Gifted programs, lack of, in DC

[Anonymous]

Also, to build on what I just said--if your DCPS is NOT doing an adequate/appropriate job with differentiating for your high performing child then you should let the principal know and if that doesn't go anywhere let the central office know.

[Anonymous]

Hasn't DCPS traditionally viewed gifted programs as "elitist" and catering to higher SES white students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

If 75% of the kids would be identified as "gifted and talented" they are not truly G&T.

What's "truly G&T"? Are MoCo and Fairfax identifying "truly G&T"? Or just bright/working well above grade level? Because what PP is saying is that in a school like Janney, most of the kids are working above grade level, and many score in the 95th+ percentile when tested. That doesn't make them "gifted."

I think MoCo does; it pulls the top 3-4% out, and it only gets more selective as it goes along. In a county with as many smart well educated kids as MoCo has, pulling the top 3-4% is going to be a VERY smart kids. Fairfax is closer to 20%; obviously a very different program and probably not for the "gifted".

I was in a top-5% gifted program at a high-achieving high school, and we were all "very bright," but there wasn't some steep drop-off between us and the honors kids. Again, we're not talking about truly gifted in these scenarios. We're talking about very smart kids who happen to make it above an arbitrary cut-off point on a test. I just don't buy that there's anything significant gained by pulling those kids out and tracking them separately.

[Anonymous]

At my middle school in Southern California, we had honors classes and regular classes. You got in to the honors classes based on tests and teacher recommendations. We didn't have G&T, but it ensured that those who were advanced continued to be challenged, and those who needed more assistance got the help they needed. I should also add that my middle school was 80% low-income/minority and there were plenty of non-white kids in the honors classes. In fact, there were only 3-4 or white kids. Why can't the same be done in DC? Saw upthread about how tracking didn't work in DC, but as couple of posters pointed out, the court did not invalidate tracking per se, but the court took issue with the method for placing kids into various tracks. Why not explore this option. Seems reasonable to me.

[Anonymous]

Fairfax doesn't call their program 'gifted' but Advance Academic Program. So it admits many more children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really 20% of kids in AAP in fairfax county? Where are you getting this 20% of kids number 11:20?

Also, why on earth do you assume everyone in AU Park with a graduate degree is smarter than everyone in the suburbs to get this idea that all of AU Park would be in the top 20% of say MoCo or Fairfax? They have plenty of million+ homes there as well you know. Seems off base.

Because you have SOME sort of economic diversity in the suburbs, even in wealthier areas.
In AU park you have NONE--it is such a tiny area. I don't know a SINGLE person who isn't college educated. Not one. Come to think of it, not a single person who doesn't have a graduate degree.

So, a zip code in Mclean that includes all single family houses or in Potomac, they won't have what AU Park has? I just think if you compare Janney to the suburbs (or equally or MORE expensive areas with as many kids) you would not see people claiming 75% of their school is GT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The crazy thing about this discussion is that most of you demanding it wouldn't have a kid test into one of these programs. Everyone here thinks their snowflake is special but reality is they may not be. Reading a grade level above does not make a kid gifted. Queue the hundreds of parents that had their DC tested when considering private in 3,2,1.....

BINGO

again, its not about being gifted. In DC you kid looks gifted just by being at grade level. I have seen the test scores. I swear some of these schools can't even call themselves schools when 0% are college ready?? I don't know if my "snowflake" is gifted but she is at or on above grade level and bottom line is I think its a waste of her school time to be a in a class where 2/3 of her peers are BELOW (sometimes by two grades). regardless of race. There are plenty of shitty white schools in the burbs I wouldn't put her in either with similar test scores. Lets get rid of grades and just put kids in groupings based on subject and mastery of subject. Using the term gifted might be the wrong word. Tragic and significant achievement gaps are real and no kid who can do the work should be forced to just do more busy work while the teacher helps the kids who still can't read in 4th grade. thats not SEM, thats not differentiation, thats not advanced. Thats politicking at its worst from DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I've thought about this some more and I stand by my statement that Janney's population is about 75% kids who would be admitted to a traditional, suburban district's Gifted and Talented program (which would admit about the top 20% of the cross section of kids). They're very bright and very capable of working several grade levels ahead but not prodigies.
Unfortunately the price of admission to this G&T program is the ability to afford to buy/rent a million dollar house in AU Park. Which is ALL sorts of wrong, I agree 100%. Unlike traditional school districts you can't test in, you must buy in to this peer group in DC. And for many if you can't afford (or chose not to) buy in, many Charter schools fulfill the same purpose of self-segregation by academic talent/ambition.

I'm really curious how you can claim that 75% of Janney's population is G&T when only 15% of the students performed advanced on PARCC. Even the very low bar of DCCAS had 53% (math) and 33% (reading) as advanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS can't even meet the needs of average students never mind the gifted. The majority of kids in DCPS in all testing grades are below grade level in reading and math including high schoolers. Quite understandable why they don't bother with gifted education since they are woefully inadequate in teaching anyone.

Which is why focusing on in-class differentiation that ensures all kids are taught at the right level is the right answer. It doesn't have to be either/or.

Differentiation is obviously not working at all since DCPS has pathetically low proficiency rates in reading and math for large swaths of its students. Then you have large cohorts of families bailing on DCPS in order to meet their kids' educational needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

If 75% of the kids would be identified as "gifted and talented" they are not truly G&T.

What's "truly G&T"? Are MoCo and Fairfax identifying "truly G&T"? Or just bright/working well above grade level? Because what PP is saying is that in a school like Janney, most of the kids are working above grade level, and many score in the 95th+ percentile when tested. That doesn't make them "gifted."

