on Geometry.
Under Equitable Math this will not be possible. Instead, all students must always be at the same level up until the last year.
>The thing is that you have to adjust curriculum to the developmental stage of the INDIVIDUAL child.
While I agree with this, I suspect the social winds that led to this change, wouldn't put us on the path of creating individualized curriculum like you wanted. As gp mentioned, this change was motivated by social justice, and the same movement has called for getting rid of AP or other advanced material classes on the basis they're discriminatory (blacks/hispanics are underrepresented in them). I remembered a school district doing this sort of thing, but I can't find the link right now. That said, I did find a link of an entire province (!) dropping advanced classes under similar justifications: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-to-en...
The thing is that you have to adjust curriculum to the developmental stage of the INDIVIDUAL child. Teaching someone too early only wastes the time, resources and money of that teaching. Too late and you lose future options.
I didn't learn to read until 1st grade but many of my peers learned in kindergarten. Individuals do NOT all reach the same learning readiness phase at the same time or same age (two different things).
BTW this "teacher's credential 101".
Systems like Montessori focus on this dynamic and thus have fairly open-ended schedules for things. Falling behind is defined by not meeting ANY learning goals but being on schedule is meeting enough learning goals.
Naturally customization of education like this does not fit well into a "School as a Factory; Child as a manufactured Part" model or the efficiency metrics that factories typically have that are similarly applied to public schools in the US (standardized testing is akin to process control; you do want some type of testing but it has to be structured with more nuance because children are not factory parts with narrow distributions of variance).
At this point, home schooling probably can't be worse. But more focus on customization of education is pretty essential. US Schools are 80%-90% focused on the bottom 10%-20% of IQ based on actual school budgets and funding. And for those not in that bottom group, it's all 100% uniformity and low budgets. One size can never fit all.