Does AAP create unhelpful elitism and separation?

[Anonymous]

I was a FFX GT kid back when it was GT and even then it was mostly bullshit. They put centers in poorer schools with low test scores to bring the average test scores up, which means you’re busing in a bunch of rich kids with tutors and parents who do their science fairs projects for them into schools where kids are more likely to be receiving free lunch and not have as much academic support at home. In those rare occasions where the two groups interact—-recess, band/orchestra, there were serious class-and-race-based incidents. Rich parents take over the PTA and push for pricy field trips that only the rich kids can afford, they allocate funds for the GT classes to have special experiences and assemblies that lead to more resentment between the two groups, and the rich GT students treat even the poor GT kids like crap (“Wait, you live in an apartment? I thought only poor people did that?”).

AAP and GT centers are disproportionately filled with kids who come from higher ranked schools in rich neighborhoods. Until each neighborhood school sends the same number of kids to the center instead of 40 kids from each great falls school per grade and one kid from herndon per grade, these centers will stay elitist and not full of the kids who could actually benefit from gifted education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a FFX GT kid back when it was GT and even then it was mostly bullshit. They put centers in poorer schools with low test scores to bring the average test scores up, which means you’re busing in a bunch of rich kids with tutors and parents who do their science fairs projects for them into schools where kids are more likely to be receiving free lunch and not have as much academic support at home. In those rare occasions where the two groups interact—-recess, band/orchestra, there were serious class-and-race-based incidents. Rich parents take over the PTA and push for pricy field trips that only the rich kids can afford, they allocate funds for the GT classes to have special experiences and assemblies that lead to more resentment between the two groups, and the rich GT students treat even the poor GT kids like crap (“Wait, you live in an apartment? I thought only poor people did that?”).

AAP and GT centers are disproportionately filled with kids who come from higher ranked schools in rich neighborhoods. Until each neighborhood school sends the same number of kids to the center instead of 40 kids from each great falls school per grade and one kid from herndon per grade, these centers will stay elitist and not full of the kids who could actually benefit from gifted education.

I think it depends on the center. My kids attend a center with many minority kids in AAP. I don't see the kids treating each other poorly. Maybe the difference is most of the higher SES families are UMC and not super wealthy, so you don't have the same degree of classism.

[Anonymous]

My daughter got into the pool. We aren’t going to put her in aap and we didn’t tell her. We will probably move from ffx after this last year and how parents have acted telling their kids who is going to aap and who is “gen ed”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
well, that's lucky for your younger child, but it is not always the case. I know of profoundly gifted children who struggled with frustration because they were not understood, and did not have enough skills to explain themselves, due to their young age. I know also of other gifted children who were too preoccupied with following the rules and the status quo, so they did nothing advanced in front of others. There are kids who demonstrate their giftedness in so many ways, it's hard to tell just by looking at them. That's why there are so many screening tools combined to determine who needs these services.

there are also certain kinds of kids that like certain games and activities that you will label as 'hot housing', but it is not like that, because the kids love them. my younger one loves brain puzzles so much, everytime DC discovers a new one we have to have it, so now we have soooo many of them. You can interpret that any way you like, but who cares. IF those brain puzzles are what's responsible for DC's advancement vs. natural ability, who cares, DC is still advanced at this point, and needs those services in order to keep engaged.

1. Just how many profoundly gifted kids do you know? Profoundly gifted kids have an IQ of 180 plus and are at a rarity of 1:1,000,000 http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm Or are you just bastardizing the term "profoundly gifted" and applying it to the 99.9th percentile (which is "highly gifted")?

2. You seem to have the viewpoint that if the AAP panel finds a child eligible, then that child must be gifted. That's a lot of faith to place in people who've never met or interacted with the child and are basing their assessment on 5 minutes of glancing through the file. In FCPS, a lot of kids are found eligible with 120s test scores and good but not amazing levels of achievement. They really have no metric at all showing giftedness. One of my kids (in AAP) fits this profile. She's bright and hardworking, but not gifted. The only reason she "needs AAP" is that all of the other bright, hardworking, non-gifted kids are in it.

3. Insisting that 20% of the student population "needs" to be segregated from the rest to have their social and educational needs met smacks of exactly the type of elitism that this thread is about.

