To educate the highest number of children possible, as a reasonable cost, to assure a steady supply of capable labor year after year.
Sadly, this results in low-salaried teachers, cookie-cutter teaching plans, and teacher-to-student ratios that are not adequate to cater to the outliers that need attention.
> Sadly, this results in low-salaried teachers, cookie-cutter teaching plans, and teacher-to-student ratios that are not adequate to cater to the outliers that need attention.
In my view/experience the real outliers need only to not be held back (implicitly by culture, or explicitly).
Gentle reminder that there are outliers on both ends of a normal curve who are being let down - sometimes, it is the the same student at different ages. Catering to the needs of both top-/bottom Xth percentile requires additional resources, effort, time or money, in a field that is already under-resourced.
I’m not too fond of that narrative, partly because I don’t think it’s true (top percentile don’t need much more than some encouragement / acceptance), and partly because “we have to prioritize our resources and it’s more important to help the bottom percentile” is used as an excuse to hold the top percentile back (or used to be, in Sweden at least).
To educate the highest number of children possible, as a reasonable cost, to assure a steady supply of capable labor year after year.
Sadly, this results in low-salaried teachers, cookie-cutter teaching plans, and teacher-to-student ratios that are not adequate to cater to the outliers that need attention.