I think MoCo does; it pulls the top 3-4% out, and it only gets more selective as it goes along. In a county with as many smart well educated kids as MoCo has, pulling the top 3-4% is going to be a VERY smart kids. Fairfax is closer to 20%; obviously a very different program and probably not for the "gifted".

I was in a top-5% gifted program at a high-achieving high school, and we were all "very bright," but there wasn't some steep drop-off between us and the honors kids. Again, we're not talking about truly gifted in these scenarios. We're talking about very smart kids who happen to make it above an arbitrary cut-off point on a test. I just don't buy that there's anything significant gained by pulling those kids out and tracking them separately.

I'm not sure there's been a ton of research that shows that it's useful; or that it isn't. Or at least I haven't seem any. Educators tend to be more worried about the lower performers and assume that the smart kids will be "fine" and don't need any extra attention. Is this true? I don't know. My gut feel is that being in the top 5% needs as much differentiation as being in the bottom 5%, but without data it's hard to say.

[Anonymous]

In this town, what is considered gifted? I recently received my kid's academic assessment from two different testing centers, C2 Education and Huntington. He is two grades ahead in math, and almost a full two grades below in reading. Two different evaluations, same results. I bet most of these parents claiming that their DC are gifted are not. They just read or do math at a higher level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this town, what is considered gifted? I recently received my kid's academic assessment from two different testing centers, C2 Education and Huntington. He is two grades ahead in math, and almost a full two grades below in reading. Two different evaluations, same results. I bet most of these parents claiming that their DC are gifted are not. They just read or do math at a higher level.

I've been thinking about this and I think part of the issue might be that DC is a magnet for high achieving folks. I was "gifted" back home, tracked as such all the way through school, etc. But in retrospect, I was just a high achieving, smart, kid in a place where a "solid job" meant working in the lumber mill.

I think there are a lot of folks like me in the DC area - many of us are here because we "got out" of wherever we came from and got jobs in policy, academia, or politics. Now our kids are surrounded by families just like ours, where education is valued, trips to the museum are normal, and lots of other kids are also high achieving and well-supported at home. So we freak out when our kids aren't in a "gifted" class because WE were, and does that mean our kids are less intelligent than us? What have we done wrong? PANIC ENSUES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really 20% of kids in AAP in fairfax county? Where are you getting this 20% of kids number 11:20?

Also, why on earth do you assume everyone in AU Park with a graduate degree is smarter than everyone in the suburbs to get this idea that all of AU Park would be in the top 20% of say MoCo or Fairfax? They have plenty of million+ homes there as well you know. Seems off base.

Because you have SOME sort of economic diversity in the suburbs, even in wealthier areas.
In AU park you have NONE--it is such a tiny area. I don't know a SINGLE person who isn't college educated. Not one. Come to think of it, not a single person who doesn't have a graduate degree.

The more relevant comparison here is between the AU Park neighborhood and the Wood acres neighborhood. or the AU Park neighborhood and the Somerset. or AU Park and the Town of Chevy Chase. or compare AU Park to north Arlington's country club hills.

not AU Park and "all 64,355 elementary students attending Montgomery County schools" ( http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/statistics.aspx )



You'll see the same percentages of Somewhat Above Grade Level Children of Lawyers in each of these areas. the "secret" to the Advanced percentages is to have little or absolutely no moderate rental apartments in the attendance area.

Frankly, the more impressive DCPS elementary schools are not Janney, which was born on 3rd base due to SFH housing stock, but the schools like Stoddert, Hearst and Eaton that post up -almost- as high of numbers without the 99.999768% affluent kids-of-lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS can't even meet the needs of average students never mind the gifted. The majority of kids in DCPS in all testing grades are below grade level in reading and math including high schoolers. Quite understandable why they don't bother with gifted education since they are woefully inadequate in teaching anyone.

Which is why focusing on in-class differentiation that ensures all kids are taught at the right level is the right answer. It doesn't have to be either/or.

Differentiation is obviously not working at all since DCPS has pathetically low proficiency rates in reading and math for large swaths of its students. Then you have large cohorts of families bailing on DCPS in order to meet their kids' educational needs.

No. Differentiation isn't happening in most DCPS. Skipping from nothing to "let's just pull out the advanced kids" doesn't address the bigger problem. And differentiation, done right, can actually address all of the issues (except, perhaps, for the profoundly gifted, whom we can all agree make up an incredibly small portion of the population--maybe 1 or 2 kids per school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS can't even meet the needs of average students never mind the gifted. The majority of kids in DCPS in all testing grades are below grade level in reading and math including high schoolers. Quite understandable why they don't bother with gifted education since they are woefully inadequate in teaching anyone.

Which is why focusing on in-class differentiation that ensures all kids are taught at the right level is the right answer. It doesn't have to be either/or.

Differentiation is obviously not working at all since DCPS has pathetically low proficiency rates in reading and math for large swaths of its students. Then you have large cohorts of families bailing on DCPS in order to meet their kids' educational needs.

No. Differentiation isn't happening in most DCPS. Skipping from nothing to "let's just pull out the advanced kids" doesn't address the bigger problem. And differentiation, done right, can actually address all of the issues (except, perhaps, for the profoundly gifted, whom we can all agree make up an incredibly small portion of the population--maybe 1 or 2 kids per school).

I would beg to differ. What DCPS schools are you finding that are not attempting to put in adequate or appropriate efforts to differentiate?