1. I know a few, and they are very different from me in their learning abilities. Some that are still kids, and some that have turned into adults. And even if they are not 'profoundly gifted' but 'exceptionally gifted' by your definition, they still need at least some differentiation.

2. I do not have the viewpoint that the AAP committee is always right, but its the best we got. When you can come up with a better approach, and still meet the needs of advanced students, then I'm sure people will hear.

3. The top 20% are very different from the bottom 20%, and keeping them together is not doing anyone any favors. If you follow the Eastern European style, everyone got the gifted education, at a gifted pace, but not all would succeed. Only a handful of students could keep up in all classes, and have straight As, most of the students will have B average, then you'd have the bottom 20% who had no idea what was going on, because the teacher would not slow down for the kids that didn't get it, but would go at the pace of the kids that got it. Now in the US you have a system that separates kids, so they can cater to everyone. I'd be fine if my kid had to go through the most rigorous curriculum, and have a chance at everything. But I am not fine with my kids' education being watered down so the ones that are not selected for the AAP program can feel better, because they are not being labeled as smart. Who cares! People need to toughen up and see the truth for what it is. It is always good to know the truth sooner rather than later. And if Larla got in and Carla didn't then Carla can learn to work harder to give herself the same outcome. That's life.

(Eastern European Curriculum:

Algebra by 5th grade,
Geometry by 6th grade,
Physics 6-12, trig and calc based,
Chemistry 8-12th grade(including organic chemistry),
Biology 5-12 all the way to genetics and anatomy,
Trig, Precalculus, Calculus 1 and 2,
Probability Theory,
Knowledge of Machines,
Electronics,
Intro to Computer Science,
History,
Technical Design,
Intro to Micro and Macro Econ,
Intro to Sociology,
Intro to Philosophy,
Foreign Language,
National and World Lit,
and the list goes on)

Not Eastern European, but Northern European. Not sending my kid to aap. American way of schooling is crap anyway. She gets her challenges after school. The fact that there is no language in primary school means any advanced programming or “gifted” program is a joke. If you aren’t bilingual you are starting three steps behind most of the world.

Did I speak slow enough for you monolinguals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:140 what?

140iq? 140 per in test section? 140nnat? 140cogat? 140cogat component?

any of the above? All of the above?

Sure. 140 IQ. 140 Composite cogat could be a rough proxy for IQ. Really, kids who are 145+ in WISC FRI or cogat Quant need something much more than AAP math. Likewise, kids who are 145+ in WISC VCI or cogat Verbal need something more than what is offered in AAP language arts. If you want to broaden it to maybe 136+, then we're back to serving 5-6% of the kids, like the GT program in the past. Everything seemed to work perfectly fine then.

Keep in mind, though, that this bar is for when one needs to be in a fully self contained classroom. No one has been arguing that kids below this threshold don't need gifted services. It's more the case that most schools would have enough students to offer AAP math or 1 year advanced language arts through flexible grouping and class switching. Centers would then be reserved for kids who need instruction 2+ years ahead grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wrong!

Just because some kids need an additional level of differentiation, does not mean that the ones already getting it don't need it! Instead of hating AAP we can work to improve it. I'm all for an additional layer of differentiation, where the highly gifted kids can benefit fully, or at least a lot more. But, to take differentiation away from kids that need it is not right. You have to draw the line at some point, and if the process is holistic then why are we relying so much on these test scores and ignoring the rest of the process? The system is not full proof, and can be improved, but there is no magic biller when it comes to this.

You really like creating straw men. NO ONE HAS BEEN ARGUING FOR TAKING DIFFERENTIATION AWAY FROM KIDS. 120s Larla should still be receiving advanced math and advanced language arts instruction. Many of us are arguing that she doesn't need to be labeled as different and then guaranteed self-contained separate classrooms for 6 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
AAP and GT centers are disproportionately filled with kids who come from higher ranked schools in rich neighborhoods. Until each neighborhood school sends the same number of kids to the center instead of 40 kids from each great falls school per grade and one kid from herndon per grade, these centers will stay elitist and not full of the kids who could actually benefit from gifted education.

That ^. My kids' base school is very diverse, both racially and by SES. About 20% qualify for AAP, and they're almost entirely white or Asian high SES kids. In many cases, they're kids from incredibly enriched households with parents who decided that they belonged in AAP from the time they were born. They are then are prepped into getting a 120s cogat, and somehow get in. How is this not elitist and an example of "white flight"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrong!

