I guess I’m not sure what it is you’re trying to propose instead.
“IQ tests are ineffective.” Okay. How do you propose we determine what children are smarter (because there will always be those who are more advanced than their peers) and get them the help they need to thrive?
I’m not proposing anything except that we don’t pretend certain tools are more powerful than they are.
> “IQ tests are ineffective.” Okay. How do you propose we determine what children are smarter (because there will always be those who are more advanced than their peers) and get them the help they need to thrive?
Education isn’t inherently a zero sum game. Last I heard, we were winding down “gifted and talented” programs because there wasn’t much evidence they worked.
What the elementary school teacher I know says (besides that we have bigger problems in the US system) is that the high achieving students aren’t held back by low achieving students. The quicker students are often found to teach the slower students and gain an even stronger mastery of the material by doing so.
My understanding regarding winding down those gifted classes was that it had little to do with them not working and everything to do with them being full of children that are statistically more advantaged than their peers.
Aka full of white and Asian children which made people angry claiming that the other children were being ignored and left behind.
high achieving students aren’t held back by low achieving students
I'd love to see a source for this claim, as it runs counter to my lived experience (both my own education, and my son's). Obviously, my experience isn't scientific proof, but neither is "a friend who's a teacher says..."
It's a fact. It's the reason gifted classes were created.
From my own mixed-age classroom experience, and stories I've heard about one-room schools, it's not the mixing of skill levels that holds the advanced class back but the structure of the class.
If you're all doing the work at the same speed it has to be the speed of the slowest student so by definition everyone else is held back. This is so obvious that I can't take people seriously when they deny it. It's literally how "the manual" says to teach.
But in a multi-path environment where everyone is working at their own speed, this isn't a problem. Even if the advanced students are tasked with some teaching of the slower kids the dynamic changes and they're not being kept down. The maximal form of this is a one-room school where the older and gifted kids are working on their high-level tasks right next to younger and lower-achieving people. This encourages personal accomplishment by creating an environment full of learning opportunities and decoupling your advancement from your age-group.
My experience outside of gifted courses was the exact opposite of what you describe as "multi-path". My 7th grade math was the worst example of this...
The class was supposed to be some sort of experimental multi-path, and even had an extra teaching aid assigned. However, the end result was the 5-6 gifted kids sitting in the back, bored out of our minds for an entire school year, while the 2 teachers struggled to get the rest of the class to learn. Unfortunately for those of us who were ahead of grade level, this effectively put us behind peers in GT math classes right at the time we were all starting more advanced math topics. I felt like it took me most of high school to get caught up. My parents are still peeved that this class ever existed and it's been nearly 30 years.
My son didn't have anything quite so obviously awful. He just tended to perform at the level of his classmates. In gifted classes, he excelled. In mainstream classes, he was mediocre and extremely bored.
My take-away - multi-path teaching doesn't work in the typical American classroom (25+ students per class, all the same age, but vastly different skills).
It might work in a more controlled environment, where the classes are smaller and the range of skill isn't quite to broad. But, that's atypical in the US.
> My take-away - multi-path teaching doesn't work in the typical American classroom (25+ students per class, all the same age, but vastly different skills).
Well yeah, do something badly and it won't work. Each student deserves teacher time even if they get further on that time. Instead they generally try to teach the slowest students more as if they'll ever catch up.
> My son didn't have anything quite so obviously awful. [...] In gifted classes, he excelled.
Well yes, that's small-class tutoring and we know it's almost the ideal. The trick is to replicate that in normal classes, by teaching to the people who will benefit while the others work on exercises, etc.
> It might work in a more controlled environment, where the classes are smaller and the range of skill isn't quite to broad.
My contention is the opposite, that you want a range of skills from newb to expert, and ideally across ages.
You were surely closer to the 6th grade advanced students than the bulk of the 7th grade students who were just getting by. And you may not have been far enough ahead of the 7ths in age and bearing as well as math, and thus not as helpful in teaching as older students would be. Student teachers are a very big part of one-room schools and I think the teaching itself provides invaluable skills in childcare and providing instruction to near peers.
I poked around a bit and only really found [0] and [1]. It looks like there are a bunch of contradictory results and the effect sizes are small. That’s just education research though, it’s very hard to control for anything or get good data.
“IQ tests are ineffective.” Okay. How do you propose we determine what children are smarter (because there will always be those who are more advanced than their peers) and get them the help they need to thrive?