NYC eliminating gifted and talented program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waste of time and money. Your kid smart? Great they will get a bunch of 5s on AP tests in high school and roll those standardized tests.

The district my kids grew up in is a well to do area with lots of smart kids. The district long ago (decades) got rid of the gifted and talented program. Smart kids are easy to challenge and get differentiated simple enough.

...and will probably end up wait-listed for a top 25 school.

[Anonymous]

My dd has a GAI of 134 but because she has ADHD her FSIQ is only 120 due to very slow processing speed. So far she is a straight A student but the school states she is not appropriate for g&t?? She is a white middle class kid though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if this is true, how will the educational needs of the gifted and talented kids be met? Are they all just going to be put in gen. ed. classrooms?

They aren’t being met for the most part, I have absolutely no idea how the kids who are in g&t in my child’s school got in? They must be the next Einsteins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I imagine that Mayor-to-Be Adams will modify this in some form. But Mayor Bill de Blasio will no doubt be elected governor, thus enabling him to work towards implanting his sometimes brilliant and sometimes meh policy goals on a state level. It’s a great time to be a New Yorker!!

BDB will never be governor. He has alienated far too many New Yorkers and his policies are anathema to upstate, more conservative voters.

I hope he runs so I have the pleasure of not voting for him. I regret voting for him for mayor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good. This is how things were handled in the "old days".

It's funny how folks are trying to say this is a liberal conspiracy, when the schools are going back to the "good old days" when there were no gifted programs.

Exactly what years were "the good old days" for America's public education system?

I am a 50 year old New Yorker. I am Black biracial. I was in the G&T as a kid, when it was teacher recommendation based and not test in. When exactly were the pre G&T good old days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a relatively new phenomenon. actually.

I went to one of the said G&T NYC High Schools in the late 70's/early 80's. There was a sizeable population of black and brown students back then in addition to asian and white students...about 30 %.

Elementary in lower income areas needs to stop teaching to tghe lowest common denominator and parents need to support their children's education...not expect the teachers to carry the burden of raising their kids!.

Things were different back then...parents took a more active role in their childrens' education and none of the awful behaviors I see in the schools now was tolerated allowing the higher achievers in all demographics to actually learn!

Two reasons why there used to be many more Black and Latino students in the Specialized High Schools:

1) Tracking. It's out of favor but all schools used to put the advanced students.together and teach them advanced work. Now it's considered exclusionary and you diverse ability classrooms, with one teacher trying to address the needs and abilities of 30+ students. White and Asian families either exit the system thru private, parochial or charter schools or by testing into the G&T. White and Asian students also supplement their studies with tutors and test prep classes on weekends and in the summer - if we still had tracking, this advanced coursework would've been provided in schools.

2) Private schools siphoning off all of the top Black and Latino public school students. Many ambitious, savvy Black and Latino families join programs like Prep for Prep, take the private school test, and enter the top privates in NYC. The privates covet these.students (diversity is a big selling point). It allows these families to bypass the madness that is getting a.decent education in the NYC school system, and the admissions of these privates are excellent. No need to stress.over the SHSAT when you can get free tuition to Dalton. And the Black and Latino students who can't get into these schools, if they are don't like their public options, go to charters Catholic school, or lesser know or new privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they should eliminate g&t - they should ensure it is demographically balanced.

I live in NYC. I'm born and raised here and have lived here my entire life.

They're are only 5 schools with the programs. It's literally in only certain areas.

MANY, MANY parents don't even know the program exist. I didn't even know this program existed until 2 years ago! HA!

I live in NYC too. You are thinking about schools like Anderson and NEST. But there are also G&T programs in many local elementary schools operating like a separate track.

Isn’t nest for kids on the spectrum?

NEST+m is the G&T school in lower Manhattan. It runs K-12. People shorten this to NEST when speaking about it.

ASD NEST is the program for students on the autism spectrum. A number of schools host the NEST program. People also call this program NEST.for short.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear good things about Ember charter school, a predominantly black school in Brooklyn.

