Gifted in DCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I have a child in PK3 whose teachers are working with her a grade or two ahead on some things. What is the CTY program?

Is this a joke?

Another new poster, my PK4 kid is several grade levels ahead of his peers (reading at 3rd/4th grade level). It happens. And his teachers work with him on it. And, yes, PK3 and PK4 are GRADES in public schools in the district.

Thank you. Yes, this is a DC public schools forum and PK3 is a grade in DC public schools.

I love it. A 36-month-old can now be in a grade. With a curriculum.

And yes, I know that really is the case in dcps but I think it's stupid.

-- mom of talented 5th grader who was pooping his pants occasionally at age 3, squeezing play dough, building free-form towers and so on. It's so weird to me that a dc resident now has to PAY serious cash to get that kind of developmentally appropriate nursery school experience in a private preschool. "I want my kid to fingerpaint all day, so that means tuition!"

Have you actually been to a DCPS preschool class? Or several? There is plenty of play dough, finger painting and blocks. All of those are great, developmentally appropriate activities. Having a curriculum in place helps teachers so kids are doing developmentally appropriate things. Some programs skew more towards academics but that is in part because children from disadvantaged backgrounds don't always have great access to book, being read to, etc.

[Anonymous]

Yes it is. And DCPS is providing instructional resources and professional development for schools to offer more learning opportunities for advanced students.

[Anonymous]

Stoddert is working on developing a pull-out program for gifted students in 3-5th grades. It's not quite up and running yet though. They also have a special resource teacher this year who is doing more hands-on activities with students and helping to organize more field trips and enrichment activities for all students.

[Anonymous]

How will Stoddert choose the students who participate?

[Anonymous]

Is there any plan to replicate such a pull-out program at other ESs?

[Anonymous]

I think it's just something Stoddert came up on its own with $ for a teacher from its PTA. It's just an extra resource teacher who focuses on enrichment and has the title 'gifted and talented resource teacher'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But, if when they are 5 years old, they are reading at a college level, going through one thick volume after another, and when they are 7 years old, can point you to a map and walk you through very complex and detailed things like the historical geopolitics of the Balkans from recent times, through the Cold War, to WWII and back to the Ottoman Empire - then you need to start paying attention.

If this is your kid, PP, then he (and I am certain it's a "he") is profoundly gifted and his IQ is likely northward of 165. This type of child appears in the population at a rate of about one child for every 100,000 children.

I disagree with your assertion that a child like this appears "more often than you think" -- even in the District of Columbia. While I have a certain amount of sympathy for you (it's your son, right?), I respectfully disagree that DCPS should be doing more on an ongoing, structured basis to prepare for the 1:100.000 children entering kindergarten and already reading The Divine Comedy. I mean, come on. Is that really a good use of resources? Even FFX doesn't have a program in place for this kid (it's ad hoc).

I would rather pay to help this one child than pay for a bunch of new iPads for elementary kids!

Statistically speaking, there are easily thousands of kids in the DC area with IQs of 140, 150, 160 and above. And of those, there's a big percentage for whom the typical IB DCPS school offers little or nothing to help them reach their full potential. And of those - while some families may have the means and resources to afford alternatives like enrichment, privates or moving somewhere that supports it, many cannot afford it. And those students end up being underserved with their needs not met by DCPS. And, it's sad because many school districts around the country with significantly less money to spend per student than DCPS ARE able to serve their G&T community in a viable manner. There's really no valid reason why DCPS cannot. Instead, they are mired in financial mismanagement and backward attitudes - and really, that's the only reason why these students are underserved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Statistically speaking, there are easily thousands of kids in the DC area with IQs of 140, 150, 160 and above. And of those, there's a big percentage for whom the typical IB DCPS school offers little or nothing to help them reach their full potential. And of those - while some families may have the means and resources to afford alternatives like enrichment, privates or moving somewhere that supports it, many cannot afford it. And those students end up being underserved with their needs not met by DCPS. And, it's sad because many school districts around the country with significantly less money to spend per student than DCPS ARE able to serve their G&T community in a viable manner. There's really no valid reason why DCPS cannot. Instead, they are mired in financial mismanagement and backward attitudes - and really, that's the only reason why these students are underserved.

"statistically speaking":

There are approx 650,000 people in DC. I know you said "DC area" but we are talking about DCPS here.

