Alexandria City TAG program

[Anonymous]

What is your experience with it? Good, bad, ugly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your experience with it? Good, bad, ugly?

TAG, like many similar G&T programs in this area, is rife with politics. So, they've tried to make it less subjective and more test-based. ACPS politics are especially complicated b/c of race -- TAG students tended to be overrepresented by white kids, which was a product not so much of ability as advocacy.

So now they basically administer a standardized test at the end of 2nd grade to determine eligibility. You and dcs' teachers can still self-refer, but there's more amunition to say "no" if they don't test in.

In any event, it doesn't matter much. There's not a whole lot of value in TAG/G&T etc until the later grades anyway. The early grades is more about assuaging parental egos. The NOVA area is FILLLED with gifted kids after all. But there are very few genuine phenoms.

[Anonymous]

Just be sure you get your child into a good study group before the second grade testing

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input about how to get into the program.

I'm mainly interested in the TAG program itself. Do the kids like the program? Are they challenged suitably (not given more of the same they've already mastered)? Do they feel ostracized from the rest of the classroom? Are the teachers good?

Also, I see that ACPS has two (yes, two) job announcements on washingtonpost jobs for gifted program coordinator positions. Why is this? Are they expanding the program? Did they fire the previous coordinators?

[Anonymous]

Come on ACPS TAG parents. Please spill.

[Anonymous]

The ACPS TAG program has been under fire because, as pointed out above, white students have been over-represented in the program. In response, ACPS has so watered down the TAG program that it no longer really exists. In middle school, there are no more TAG classes - only "honors" classes, which for the most part are not rigorous enough, particularly for the gifted kids. In 4th and 5th grade, the pull out class size has ballooned because the standards have become lax and so now the TAG class sizes are becoming bigger that the regular class (which has two teachers). Last year, the TAG Coordinator opposed getting rid of TAG math at the middle school - in response, ACPS got rid of TAG math and got rid of her - she has gone to Arlington.

[Anonymous]

I didn't even realize that Alexandria City had such a program.

[Anonymous]

in ACPS elementary schools, TAG is just differentiated instruction within the regular classroom for K-3. In 4th and 5th grade, the TAG students are sent to a sep. class for the subjects they are identified for (ie Lang Arts TAG students and math TAG students each go to the TAG teacher during those times). The TAG classes are small (10 - 15 kids) and more project-based, but they cover the same curriculum. In middle school, TAG is more of an honors track-type system. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Tag math was good - challenging etc. Language Arts was just more of the same SOL based crap - plus Wordly Wise (which, most of the regular kids could have handled anyway). DC is in private now - but for the record - while I thought the TAG hype was a joke, the disappointment was the belief that it would somehow take the increasingly test focused curriculum and make it rich and exciting. We loved our elementary school (even though we were not crazy about TAG), and thought the teachers were great. What we didn't like was the testing - which for some kids it is not a big deal, but for our two creative types it was not working by 4th-5th.

[Anonymous]

I have two 4th graders in the TAG program in ACPS, and they both really like it. Like others have said, beginning in the 4th grade kids are pulled from their classroom to attend classes with the TAG teacher. Our school's TAG teacher is fantastic. My kids now spend the majority of their day with her in classes of 10-12 kids. They are much more engaged and invested in school this year than last, and they seem to be getting a lot more substantive stuff done... then again, they spent the last 3 months of 3rd grade doing NOTHING but unbelievably mind-numbing SOL prep, so the bar was low.

The only downside for them is that they're in the same classroom for the first time since pre-K, and they're getting on each other's nerves!