I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide where hey want to learn at about 13 years of age. You can of course switch schools as you like, but more prestigious ones have some requirements. The point is that I did know I wanted to work with computers and made this decision then to go to he programming school here and I consider this one of he best decisions in my life. Most of my classmates have ended up with quite accomplished careers in IT but a surprising number end up with very different professions - doctors, dentists, musicians - the emphasis on programming did not hinder their progress that much maybe even helped hem.
I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN
I bet many HN'ers are remembering what they were like at that age. Sure, plenty of geeks started programming in kindergarden or what have you- but I know I didn't pick engineering until I was twenty, and when I was fourteen I still had no idea what I wanted to do. (Besides knowing that I liked woodshop) If I had been forced to decide back then, I probably wouldn't have discovered engineering before it was too late.
Even if you had chosen "wrong" when you were 14, surely you could have switched to engineering when you were 20. I think that's what he meant by saying that some of his friends ended up with surprising careers despite studying programming.
Specialized High Schools already exist in NYC. I attended Murry Bertraum for Business Careers (in downtown manhattan) and took computer science electives in QBASIC, Fortran, and Java. This was in 2004 - when obviously Qbasic and Fortran had nothing to do with the internet - but that's the education system for you. There is also Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science.
Stuy High alumnus here ('04). Applications to the Stuy, BK Tech and BX Sci are more rigorous than most college applications - considering this high school is not basing entrance acceptance on GPA/Attendance, what could they possibly be using as an acceptance metric? While it might be good for a few kids who believe (or are told to believe) that Comp Sci is the only way to a six figure job and a life of happiness, something tells me the other aspects of High School might be largely deficient and ultimately, dare I say, self destructive.
It is not the first time, there are dozens of specialized schools in NYC alone. There are thousands of specialized schools across the country. Arts, sciences, sports, you name it.
I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN
Specialized high schools are moderately common in the United States, some organized as general public schools, and some organized as "charter" schools (a form of regulation in the United States with public funding, but less public funding than most schools, and some variation in regulations that apply to general public schools). In my part of the United States, Minnesota, there is public school open enrollment (any student can enroll in any public school district, anywhere in the state) and quite a few charter schools (Minnesota was the first state to have any charter schools). My public school district receives students from forty-one public school districts, the farthest one more than 100 miles away. (I've heard that the child stays with relatives during the school week and goes back to his parents' home on weekends. That is perfectly legal here in Minnesota.) There is another charter school, far across the metropolitan area from where I live, that purports to be a Math and Science Academy.
But as I think any European or east Asian reader of the school's website will soon recognize, the Math and Science Academy charter school in Minnesota does not have a credible academic program in mathematics or science up to international standards. (One of my good friends had a child in that school, and she is bitterly disappointed by how much the school killed her daughter's interest in mathematics and science with its underchallenging curriculum.) A regular public school in Minnesota is permitted to have an internal program that is academically selective, for example a "school within a school" for gifted students, as my local school district does
By contrast, charter schools in Minnesota cannot be academically selective in any way, but must accept all applicants (which is also the plan for the New York City school in the submitted article), allocating spaces by lottery if the number of applicants exceeds the number of spaces. That is one of several ways in which regulations on charter schools are more restrictive than the regulations on regular public school districts.
Minnesota has a specialized program for mathematics only
that draws in students from all over the Twin Cities metropolitan area for classes at the University of Minnesota. I like that program a lot. My oldest son is an alumnus, and I will have two other children take that program's qualifying test in a few months, for two different entry points into that program.
In general, the cultural attitude in the United States is highly hostile to advanced programs for bright learners, as you can see in some of the comments here. Many programs for "gifted" students may not even have added value for academic growth,
So I'm glad to see the New York City experiment in offering a software engineering high school, and will be curious to see if that example is imitated in other parts of the United States.
Wow... it's been ages since I thought of UMTYMP. I went through two years of UMTYMP, and it was the most amazing program. In those two years we covered four years of high school math. It taught me math quick, and also how to work hard.
A side benefit is that because I was taking math at the University of Minnesota outside school hours, I had a free period at school when I would normally take math. (Along with two friends.) We had free reign over our Macintosh computer lab for nearly an hour a day for two years and it was AWESOME. I programmed some pretty wicked stuff in Hypercard, messed around with ripping audio from TV shows onto the computer, fked around on the school's network, and loved it all. (I'm dating myself a bit; this was around 1990-1992 or so.)
Programs like this are amazingly awesome, and they should spread far more than they do.
> the United States especially lags behind in teaching mathematics to its most advanced students.
When I was in 8th grade at the best private day school I could find that would bus me (just under an hour away, but I lived in the sticks and accepted that), I was one of the few kids in "advanced math and science." This was 1 year accelerated, nothing special: we just went to class with the 9th graders. I was taught "Math A" out of this bad boy: http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Review-Lawrence-S-Leff/dp/0764122...
In my first year of the 1.5-year-long Math A, I was never once introduced to the quadratic formula. We were taught to factor quadratic equations by guessing the roots. Not kidding. The Math A test guaranteed integer roots, so... we learned to factor quadratic equations by guessing roots. I actually wrote a TI-83+ program to solve quadratic equations by guessing the roots (somewhat intelligently).
I still look back on that in astonishment - that's all you had to know for algebra 1! Integer roots and guessing! I'm sure schools in new york state - and schools in my region - taught the quadratic formula... but by the book, they didn't have to.
Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to high school in connecticut where I could get a decent education. So my story ended up just dandy. Not sure about the rest of NYS.
