For example: during our standardized testing this year, the school put in huge amounts of effort to align student incentives, most of which were silly and clearly ineffective. (My personal favorite? Disallowing students to bring their own books to read after they finished the test to "encourage" them to check their work instead of hurrying through so they could read the next chapter of The Hunger Games. Talk about easy ways to incite student frustration and contempt!)

I can attest to students finishing a test in less than 10 minutes despite being given more than an hour, or refusing to do any of the test at all. I've heard horror stories of students using the multiple-choice answer documents to make pictures by filling in the bubbles, or simply choosing to color in bubbles so lightly that they can't possibly be read. I know of examples in prior years wherein students chose to write essays about how much they hate testing on the essay portion instead of addressing the infantile tripe they were assigned.

Now, these are obviously exceptions to the rule (I'm a bit biased, but I think our students are almost uniformly excellent), but it is amazing how much damage one student can do by choosing not to care. (Or, in some cases, using their answers to vent their frustration).

And why should they? As far as I know, rewarding students for higher performance is disallowed, leaving teachers with very few tools with which to convince students that these tests matter. Sure, you can go on and on about how their scores will be "important" in their future (which, to my knowledge, isn't always true), but that only goes so far. Sometime during the 2 weeks of intensive testing, the kids just don't care anymore.

I'm all for assessing the performance of teachers, and I'm not sure how to fix the problem (or even if it can be fixed), but one thing seems clear to me: they're doing it wrong.

[Updated to fix punctuation errors]

The incentive for the person grading is just disconnected from the supposed meaning of the rating itself.

Schools need to implement a standard performance-based path for skipping grade levels so that students can get out sooner.

I was reading Hawking, Nietzsche, and college-level humanities books in my free time in 8th grade because I was bored out of my gourd with my classes. In 12th grade, I was forced to take classes that taught, for example, how to balance your check book.

I'm pretty sure that when he's older, I'm going to encourage my son to get a GED when he's 16 yo or so, just so that he doesn't have to put up with all of the bullcrap classes.

And, I don't care about your socialization arguments. My son is 2 yo and already has great table manners, is polite, shares, and is quite empathetic. Most of the "normal" young people I meet these days behave either like wild Indians (feather not dot) or slovenly Barbarians.

Thanks for saying that because it brings up a problem that HN has that I've been thinking about for awhile. HN seems to be stuck in an upper to upper-middle class/Leftist/Politally-Correct viewpoint, and I think that is to its detriment. Why do so many HNer's startups focus on things like iPod Apps, whose chances for profitability are very questionable, instead of markets like industrial sales software, which is very under-served?

Shouting "That's racist!" every time someone expresses a non-Leftist opinion here is a symptom of your limited viewpoint, and frankly is embarrassing for you.

Would you express the same righteous indignation if I was trying to distinguish between groups of Europeans and had said "lederhosen not shamrock"?

I used to live in an Alaskan Native tribal village, and my friends there would be some of the first ones to tell you that some Indians are wild while some are not. (Note, in my comment, I am not saying all Indians are wild, I am only specifically referencing the wild ones.) And, by wild, I mean those who stereotypically disregard personal and communal property rights and engage in harmful activities like thievery and poaching for the fun of it.

hnhg, I don't know if my point will get through to you or not. I can only hope that you will actually go out and experience the greater world sometime.

If you're angry, please go ahead and downvote me. I've been voted down to -80 karma before. It is close-minded people like you who are the reason why PG no longer shows karma scores for users.

2. Indian people in the United States do not identify themselves as "dot Indians". Perhaps it is easy to differentiate between different peoples who are called "Indians" by whether or not they stereotypically wear a bindi, but it also, unfortunately, propagates the notion that "them Indian people over there with them dots." It's yet another stereotype people have to deal with on a daily basis when trying to fit into society, and it takes away the focus from treating people as, well, as people, and focusing on the work they do or the value they bring.

3. Similarly, by speaking of "wild Indians" it does indeed marginalize a people and shoehorn them into a stereotype of being uncouth individuals. There are thieves and poachers in all parts of the world, and to say that Native American poachers are any worse than any others is, again, a stereotype and probably untrue.

