Gifted programs, lack of, in DC
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Anonymous
| I know this has been debated over and over but it really is glaring. I am from NC and I am amazed at the opportunties that so many truly gifted kids have in my mid size city. Not only test in classes but they now have a special school that serves the truly top 1% who are even too advanced for the gifted classes. NC also has a Math and Science boarding school (think TJ but for statewide talent). Lots of FB friends in NC and SC are now preparing this their 7th graders for ACT/SAT as part of qualifying for the Duke Univiesity young scholars program which offers year wide enrichment for academically advanced kids. Yes, I know the arguements against all this, its just the parents "prepping" the kids, poor kids are at a disadvantage. But I can't help but feel in our liberal zeal to treat every student equally we have done a huge disservice to both the neediest students and also to the most academically advanced. I know DC is full if smart kids, some of them bordering on truly brilliant and other than AP (which based on the scores, probably most kids shouldnt be taking anyway so you know those are getting dumbed down) or IB, it seems that DC basically has said "smart kids do well anywhere so you are on your own"-- No I am not moving back to NC because our jobs are here. But for a state that seems to be gutting a lot of education program, they still have seriously invested in a lot of niche programming. I am curious why DC parents haven't demanded more? I am liberal but this just seems like a lot of misplaced liberal angst and guilt. |
Anonymous
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There are application only high schools. I'd love to see something like what you described for middle school.
It wouldn't even need crazy funding. Just permission from our politicians to start. |
Anonymous
| Won't happen because the racial makeup wouldn't match the city. |
Anonymous
This is especially dad because it does nothing to solve inequality. It just pushes the division to suburbs vs. DC. |
Anonymous
Because only rich white kids are "truly gifted" 
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Anonymous
This is what you've got in DCPS. http://dcps.dc.gov/page/advanced-and-enriched-instruction Call the people listed and start lobbying for more. |
Anonymous
| DC is a pretty small city. Look inside the beltway and you'll find lots of gifted programs. |
Anonymous
Because kids from high SES families will test / present better, be better supported. And in DC that correlates mainly with white. If done right, we should be able to find G&T kids from low SES families too. But knee jerk reactions like yours discourage that conversation from happening. |
Anonymous
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I'd be in favor of it but only if there was serious thought put into how to avoid crazy prep/gaming like there apparently is with AAP over in Virginia, and to make sure there was not embedded racial discrimination. For example, maybe there could be a percentage quota for every school zone for students to be admitted, universal screening tests, and adjustments for English Language Learners. Here is how they did it in one county in Florida: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/22/these-kids-were-geniuses-they-were-just-too-poor-for-anyone-to-discover-them/
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Anonymous
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yes, if it isn't clear enough here - if you have the typical American high test score-based gifted program, you'll have a gifted program that has 99% of its enrollment from 20% of its student body, i.e., it will be white, Asian, and to be politically incorrect, a few token majority-assimilated black and Hispanic kids.
That being obvious, DCPS tries to go about this from a different perspective, making enrichment content available to students who are bad at test taking and possibly just simply poor students. So you won't see the gifted programs you wish for. |
Anonymous
I think you are underestimating the challenges of identifying gifted lower income kids, and the sheer force of will that wealthy white parents will bring to bear to get their "gifted" snowflake enrolled. |
Anonymous
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According to the Census, there are only 24,000 kids aged 10-14 in DC--and that's a major overstatement of how many high schoolers there will be in a few years since families will send kids to private school or move out of the District. Even if they all went to public high school, about half would be in charters. The top 1% of DCPS kids would only be 24 kids per grade, which is not enough to run a very interesting high school--especially since the top couple dozen most gifted kids in DC are not going to be gifted in the same way: some are going to want to do physics research and some are going to write plays and some are going to build computers and some want to learn Hindi and study international relations.
I think the DCPS application high schools plus AP at Wilson and IB at Eastern offer rigorous curricula, though the schools each have aspects that make them not a great fit for certain kids. A motivated student can also use the resources of the universities, agencies, organizations, etc. in the city to do a whole lot more. Fixing the pipeline seems like a useful step--identifying smart kids at early grades and working with them in ways parents like. And there could be improvements (different ones for each school) at SWW, Banneker, Wilson, Eastern, etc. But building a whole new TJ-like school makes a lot less sense to me than working on McKinley Tech, which has the same aims. |
Anonymous
| When I attended Takoma Educational Center, I think it's now Educational Campus, there was a GT program for the MS. Not sure what they are doing now, but it was roughly the same 12 or so kids taking the courses. |
Anonymous
I don't claim to have a firm grasp of how to set up admissions, and I recognize that money buys privilege, even in public education. So we won't get a completely fair system, ever. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. |
Anonymous
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I completely agree with you, OP. It should be just as much of an embarrassment that DCPS doesn't provide for its most needy "advanced" learners just as it doesn't provide for its most needy "disadvantaged" learners. Giftedness, and the fact that DCPS policy is to ignore the need for gifted education, it is another pink elephant in the room.
From personal experience, it is pretty frustrating having a gifted kid, identified by those outside the system as needing specialized instruction, in a school where no educator or administrator appears to be allowed to use the term "gifted." It's as if there is a school-wide policy, if not a DCPS-wide policy, that the needs of gifted children can never be discussed because they will never be provided for. And I believe this is a racial issue, 100%. Not "because only rich white kids are 'truly gifted'" as the poster without a clue above snarks. Gifted identification is more difficult for minority and low income populations. Then, IQ scores are nature plus environment. Simply put, kids coming from "better" environments are going to do better while kids coming from "worse" environments are going to do worse. A kid born with great natural abilities who is living under stressful conditions, without enrichment opportunities or adequate sleep and nutrition, will have a lower IQ test than if these negative factors weren't in place, and vice versa for privileged kids. Throw in the fact that white kids in D.C. tend to come from families with high-achieving, highly educated parents - that means that the parents are disproportionately gifted, which means there's a greater likelihood that the kids will be. All of this creates a recipe for hugely skewed numbers if a G&T program is ever created. My plan is to save for private H.S. and try to keep my kid from hating school between now and then. It sucks, but its the best I have for now. |