Of which approx 17.3% or 112,450 people are under age 18.

Of which:

between 430 and 700 kids have IQ over 140

between 50 and 100 kids have IQ over 150

between 3 and 10 kids have IQ over 160

The ranges depend on which rarity scale you are using.

Now, this assumes:

1) all of these kids are in DCPS, not private schools. yeah, right.
2) DC attains the average IQ stats per population. Note that crack and alcohol during pregnancy tend to reduce IQ. Not trying to be harsh.

So we could spend money so that 3-10 kids in all of DC can learn the theory of relativity in grade 3. Or we can focus on the tens of thousands of kids who cannot read at grade level. Hmmmm......

If there is anything about which DCUM parents bullshit the most, it must be how gifted their kids are.

BTW if your kid truly understands string theory, Higgs Boson, like at a real, deep level, at the age of 7, then he is one in a billion. There are fewer than 100 ADULTS in the world who truly understand these things. More likely, he has a cocktail party understanding of the ideas which makes him sound very smart because everyone knows these are exotic physics concepts, so people are impressed. But statistically speaking it is more likely that he is a very smart kid whose parents have fed him info about these things and he's grasped enough to talk about it a little. Nothing wrong with that by the way - he'll probably go on to be very successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Statistically speaking, there are easily thousands of kids in the DC area with IQs of 140, 150, 160 and above. And of those, there's a big percentage for whom the typical IB DCPS school offers little or nothing to help them reach their full potential. And of those - while some families may have the means and resources to afford alternatives like enrichment, privates or moving somewhere that supports it, many cannot afford it. And those students end up being underserved with their needs not met by DCPS. And, it's sad because many school districts around the country with significantly less money to spend per student than DCPS ARE able to serve their G&T community in a viable manner. There's really no valid reason why DCPS cannot. Instead, they are mired in financial mismanagement and backward attitudes - and really, that's the only reason why these students are underserved.

"statistically speaking":

There are approx 650,000 people in DC. I know you said "DC area" but we are talking about DCPS here.

Of which approx 17.3% or 112,450 people are under age 18.

Of which:

between 430 and 700 kids have IQ over 140

between 50 and 100 kids have IQ over 150

between 3 and 10 kids have IQ over 160

The ranges depend on which rarity scale you are using.

Now, this assumes:

1) all of these kids are in DCPS, not private schools. yeah, right.
2) DC attains the average IQ stats per population. Note that crack and alcohol during pregnancy tend to reduce IQ. Not trying to be harsh.

So we could spend money so that 3-10 kids in all of DC can learn the theory of relativity in grade 3. Or we can focus on the tens of thousands of kids who cannot read at grade level. Hmmmm......

If there is anything about which DCUM parents bullshit the most, it must be how gifted their kids are.

BTW if your kid truly understands string theory, Higgs Boson, like at a real, deep level, at the age of 7, then he is one in a billion. There are fewer than 100 ADULTS in the world who truly understand these things. More likely, he has a cocktail party understanding of the ideas which makes him sound very smart because everyone knows these are exotic physics concepts, so people are impressed. But statistically speaking it is more likely that he is a very smart kid whose parents have fed him info about these things and he's grasped enough to talk about it a little. Nothing wrong with that by the way - he'll probably go on to be very successful.

Thanks for validating the argument. 120 kids would be WAY more valuable than a bunch of iPads (that's only 25% of your low scale, assuming that many DCPS kids are children of crackheads and severely impaired cognitively, as you alluded to).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Statistically speaking, there are easily thousands of kids in the DC area with IQs of 140, 150, 160 and above. And of those, there's a big percentage for whom the typical IB DCPS school offers little or nothing to help them reach their full potential. And of those - while some families may have the means and resources to afford alternatives like enrichment, privates or moving somewhere that supports it, many cannot afford it. And those students end up being underserved with their needs not met by DCPS. And, it's sad because many school districts around the country with significantly less money to spend per student than DCPS ARE able to serve their G&T community in a viable manner. There's really no valid reason why DCPS cannot. Instead, they are mired in financial mismanagement and backward attitudes - and really, that's the only reason why these students are underserved.

"statistically speaking":

There are approx 650,000 people in DC. I know you said "DC area" but we are talking about DCPS here.