Just because some kids need an additional level of differentiation, does not mean that the ones already getting it don't need it! Instead of hating AAP we can work to improve it. I'm all for an additional layer of differentiation, where the highly gifted kids can benefit fully, or at least a lot more. But, to take differentiation away from kids that need it is not right. You have to draw the line at some point, and if the process is holistic then why are we relying so much on these test scores and ignoring the rest of the process? The system is not full proof, and can be improved, but there is no magic biller when it comes to this.

You really like creating straw men. NO ONE HAS BEEN ARGUING FOR TAKING DIFFERENTIATION AWAY FROM KIDS. 120s Larla should still be receiving advanced math and advanced language arts instruction. Many of us are arguing that she doesn't need to be labeled as different and then guaranteed self-contained separate classrooms for 6 years.

DP. Other posters have said that "differentiation" doesn't work, that advanced math and advanced language arts aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
AAP and GT centers are disproportionately filled with kids who come from higher ranked schools in rich neighborhoods. Until each neighborhood school sends the same number of kids to the center instead of 40 kids from each great falls school per grade and one kid from herndon per grade, these centers will stay elitist and not full of the kids who could actually benefit from gifted education.

That ^. My kids' base school is very diverse, both racially and by SES. About 20% qualify for AAP, and they're almost entirely white or Asian high SES kids. In many cases, they're kids from incredibly enriched households with parents who decided that they belonged in AAP from the time they were born. They are then are prepped into getting a 120s cogat, and somehow get in. How is this not elitist and an example of "white flight"?

This is why the program expands each year. Fairfax is trying to capture more disadvantaged gifted kids. They haven't been noticeably successful. Do you have recommendations for Fairfax?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That ^. My kids' base school is very diverse, both racially and by SES. About 20% qualify for AAP, and they're almost entirely white or Asian high SES kids. In many cases, they're kids from incredibly enriched households with parents who decided that they belonged in AAP from the time they were born. They are then are prepped into getting a 120s cogat, and somehow get in. How is this not elitist and an example of "white flight"?

This is why the program expands each year. Fairfax is trying to capture more disadvantaged gifted kids. They haven't been noticeably successful. Do you have recommendations for Fairfax?

Disadvantaged gifted kids are unlikely to be identified using any of the procedures they have now. They would probably benefit most from a more robust gen ed program, which would be achieved by returning 2/3 of the AAP kids back to the base school, as well as a more robust Young Scholars program. Letting even more above average white and asian kids into the program surely isn't helping disadvantaged gifted kids who are being left behind in gen ed, but now without smart, high achieving peers.

I am a bit curious about how adaptive testing could help identify disadvantaged gifted kids. If kids who are behind show more than a year of grown in a subject, that might indicate that the kid is learning quite rapidly, even when starting at a lower baseline.

[Anonymous]

The minuscule number of 140 IQs can get mad and leave for private. Keep the others together and differentiate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The minuscule number of 140 IQs can get mad and leave for private. Keep the others together and differentiate.

One of the reasons I think AAP is a farce is that I have one of those 140s IQ kids. He is served fine with differentiation in everything except his area of strength. I accept that public schools will not be able to serve his needs in his area of strength, and instead have him in outside enrichment. It's completely ridiculous to me that so many parents think their above average kids "need AAP."

[Anonymous]

Not Eastern European, but Northern European. Not sending my kid to aap. American way of schooling is crap anyway. She gets her challenges after school. The fact that there is no language in primary school means any advanced programming or “gifted” program is a joke. If you aren’t bilingual you are starting three steps behind most of the world.

Did I speak slow enough for you monolinguals?

So why waste her time in the schools here at all? I would just homeschool using my nation's curriculum until we return to our country where my kids can then have the advantage of the better schools there full time.

[Anonymous]

My 3rd grade DC made 2 new friends from the AAP classes at the beginning of the school year. It turns out that as soon as their parents learned that my kid was not in AAP, their kids have stopped playing with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
DP. Other posters have said that "differentiation" doesn't work, that advanced math and advanced language arts aren't.

Grouping the top 20 math kids together for math, and the top 20 language arts kids for language arts doesn't work, but shipping those same 20 kids to a center for self-contained classrooms does? Ridiculous.