Why does it matter if schools are public or charter as long as there is equitable access?

Why does it matter if school employees have health insurance and job protections?

I mean matters to the kids, the objective that should be priority.

My home town went hard core into charter schools to solve their declining and underfunded public schools. It was such a mess. They had charter schools in strip malls. They had charter schools teaching whatever crazy curriculum they wanted — one of my nephews went to a “Montessori” one and turned out to be illiterate because no one had taught him to read. Many had super high teacher turnover and just had teachers. The theory behind charters is that they can be more creative and less regulated. But unless they are closely monitored with guard rails in place, it’s just a money making machine for companies that serve customers (kids) who aren’t well situated to police the product being served to them.
I know of some great charter schools—but it seems like when a system goes heavily into charter schools, it attracts the bad apples and is just much harder to monitor the quality of the product.

Its more than cherry picking the best performing, best behaved students with the most committed parents. Charters can also counsel out or directly push out underperforming or problem students. They can kick a student out, keep the money from the government that was attached to that student, and that student ends up in a public school. That now has to deal with an underperforming/problem student without the money needed for that student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dd has a GAI of 134 but because she has ADHD her FSIQ is only 120 due to very slow processing speed. So far she is a straight A student but the school states she is not appropriate for g&t?? She is a white middle class kid though.

My kids are in the G&T in NYC. My older son has ADHD and an IQ of 146. Being in that G&T classroom has been essential for him - his ADHD manifests as hyperactivity. He has rapid processing speed but he is always stimming. Being in this class with similarly bright kids allows him to get challenging sfhoolwork from a teacher who does have to pull up lots of struggling students, so that he is rarely bored (which means he doesn't become a disengaged troublemaker).

Before anyone says anything, my family is Black, Asian and white. We did not do any test prep drilling with my kids - we followed the directions on the NYC DOE G&T webpage, did the practice exam once, and went over the question (it was only one question) they didn't get. And then we.did the same practice test a second time. My DS1 got a 99 and my DS2 got a 97. So it is possible to get a qualifying score on the test without excessive expensive test prep. Also, my son with ADHD did not have any special accommodations for the test - he had a neuropsych and was diagnosed when he was 6 and already in the G&T. And my kids are not the only non habits kids in the G&T classes at their school (although, yes, it is mostly white).

That said, there are many things that can be done to improve the G&T program, now that Adams has pledged to continue it in some form:

The qualifying score for the G&T is 90 for a local program and 97 got a Citywide G&T school like NEST+m. Because there are too few available seats in these programs, most seats are filled with 99s in the City wires and 96-99 in the local ones. I'm sure many more Black and Brown students would be in the G&T if there were enough seats. So, I would expand the program to many more schools.

Also, even though this is such a hot button issue in NYC, very few people seem to know about the program or have their kids test to enter it. I have proselytized about it to other Black families at my kids' school. They always seem either uninterested or a bit intimidated about it, maybe because they don't see a lot of other Black or Brown families participating, or maybe because they think it's bougie or elitist. The solution would be to have all students evaluated for the program (yes, just like the proposed Brilliant NYC program). I would make it mandatory or at least opt out rather than opt it. It would not take too much school time to do this. All students who scored 85+ could be offered a seat.

I would also make a set aside for students to be offered seats based on teacher recommendation (this is how I entered the G&T, as I mentioned in a post above). Say 50% of seats based on teacher assessment.

Also, because there are so few seats currently, it was very difficult to get in after Kindergarten. I would have rolling admissions, so that every year a classroom could be created at most schools. If a school cannot make it work budgetwise, students would be allowed to transfer to schools with available G&T seats.

