0.2 s.d. is the same improvement you get from having a 1 s.d. more effective teacher, according to Steven Farr, formerly chief data guy for Teach For America (who shared more classes with me than anyone else at San Marcos High School). Student ability matters at least five times as much as teacher ability. Having separate classes for smarter students is crucial.
Putting students in classes several years below their ability is severe abuse; see my post on grade-skip tables by absolute intelligence.
SMHS was among the best of the 20 or so schools I've attended, despite being so poor we had to do chemistry with eyedroppers, had no AP classes and nothing past Algebra II (a blessing, really since you could go to SWTSU or TLC instead).
About 20 years ago on the Mega Society / Ultranet (4/5 s.d IQ societies) mailing list I proposed using using air quality (30-80% N2O) to intentionally reduce intelligence by 2-3 s.d. to allow testing beyond the 3-4 s.d. ceiling of the major tests. The decrease in performance could be callibrated with choice reaction time, then added back to the score after the test.
0.2 s.d. is the same improvement you get from having a 1 s.d. more effective teacher, according to Steven Farr, formerly chief data guy for Teach For America (who shared more classes with me than anyone else at San Marcos High School). Student ability matters at least five times as much as teacher ability. Having separate classes for smarter students is crucial.
Putting students in classes several years below their ability is severe abuse; see my post on grade-skip tables by absolute intelligence.
SMHS was among the best of the 20 or so schools I've attended, despite being so poor we had to do chemistry with eyedroppers, had no AP classes and nothing past Algebra II (a blessing, really since you could go to SWTSU or TLC instead).
About 20 years ago on the Mega Society / Ultranet (4/5 s.d IQ societies) mailing list I proposed using using air quality (30-80% N2O) to intentionally reduce intelligence by 2-3 s.d. to allow testing beyond the 3-4 s.d. ceiling of the major tests. The decrease in performance could be callibrated with choice reaction time, then added back to the score after the test.