Listen and read 19: The dignity of all the talents - Thấm Tâm Vy

Nội dung text: Listen and read 19: The dignity of all the talents - Thấm Tâm Vy

1. LISTEN AND READ 19 School policy Americans, fearful that their children’s chance of a fine education was to be sacrificed on the altar of diversity. THE DIGNITY OF ALL THE TALENTS Emotions run high because the quality of education in New York City, as with most other aspects of life there, is so uneven. There are schools with perfect graduation rates and some where more than 30% of pupils drop out. An astonishing 40% of high schools NEW YORK in the city do not teach chemistry, physics or upper-level algebra, notes Clara Hemphill, A battle over educating gifted children is brewing in America the founding editor of Inside Schools, an education-policy website. “The problem is not learning linear algebra in schools, but not knowing arithmetic.” STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL is considered the crown jewel of the public schools in New York City. The magnet school is one of America’s biggest feeders to Harvard; a list of alumni includes four Nobel laureates. It is also one of New York’s most competitive schools, admitting pupils on the basis of a single, high-stakes exam and little else. To some, that seems the meritocratic ideal. To others, it yields alarming results. Of the 895 places available last year, only seven (or 0.8%) were offered to black pupils (in a district where 25% of pupils are black). Asian Americans do far better in the entrance exam and are 73% of the school population—or four times their share of the pupil population in the district. “You have to believe either that there are only seven black kids capable of doing the work of Stuyvesant or that there is something horribly wrong,” says Richard Buery, a graduate of Stuyvesant who is now chief of policy and public affairs for KIPP, a network of charter schools. The debate over whether education of gifted children segregates them on the basis of pre-existing privilege rather than cognitive ability is neither new nor uniquely American. The number of selective, state-run grammar schools in Britain reached its zenith in 1965, before the Labour government of Harold Wilson embarked on a largely successful effort “to eliminate separatism in secondary education”. The three-tiered Choice beyond a possibly poor neighbourhood public school is constrained both by German education system—which sorts children on the basis of ability at the age of ten geography and by financing. New York has exceptionally good private schools, into either university-preparatory schools or vocational ones—has always been available at exceptionally high prices. Horace Mann School in the Bronx costs $53,200 criticised for fostering social segregation. The fact that the children of Turkish migrants a year, from pre-kindergarten to 12th, grade. Charter schools, publicly funded but are now disproportionately sorted into lower-tier secondary schools instead of selective privately run, provide choices for the masses. Often they draw poorer pupils from local Gymnasien adds a disquieting racial divide. schools. Some of the city’s highest-performing charter schools, such as Success In America the debate is kicking up anew. The issue is national: the most recent Academy, draw bids from the ranks of middle-class parents as well. statistics show that whites are 80% more likely than black students to take part in Anxiety and resentment are rife. The programmes for gifted children offered by the programmes for the gifted, and Asians are three times as likely. But the principal city foster extreme competition both because they give some reassurance of a free, high- battleground has been New York City. quality education and because space is extremely limited. Only 6% of high-school Much of that is due to Bill de Blasio, the city’s left-wing mayor, who has staked his pupils attend one of the eight sought-after specialised high schools. Because admissions administration (and recently imploded presidential run) on the promise of reducing are based on high-stakes tests, concerned families spend big sums on test preparation— inequality. In August a panel he convened, called the School Diversity Advisory Group, which then makes the process less egalitarian than intended. Tutoring centres in the city proposed a sweeping reform to “move away from unjust gifted and talented sell one-on-one preparation for $200 an hour or more. programmes and school screens”— eliminating them entirely. Though the policy has Some advocates yearn for an egalitarian model like Finland’s—where comprehensive not yet been implemented, it triggered a furore among parents, particularly Asia schools and a focus on special education (or disabilities) rather than giftedness coincide Thẩm Tâm Vy, Jan 11, 2020 LISTEN AND READ 19
2. with high rankings on international measures such as PISA scores. But even in Finland, more than 10% of uppersecondary schools (those before university) are specialised. Other attributes, such as high education spending and extreme selectivity of applicants to become teachers (only 10% make it), are probably also critical to the education system’s success. Removing programmes for the gifted will not suddenly turn New York into Finland. No doubt the system in America could be improved. It seems unlikely that gifted children can reliably be spotted at the age of four on the basis of a standardised test (as is now the norm). More places would help de-escalate the test-prep arms race. So too would giving the screening test to all pupils, rather than just to those who opt in. Implementation of such a policy in Broward County, Florida—the sixth-largest public- school system in the country—doubled the number of Hispanic and black children in programmes for the gifted. Mr de Blasio floated the idea of scrapping the entrance test and admitting the top 7% of students from each middle school (roughly, for pupils aged 11 to 14) to specialised schools. One problem is that at some middle schools this would include students who had not passed the state maths exam. This infuriated many Asian parents, who do not see why their children should be punished for studying hard. Children from poor homes have problems that need to be tackled long before they reach high school. A good education system should be as capable of delivering remedial instruction as education for the gifted—and herein lies the problem. Segregating pupils in schools of high poverty, with few additional resources, is a recipe for stagnation. The aim of integration should be to eliminate such schools, but perhaps not to dismantle upper-tier courses. The fear that this might trigger white or middle-class flight from public schools may be overblown. Parents in Park Slope, a mostly well-to-do neighbourhood in Brooklyn, proposed an integration plan for middle schools which went into effect last year. The share of white children in the schools did not drop at all. [The Economist US Edition, Jan 11, 2020] Notes: - high-stakes exam: kỳ thi có mức độ đánh đố cao - meritocratic (adj.): có tính tìm nhân tài - to segregate: cách ly; phân tách - three-tiered: có 3 cấp, 3 bậc - to implode: thất bại tứ bên trong, từ ban đấu - furore (n.): tranh cãi sôi nổi - rife (adj.): lan tràn, rầm rộ Thẩm Tâm Vy, Jan 11, 2020 LISTEN AND READ 19