Of which approx 17.3% or 112,450 people are under age 18.

Of which:

between 430 and 700 kids have IQ over 140

between 50 and 100 kids have IQ over 150

between 3 and 10 kids have IQ over 160

The ranges depend on which rarity scale you are using.

Now, this assumes:

1) all of these kids are in DCPS, not private schools. yeah, right.
2) DC attains the average IQ stats per population. Note that crack and alcohol during pregnancy tend to reduce IQ. Not trying to be harsh.

So we could spend money so that 3-10 kids in all of DC can learn the theory of relativity in grade 3. Or we can focus on the tens of thousands of kids who cannot read at grade level. Hmmmm......

If there is anything about which DCUM parents bullshit the most, it must be how gifted their kids are.

BTW if your kid truly understands string theory, Higgs Boson, like at a real, deep level, at the age of 7, then he is one in a billion. There are fewer than 100 ADULTS in the world who truly understand these things. More likely, he has a cocktail party understanding of the ideas which makes him sound very smart because everyone knows these are exotic physics concepts, so people are impressed. But statistically speaking it is more likely that he is a very smart kid whose parents have fed him info about these things and he's grasped enough to talk about it a little. Nothing wrong with that by the way - he'll probably go on to be very successful.

You had my attention until that last straw man argument. Not really sold that knowledge of particle physics in a 7 year old is a requisite for being identified as gifted. fwiw there are more likely gifted 7 year olds with learning differences than those sitting in class disappointed that they are unable to feed their love of quantum theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You had my attention until that last straw man argument. Not really sold that knowledge of particle physics in a 7 year old is a requisite for being identified as gifted. fwiw there are more likely gifted 7 year olds with learning differences than those sitting in class disappointed that they are unable to feed their love of quantum theory.

I think the point was that there aren't any 7 year olds who understand these things, even genius 7 year olds.

[Anonymous]

For those confused on the math or caught up in obfuscating the numbers, let's simplify. There are 76,000 students enrolled in DCPS and DC charters. The top 2% would be 1,500 students. Now, consider that there are entire DCPS schools which enroll fewer kids than that. Yet the argument is that there aren't enough kids to support it? That argument is completely laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those confused on the math or caught up in obfuscating the numbers, let's simplify. There are 76,000 students enrolled in DCPS and DC charters. The top 2% would be 1,500 students. Now, consider that there are entire DCPS schools which enroll fewer kids than that. Yet the argument is that there aren't enough kids to support it? That argument is completely laughable.

Well, the issue is how many of those kids would be AA? If you placed by IQ or something similar it would probably be 95+% white which would be political suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those confused on the math or caught up in obfuscating the numbers, let's simplify. There are 76,000 students enrolled in DCPS and DC charters. The top 2% would be 1,500 students. Now, consider that there are entire DCPS schools which enroll fewer kids than that. Yet the argument is that there aren't enough kids to support it? That argument is completely laughable.

Well, the issue is how many of those kids would be AA? If you placed by IQ or something similar it would probably be 95+% white which would be political suicide.

Bingo. This is why a targeted GT program is going to be unlikely here. Besides, 100% differentiation (a la the W.I.N. program) is about the only hope for real progress. Pull-outs and tracking will always miss kids, even with testing (studies are showing between 40-60% capture rates).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those confused on the math or caught up in obfuscating the numbers, let's simplify. There are 76,000 students enrolled in DCPS and DC charters. The top 2% would be 1,500 students. Now, consider that there are entire DCPS schools which enroll fewer kids than that. Yet the argument is that there aren't enough kids to support it? That argument is completely laughable.

Well, the issue is how many of those kids would be AA? If you placed by IQ or something similar it would probably be 95+% white which would be political suicide.

Bingo. This is why a targeted GT program is going to be unlikely here. Besides, 100% differentiation (a la the W.I.N. program) is about the only hope for real progress. Pull-outs and tracking will always miss kids, even with testing (studies are showing between 40-60% capture rates).

+1 NYC takes the top 3% - much MUCH bigger population - and even though the testing is blind on race, gender, SE status, etc. and purely based on test results, there are still complaints that the majority of kids at the magnets like Stuy and Bronx Science are Asian.

A gifted school like TJ and Stuy will not happen in DC b/c here it will be filled to brim with high SES, white kids.