Ko 1 Nora Ko Professor Kurlaender 27 November 2012

Exam Schools for a Better Society

Recently published in the New York Times, the article Young, Gifted, and Neglected, draws public attention to idea that many gifted children lack the means to enroll in rigorous private schools and are neglected by public schools. The author, Chester Finn, suggests that there should be more public schools devoted to the exceedingly gifted and motivated students, known as exam schools. These federally funded exams schools, in theory, would increase the access of a great education to advanced students who cannot afford private schools or expensive suburbs of where the public schools are located (Finn). Students who come from wealthier backgrounds have access to these better schools, but the majority of the gifted students who live in more mediocre neighborhoods do not. Chester Finns claim in the need for more exam schools in America that target the high-ability, extremely motivated students is very legitimate because these schools are beneficial to the future society in that it actively seeks out the majority of the most gifted students and focus on advancing their education at their fast paced learning progress; this will ultimately produce the most talented leaders necessary to fill the top positions in the future of America. Children from higher social backgrounds are nurtured in an environment early in life that helps them to achieve and to be more successful later in life than working class children; however, just as nature is separate from nurture, intelligence is genetically inherited, and is separate from social backgrounds. Broadening the access of exam schools for the children of working class community that are very intelligent but lacking in resources will increase the 1

Ko 2 number of highly educated professionals with abilities that will elevate the productivity in the future workforce. Based on the article Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital, the author Annette Lareau describes how research has been shown that working class parents are heavily dependent on the teacher to educate their child whereas the middle class parents are hugely involved in their childrens learning and development. middle-class parents, in supervising, monitoring, and overseeing the educational experience of their children, behave in ways that mirror the requests of schools. This appears to provide middle-class children with educational advantages over working-class children. (Laureau 82-83) Not only that, but during time out of school, middle class children generally have more structured activities like soccer practice or piano lessons, as opposed to more informal hangouts (Kurlaender). These advantages expose upper middle class children to more educating experiences outside of school that multiply their talents and abilities. Moreover, parents in the middle class generally have more cultural and economic capital such as social status, time, and money to provide for their children. Essentially, they are more likely to be surrounded by more educating experiences and resources that will take them many steps ahead of most children that come from working class communities. Nonetheless, there are young, brilliant minds amongst the working class children who are born with superior intelligent levels. Their brilliance is wasted because they do not have the means for a suitable school that can educate them at their fast-paced learning abilities, and they actually achieve much less than their potential. Broadening access to exam schools is a great way to give more of these high-intelligence, high-ability children an opportunity to achieve in an environment that can match their learning speed. With 2

Ko 3 their intelligence, combined with an environment that can provide up-to-speed lessons and rich educational experiences similar to those received by upper middle class children, gifted children from the working class community will be a stellar addition to the intelligent, educated, and skilled top positions that are generally predominated by people from the upper-middle class and middle class. Therefore, in theory, the addition of these gifted individuals from the working class community to the leadership positions of the workforce will increase the number of brilliant people and consequently drive an increase in productivity of the economy through increased effective leadership. More top positions filled by skilled professionals will hence be more wholesome to society. By removing the very high-performing students from the public schools, learning progress for the proficient, mediocre, and lower achieving students will also be increased because more of the teachers time can be invested on teaching them. In the article Whom Must We Treat Equally for Education Opportunity to be Equal? the author Christopher Jencks describes the difficulties Mrs. Higgins faces when deciding how to divide her resources, namely time and attention, so that each student receives an equal opportunity. There are five different perspectives to make opportunity fair to students, namely democratic equality, moralistic justice, weak humane justice, strong humane justice, and utilitarianism. (Higgins 519-520) Should Mrs. Higgins spend the same amount of time and attention on each student, reward those who put in more effort with more, help the needy by giving them more resources, or help accelerate the high-performing students? The teacher only has a limited about of time and attention that she can give during a class period. (Higgins 519-520) If more of the highperforming students are taken out of the regular public schools and placed into more face-paced and effective schools such as Finns exam schools, then teachers may devote more of their time, 3

Ko 4 attention, and patience to the rest of the students. Teachers do not have to worry about not being practical and slowing down very high-achievers who will potentially become the leaders of society. Giving more time and attention to the rest of the students will increase their efficiency and effectiveness in learning. Teaching methods can be altered and fine-tuned to focus on educating the rest of the students, and therefore optimize their levels of achievement and academic success. Thus, exam schools are a benefit not only for high-achievers, but also the proficient, mediocre, and low achieving students, and are benefit for all students, which will then become a public benefit for all citizens of society in the future. In conclusion, Chester Finn embraces a very sound viewpoint in his article Young, Gifted, and Neglected in that more exam schools for the gifted and high-performing students are necessary, because they will ultimately be investments that will benefit the future society. By seeking out the majority of high-ability and gifted students and placing them in exam schools, the public is effectively educating more brilliant future leaders who will better run the future American economy. Furthermore, removing these advanced students from the classrooms will allow teachers to have more time and attention to be used on the rest of the students and benefit all students, and create a better-informed citizenry for the future society. Nevertheless, whether exam schools will be considered and implemented into law will undoubtedly depend on the democratic legislative system. Even if the exam schools is one of the greatest educational reform ideas, the bigger question is still whether or not the public understands its value, whether they will agree to spend more of their own income in taxes to pay for this reform.

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Works Cited
Finn, Chester. Young, Gifted, and Talented. New York Times. 18 September 2012: A29. Electronic. Jencks, Christopher. Whom Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to be Equal? Ethics 98.3 (1988) : 518 533. JSTOR electronic database. Kurlaender. M. (November 13, 2012). -The Context of Schooling- The Influence of Neighborhoods & School-Family Relationships Lecture 11. EDU 120: Philosophical and Social Foundations of Education. Lecture conducted from University of Davis, Davis, CA. Lareau, Annette. Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital. Sociology of Education 60.2 (1987) : 73 85. JSTOR electronic database.