4. In that light, I never really grew up in a society where rampant poaching by Native Americans was a problem. Perhaps living in a native tribal village, where everyone was part of an Alaskan Native tribe, the only people around to do any poaching were natives. But there is no reason to believe that they would be any more despicable than poachers of any other ethnicity.

This isn't about politics. It's about treating people fairly and equitably, and since that is something that we often do a poor job of doing, well, the things we write and say help form our culture.

And since we're on hacker news, where we tend to value correctness, the presuppositions that your comments make are unfounded and lack truthiness. That isn't being "politically correct"; merely "correct".

So, you're not racist, because of course you weren't talking about all Native Americans. But if not all 'feather indians' are wild, and not all of those that are wild are 'feather indians' then what was the point of comparing certain kids to them? The only purpose I see is in reinforcing a stereotype that does not apply.

Because Barbarian isn't a racial or ethnic group. It's a term basically meaning "the savage foreigner." It's demeaning to call someone a barbarian, but there's no Barbarian peoples that are offended by the use of the term.

edit: Gonna go ahead and disagree with this point too:

"Simply using existing stereotypes is not racism. I have neither commented on the superiority-level of Indians..."

Your interpretation of this definition seems to be that using a negative stereotype is not racist because it's not a direct value-judgement. That is wrong.

Even if you're not passing judgement, it is very much racist to say that (for example) Asians are all martial-artists and computer experts, or that Jews control the world, or that Native Americans are wild savages.

Why is that racist? Because it pigeonholes these people into weird and untrue stereotypes, and is therefore offensive to them.

If it's offensive to a racial group, it's probably racist.

> Did you immediately understand what set of behaviors I implied by saying "wild Indian" and "slovenly Barbarian"?

No, actually, I still have no idea. My guess was that those behaviors do not include "great table manners, is polite, shares, and is quite empathetic" but beyond that, I can barely guess.

> (Why isn't anyone upset that I included the Barbarians?)

Who are "the Barbarians"?

> Simply using existing stereotypes is not racism.

Response a) So what, only new stereotypes is racism? b) Yes, it is, when those stereotypes are based on race.

> I have neither commented on the superiority-level of Indians and Barbarians

Um, you said your kid is well-behaved, unlike those other people. That directly implies your kid is superior to them. And I guess your Alaskan Native friends are superior to the "wild" ones. Also, 'positive' racism (e.g. "asians are good at math") is just as bad,

> or have I modified their access to resources and opportunities.

Not directly, but racism is hardly so overt these days.

> In fact, stereotypes can be quite useful, for example, when you are trying to determine which VC to impress or what demographic is most likely to use your kitten-photo sharing Facebook App.

What?! I would never invest in someone that makes business decisions based on stereotypes rather than data, or that approached me because of stereotype they had about me.

hnhg seems correct here your arguments can definitely be 'distilled'. In that distillation process the references to 'Indians', 'Shamrocks' and 'Barbarians' would be the first to go as they add no support to your material point.

Of course, hnhg's comment approaches Ad Hominem. It could also be better worded.

Just trying to be fair.

I agree that I could have merely said something like, "...wild and slovenly behavior, such as x,y,and z...." At the time, I was trying to create a vivid verbal picture that conveyed additional concepts such as the Barbarian's penchant for tattoos and piercings. Maybe next time I should just spell it all out instead of refactoring it for the sake of brevity.

I think what he was trying to get across by using the term is this: http://vimeo.com/25239728

Edit Never Mind: missed the "Dot" part. Yes that was clearly over the line.

You are drastically missing the point. This has nothing to do with Left vs Right at all. In fact I agreed with you completely up until this point in your rant.

You're implicitly calling all Native Americans (a racial group) "wild" and comparing them to barbarians. That's dictionary-definition racism, plain and simple.

EDIT: keeping this short as I don't want to get into a slanging match but my for the record politics aren't on the left, I don't have the belief that cultures are morally equivalent, etc, etc.

My parents disregarded this, and I got enrolled in classes. Once I was there, I was enjoying school much more than I was at the high school, and I often did better than the regular college students...