Differentiation is supposed to happen in every classroom. But because of widely diverse abilities in one classroom, teachers are.forced to focus on the remedial students. By having the G&T students in their own classes, teachers would be better able to give differentiated teaching to the remaining students. I think providing accelerated work for those remaining students, via Brilliant NYC, would then make sense. This would help the students who are late bloomers or are middle of the road, get teaching on their level of abiloty. So, rather than binary G&T and Gen Ed tracks, you'd have G&T, accelerated Brilliant NYC, and Gen Ed. Diffentiatikn also is helped by smaller class sizes and co teaching , so fewer students per teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd has a GAI of 134 but because she has ADHD her FSIQ is only 120 due to very slow processing speed. So far she is a straight A student but the school states she is not appropriate for g&t?? She is a white middle class kid though.

My kids are in the G&T in NYC. My older son has ADHD and an IQ of 146. Being in that G&T classroom has been essential for him - his ADHD manifests as hyperactivity. He has rapid processing speed but he is always stimming. Being in this class with similarly bright kids allows him to get challenging schoolwork from a teacher who doesn't have to pull up lots of struggling students, so that he is rarely bored (which means he doesn't become a disengaged troublemaker).

Before anyone says anything, my family is Black, Asian and white. We did not do any test prep drilling with my kids - we followed the directions on the NYC DOE G&T webpage, did the practice exam once, and went over the question (it was only one question) they didn't get. And then we.did the same practice test a second time. My DS1 got a 99 and my DS2 got a 97. So it is possible to get a qualifying score on the test without excessive expensive test prep. Also, my son with ADHD did not have any special accommodations for the test - he had a neuropsych and was diagnosed when he was 6 and already in the G&T. And my kids are not the only non white kids in the G&T classes at their school (although, yes, it is mostly white).

That said, there are many things that can be done to improve the G&T program, now that Adams has pledged to continue it in some form:

The qualifying score for the G&T is 90 for a local program and 97 got a Citywide G&T school like NEST+m. Because there are too few available seats in these programs, most seats are filled with 99s in the City wires and 96-99 in the local ones. I'm sure many more Black and Brown students would be in the G&T if there were enough seats. So, I would expand the program to many more schools.

Also, even though this is such a hot button issue in NYC, very few people seem to know about the program or have their kids test to enter it. I have proselytized about it to other Black families at my kids' school. They always seem either uninterested or a bit intimidated about it, maybe because they don't see a lot of other Black or Brown families participating, or maybe because they think it's bougie or elitist. The solution would be to have all students evaluated for the program (yes, just like the proposed Brilliant NYC program). I would make it mandatory or at least opt out rather than opt it. It would not take too much school time to do this. All students who scored 85+ could be offered a seat.

I would also make a set aside for students to be offered seats based on teacher recommendation (this is how I entered the G&T, as I mentioned in a post above). Say 50% of seats based on teacher assessment.

Also, because there are so few seats currently, it was very difficult to get in after Kindergarten. I would have rolling admissions, so that every year a classroom could be created at most schools. If a school cannot make it work budgetwise, students would be allowed to transfer to schools with available G&T seats.

Differentiation is supposed to happen in every classroom. But because of widely diverse abilities in one classroom, teachers are.forced to focus on the remedial students. By having the G&T students in their own classes, teachers would be better able to give differentiated teaching to the remaining students. I think providing accelerated work for those remaining students, via Brilliant NYC, would then make sense. This would help the students who are late bloomers or are middle of the road, get teaching on their level of abiloty. So, rather than binary G&T and Gen Ed tracks, you'd have G&T, accelerated Brilliant NYC, and Gen Ed. Diffentiatikn also is helped by smaller class sizes and co teaching , so fewer students per teacher.

^^Sorry for the autocorrects and typos. I think I fixed them all.

In addition, after reading this again, I'm not sure everyone here knows that some boroughs of NYC don't even have the G&T program. The Bronx has zero (there were some in local schools but they ended them due to lack of interest). So I would add G&T programs to every borough. If testing is mandatory or opt out, the G&T classes would be filled in those areas. I would also build a G&T school, K-8 at least, in the Bronx, Staten Island, and two more in Brooklyn. There would be enough demand to fill yhem, especially if testing if universal and the program promoted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County will go that way soon. They are doing everything they can to dismantle their AAP program.

