Tell that to people who faked athletic credentials to get into the college of their choice. Or who get in with full academic scholarships because they're good at football.

I'm not advocating ignoring 990 kids that can't read, not at all. What I am suggesting is ignoring the 10 geniuses and not taking advantage of them is both unfair and bad for society.

Consider that WW1 and WW2 were won in large part by smart people making more effective weapons. You see the same thing in the Ukraine war today.

Failing to nurture the 10 geniuses is a very bad idea.

1. take the honors track

2. 90% of the classes should be STEM

3. the STEM classes should be heavy on the math

4. avoid classes the stoners and cheaters take

5. classes should entail 2-3 hours of work for every hour of lecture

6. work towards getting As, not just passing

7. don't cheat, you'll be sorry if you do

8. be prepared to work your ass off

I also don’t think a world where 10 geniuses go untapped in any context is a positive. The reason so many people can read in the first place is that a small number of geniuses created the prerequisite understanding to shape the modern world. Everyone put in massive amounts of work to achieve all we have achieved, but the key ingredients were a small number of people spearheading foundational ideas. People underestimate the impact of a very small number of people on the massive quality of life benefits we enjoy.

You can’t create genius. The most you can do is create the optimal conditions for the geniuses to take advantage of/manifest and push themselves to that level. Highly intelligent and creative people that make breakthroughs often come from unpredictable backgrounds. In order for them to thrive, you need to provide as many open doors where competency and demonstrable ability is the only prerequisite for entry.

This idea that spending on students correlates with performance is I think entirely wrong and a consequence of the limited metrics we have and attempts to raise money for education.

Education could be WAY cheaper and WAY more effective if we had the proper cultural understanding of what it should provide, and were wise enough to differentiate the needs of different areas. Many areas where reading comprehension is garbage are really in need of like a secondary non-dysfunctional family and job opportunities that are relatively high status/relatively high paying even if you aren’t that smart and just work hard/learn basic skills. If people were sorted into groups based on what their needs were, you could create and advertise doors the smart kids would walk through, and keep it open to anyone who puts in the work regardless of where they’re at, while also serving the needs of people who don’t care about school and are cheaper to bring to baseline if you do it right and don’t force people struggling for basic reading comprehension to be educated by people with a masters degree.

Things are currently falling apart because we’re not willing to admit that people have different needs and abilities and have created extravagantly expensive metrics and interventions to pretend we can equalize all outcome with enough resources. We can’t.

I think we can in fact create better outcomes for everyone, but we have to admit that everyone is different. You can’t have a one size fits all pipeline. Especially if you don’t want to demoralize like 90% of the people in the country that can’t get to the top of that particular giant leaderboard. The internet exacerbates this, and has destroyed borders in which someone who might have otherwise had relatively high status in a particular easily achievable niche accessible to them is now seeing all the people miles beyond them.

The way in which the upper classes currently pity people who don’t have high academic achievement and want to equalize experience in the same pipeline they benefitted from sounds good superficially, but it’s really toxic when you think about it. It assumes people need to have the kind of success that those who’ve done well in that academic pipeline have had in order to be treated with respect.

I think all of this could be fixed with one relatively simple guiding principle: keep metrics in a voluntary, competitive school system for those who have the aptitude and desire to pursue advanced study. Remove most metrics and bureaucracy from a base, mandatory public education much more about civics, basic skills, and introducing people to career paths relevant to their particular local area. I think that principle would ultimately lead to MORE people getting benefits from a traditional pipeline than do currently, free teachers to let the needs of the students actually direct how class time gets spent, and require way less administrative overhead.

EDIT: I rambled way too much here. The current state of education in the US drives me crazy.

That doesn't mean there is a false dichotomy where we can't also achieve baseline literacy for all; that's a complex sociological problem which might take a genius to solve.

Personal side note; I’ve tended to find that exceptional people are more productive with the resources given. So I find it hard to believe the inverse would also be true.

The way schools are currently measured, the 5 are very, very important and the 10 are completely irrelevant. The only judgement is how many of the students are below the appropriate skill level. I don't believe anyone even measures how much in advance of the skill level students at or above the minimum are.

This is how schools are judged: what proportion of their students pass a minimum competency test.