I would like to think that this sort of promotion out of drudgery would be common-place by now, but I have no idea.

From what I understand, many school districts in the USA have rules against this. Or, they have no advertised route for early completion, which is effectively the same thing.

This was at a small, elite private school.

I hope you realize this is incredibly racist.

I didn't take that option. I knew a lot of the kids in my neighborhood and they were all 1-2 years older. They would all know that I had skipped ahead and many were bullies. That was definitely a fear of mine if I stayed in the same school district.

Thus my parents looked at private schools. All the private schools were willing to let me skip to high school as well. Unfortunately they were expensive (my parents didn't make an issue of this, but I was aware of it). I also didn't really want to leave my friends and a lot of the kids at the private school seemed more stuck up.

So I ended up staying with my normal grade and the public school jumped me ahead with a lot independet study stuff as much as possible. It helped a bit. What helped a lot more was the principal telling the teachers that I was allowed to read during their classes so long as I wasn't getting in trouble. I basically spent middle school as one giant independent study reading books from the town library.

Thankfully when I got to high school, the classes got massively better. I ended up basically finding 3 teachers that really pushed me to go above and beyond the regular curriculum. I took 3 history classes from one of the best teachers I've ever had. I had 2 years of science from a guy with a chemical engineering phD and who powered through MIT in 3 years. And I had a drafting/wood shop/stage craft teacher who let me build and draw stuff as much as I wanted. Those three guys helped me to learn an enormous amount in high school and have a great time.

Once I got to college, I was really glad I didn't skip ahead.

I'm very thankful that my parents pushed the school to let me move ahead when I made it clear I wanted that. I'm also glad they didn't force me to do it after they fought so hard to get the school to let me. They were very supportive, but not over bearing.

If your kid wants to move ahead, help him. If he doesn't, don't force him. One of my dad's coworkers forced his daughter through school ahead of schedule like you want to. She graduated high school at an early age, went to Princeton, and was out by age 18. She went to med school and was a doctor by 22.

She can't get any patients. Nobody actually wants a doctor who is 22. She is depressed, doing research (that she doesn't want to do) and is pissed off about missing out on high school, college, etc. For what?

The end result was his coworker getting divorced and barely ever seeing his daughter.

On the other hand, I worked with a guy who graduated high school early, graduated college by the time he was 20, and he's one of the smartest, nicest, most succesful people I know.

My personal experience is that the BS is late elementary and middle school. If your parents teach you simple math and reading at home you can jump ahead 2-3 years. By high school the availability of AP classes, independent study, and better electives (music, stagecraft, architecture, art, etc) make it far more enjoyable. I don't think shortening high school makes as much sense as shortening middle school.

I also think you have to listen to what your kid wants to do, not go based on what you want them to do.

My wife is a doctor who often gets mistaken for a high-schooler. Has your friend tried different marketing and service packages as a way to obtain and retain patients? Medicine is a business like any other.

Really? It was an inappropriate remark, I was surprised to read it and even more surprised to see it lauded by someone else.

I was under the impression that it was an acceptable short-hand for distinguishing which culture/ethnicity is being referenced when either is equally likely. Do the PC-police now disagree?

[obligatory] It is inappropriate and morally reprehensible. [/obligatory]

Can you not look at nuclear reactions and separate that they are used to make a nuclear bomb?

It was a succinct phrase. It is visually and connotatively arresting. As is evinced by the amount of ire it has provoked.

As a side note, I still read the phrase 'wild Indians' with an image of children misbehaving, especially as it is paralleled later by Barbarians, a generic term for uncivilized behavior. So to me the phrase 'feather not dot' was a preemptive defense against moral grandstanding; what's more, to me it conjured up (in just three words) the very history of the name 'indian' (which when googled on my browser, despite having no interest in baseball, only returns the Cleveland team) - a name misapplied by foreigners.

Now, reading the poster's later defenses[1], I can see that he in fact had no such thoughts when using it...but I am a relativist when it comes to art and believe the perception of the audience supersedes the intent of the artist, and so for me, the phrase still stands as evocative without being ugly.