I have almost finished my third decade working in an ES for FCPS. I think it was much better when the program was GT and students who truly “thought outside the box” got into the program. Now many of the students who are in the program are in it solely because of test scores or because parents were squeaky wheels. Many of the students aren’t flexible in their thinking at all and are actually quite rigid with their mindset.

Your last sentience is a dog whistle for anti-Asian racism, bigot.

Yes.

When I grew up people were always saying this kind of stuff about smart Asian kids. "They're smart but they're robotic, no creativity." In every context -- math, music (ironically), whatever. It's nonsense, it's horrible, and it is absolutely racist. It comes from seeing kids as representatives of their ethnic group rather than as individuals. It's part and parcel with Harvard systematically dinging Asian applicants on personality.

Of course it is entirely possible OP is not describing of Asian kids with the "quite rigid" comment. But this pops up often enough that it's certainly worth addressing. The anti-Asian aspects of the anti-GT stuff is kind of unmistakable at this point.

So you don't think kids who attend school, then are drilled on math and piano for hours a day can become rigid? Creativity was not rewarded in Asian schools and those are the parents "supplementing" their kids' educations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County will go that way soon. They are doing everything they can to dismantle their AAP program.

I have almost finished my third decade working in an ES for FCPS. I think it was much better when the program was GT and students who truly “thought outside the box” got into the program. Now many of the students who are in the program are in it solely because of test scores or because parents were squeaky wheels. Many of the students aren’t flexible in their thinking at all and are actually quite rigid with their mindset.

Your last sentience is a dog whistle for anti-Asian racism, bigot.

Yes.

When I grew up people were always saying this kind of stuff about smart Asian kids. "They're smart but they're robotic, no creativity." In every context -- math, music (ironically), whatever. It's nonsense, it's horrible, and it is absolutely racist. It comes from seeing kids as representatives of their ethnic group rather than as individuals. It's part and parcel with Harvard systematically dinging Asian applicants on personality.

Of course it is entirely possible OP is not describing of Asian kids with the "quite rigid" comment. But this pops up often enough that it's certainly worth addressing. The anti-Asian aspects of the anti-GT stuff is kind of unmistakable at this point.

So you don't think kids who attend school, then are drilled on math and piano for hours a day can become rigid? Creativity was not rewarded in Asian schools and those are the parents "supplementing" their kids' educations.

DS is taking classes at RSM. The Math Competition Class focuses on logic and creative problem solving. They discuss how they approach the problems and how they solved it, learning from each other. Supplementing does not have to be drilling and lead to rigidity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd has a GAI of 134 but because she has ADHD her FSIQ is only 120 due to very slow processing speed. So far she is a straight A student but the school states she is not appropriate for g&t?? She is a white middle class kid though.

My kids are in the G&T in NYC. My older son has ADHD and an IQ of 146. Being in that G&T classroom has been essential for him - his ADHD manifests as hyperactivity. He has rapid processing speed but he is always stimming. Being in this class with similarly bright kids allows him to get challenging schoolwork from a teacher who doesn't have to pull up lots of struggling students, so that he is rarely bored (which means he doesn't become a disengaged troublemaker).

Before anyone says anything, my family is Black, Asian and white. We did not do any test prep drilling with my kids - we followed the directions on the NYC DOE G&T webpage, did the practice exam once, and went over the question (it was only one question) they didn't get. And then we.did the same practice test a second time. My DS1 got a 99 and my DS2 got a 97. So it is possible to get a qualifying score on the test without excessive expensive test prep. Also, my son with ADHD did not have any special accommodations for the test - he had a neuropsych and was diagnosed when he was 6 and already in the G&T. And my kids are not the only non white kids in the G&T classes at their school (although, yes, it is mostly white).