1.http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3987141 : "Note, in my comment, I am not saying all Indians are wild, I am only specifically referencing the wild ones."

It's (basically) acceptable, but most likely not if used by you. It's not that sensitivities to the phrase have changed; it's that you're not a "safe" speaker in this regard.

To briefly recap the positive aspect of "PC" norms: speech which disparages or generalizes about racial/sex groups communicates to others a willingness to disrespect the members of those groups categorically. This creates a sense of acceptability[1] for outright oppression. Oppression continues to happen, routinely, though generally it is secret.

Compare PC-norms to the Byzantine Generals' Problem[2]: racial minorities and those who seek racial harmony are in the middle. The attacking generals are attempting to coordinate with each other to attack the harmonists. But if the generals are inhibited from coordinating attacks using public speech forums, the harmonists stand a better chance of success. So even "coded" or minor messages should be stamped out, because they are the foundation of coordination.

Now, if you're a member of the minority in question, your use of offensive generalizations does not usually suggest an attack, which potentially changes the acceptability and meaning[3]. "Feather-not-dot" is a particularly interesting example, since it symmetrically stereotypes two groups. I've heard it many times and it generally gives me pause. When spoken by a Native American or East Indian, it's generally fine, but really only when a high level of mutual regard is quite clear.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation

Would you want your employees to seriously disrespect tasks they morally disagree with, like sabotaging your advertising system because they think advertising is harmful to society, or changing your website to admit how you're raiding people's pensions? Telling off your big corporate/military customers? (If you did, you probably wouldn't last long in your position.)

I don't know many bosses who want their subordinates to rush through their tasks, in order to read some book of personal interest, or to build a competing company with better service.

Would you want your employees to hack the current process, because they morally disagree or are bored, or simply curious.

Maybe not. But someone will. Welcome to Schumpter's law.

In the world where you studied for 0 hours and got $45k in merit-based scholarships, what was your hourly return to studying?

[To answer what I think is an obvious question, I doubt the overall utility of my hundred hours spent studying. However, it wasn't like CWRU was going to give me the same scholarship for having done something more useful instead.]

I realize the test prep helps some people tremendously, but I think the ACT at least does a decent job of testing what you actually know (or at least how good you are at taking tests) than how well you prepared.

But I also took the SAT 2 subject area tests which I felt were much more accurate assessments of my abilities where I scored 670 in writing and 680 in math without studying at all and only one exposure to the test.

I never really cared about those scores so much, but it definitely makes me question the value of the SAT for much of anything.

> “They’re not accepting answers that are mathematically correct,” Abbott notes, “and accepting answers that aren’t mathematically correct.”

The test just seems to be a retarded thing designed by a clueless bureaucrat.

For a few months I mucked about, went to parties, chased girls, cycled.... it was awesome.

When I went to university I knew I had to start working hard again and I got a First and won a year prize and went on to do post-grad research work - although I did leave in the final year of my PhD to co-found a startup because I had realised that I didn't want to work in academia.

Both teachers at school and my PhD supervisor told me I'd regret my decisions - and I haven't and it's nearly 30 years since I left high school and 17 years since I dropped my PhD work.

It was still some of the best years of my life and would recommend anyone to go, but I dont think a thirst for university prescribed knowledge is the only valid reason to go.

Plus there is all the stuff I have to keep on top of professionally as a programmer, which is an inexaustable and ever growing list of often arbitrary methods and technologies.

As for university, turns out I disliked it almost as much as I disliked school, so I dropped out and went into industry for a while.

Dropped out of that too for ages as I got bored of all the corporate nonsense, although I have been back into it in the past few years to try and raise some cold hard cash for a few projects I've got going.

Am considering going back to university at some point however, as I wouldn't mind doing either nanotechnology or neurology and most of the equipment involved in those is out of my current price range.

To be honest though, most of my heroes are dead philosophers of one form or another, so I am pretty happy with a roof, food, clean clothes, regular showers, access to the internet and a large pile of books.

Besides, in my experience the majority of people at university aren't there because they want to learn, but rather because they are expected to go by their parents. The people who are there purely for the pursuit of knowledge and without being pushed are the exception rather than the rule.