That said, there are many things that can be done to improve the G&T program, now that Adams has pledged to continue it in some form:

The qualifying score for the G&T is 90 for a local program and 97 got a Citywide G&T school like NEST+m. Because there are too few available seats in these programs, most seats are filled with 99s in the City wires and 96-99 in the local ones. I'm sure many more Black and Brown students would be in the G&T if there were enough seats. So, I would expand the program to many more schools.

Also, even though this is such a hot button issue in NYC, very few people seem to know about the program or have their kids test to enter it. I have proselytized about it to other Black families at my kids' school. They always seem either uninterested or a bit intimidated about it, maybe because they don't see a lot of other Black or Brown families participating, or maybe because they think it's bougie or elitist. The solution would be to have all students evaluated for the program (yes, just like the proposed Brilliant NYC program). I would make it mandatory or at least opt out rather than opt it. It would not take too much school time to do this. All students who scored 85+ could be offered a seat.

I would also make a set aside for students to be offered seats based on teacher recommendation (this is how I entered the G&T, as I mentioned in a post above). Say 50% of seats based on teacher assessment.

Also, because there are so few seats currently, it was very difficult to get in after Kindergarten. I would have rolling admissions, so that every year a classroom could be created at most schools. If a school cannot make it work budgetwise, students would be allowed to transfer to schools with available G&T seats.

Differentiation is supposed to happen in every classroom. But because of widely diverse abilities in one classroom, teachers are.forced to focus on the remedial students. By having the G&T students in their own classes, teachers would be better able to give differentiated teaching to the remaining students. I think providing accelerated work for those remaining students, via Brilliant NYC, would then make sense. This would help the students who are late bloomers or are middle of the road, get teaching on their level of abiloty. So, rather than binary G&T and Gen Ed tracks, you'd have G&T, accelerated Brilliant NYC, and Gen Ed. Diffentiatikn also is helped by smaller class sizes and co teaching , so fewer students per teacher.

^^Sorry for the autocorrects and typos. I think I fixed them all.

In addition, after reading this again, I'm not sure everyone here knows that some boroughs of NYC don't even have the G&T program. The Bronx has zero (there were some in local schools but they ended them due to lack of interest). So I would add G&T programs to every borough. If testing is mandatory or opt out, the G&T classes would be filled in those areas. I would also build a G&T school, K-8 at least, in the Bronx, Staten Island, and two more in Brooklyn. There would be enough demand to fill yhem, especially if testing if universal and the program promoted.

Thank you for providing this insight. I am a NYC G&T parent with a mixed race family too, so like you I am aware of these issues. Unfortunately our detractors have been in control of the narrative, so this nuanced perspective rarely exists in a public forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear good things about Ember charter school, a predominantly black school in Brooklyn.

Why does it matter if schools are public or charter as long as there is equitable access?

Why does it matter if school employees have health insurance and job protections?

I mean matters to the kids, the objective that should be priority.

My home town went hard core into charter schools to solve their declining and underfunded public schools. It was such a mess. They had charter schools in strip malls. They had charter schools teaching whatever crazy curriculum they wanted — one of my nephews went to a “Montessori” one and turned out to be illiterate because no one had taught him to read. Many had super high teacher turnover and just had teachers. The theory behind charters is that they can be more creative and less regulated. But unless they are closely monitored with guard rails in place, it’s just a money making machine for companies that serve customers (kids) who aren’t well situated to police the product being served to them.
I know of some great charter schools—but it seems like when a system goes heavily into charter schools, it attracts the bad apples and is just much harder to monitor the quality of the product.

Its more than cherry picking the best performing, best behaved students with the most committed parents. Charters can also counsel out or directly push out underperforming or problem students. They can kick a student out, keep the money from the government that was attached to that student, and that student ends up in a public school. That now has to deal with an underperforming/problem student without the money needed for that student.

What are you talking about? Funding follows students. If you are admitting that public schools need to use all of the per student funding from average students to subsidize the more resource intensive underperforming students, well, that is another issue that we should talk about directly.

[Anonymous]

McAuliffe will deliver for us. He will end all so called “gifted and talented” programs in Virginia too.