NY cutting gifted programs due to lack of diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents don't take away her livelihood, politicians do. Who would you listen to

Parents are DC voters, whereas a majority of WTU members who oppose change aren't even DC residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No lack of diversity may not be the only reason, but if all it does is allow well off parents, in this case predominantly white kids to get extra advantages on your tax dollar, why should it be supported. I get why gifted programs are needed, I was in one in Denver and it made a world of difference for education. However, a program such as the one in New York only cements privilege it does not really meet the need for advanced educational opportunity for advanced kids.

What "privilege" and "extra advantage" would that be? I think that's a red herring. Nobody ever asks about G&T in job interviews, nor does it generally get you anything special toward college or anywhere else in life. It's really just about keeping students sufficiently challenged and engaged when they outpace the regular curriculum.

If it does not confer advantage why do you fight so hard for it? Because the presumption is that these programs have better teachers and materials that will help your child maximize their potential. When it drains it from the pool or excludes because the testing is too early it is a crappy allocation of resources.

More nonsense. We fight hard for it because it's what's appropriate for those students to meet them where they are at, just as we as parents would do for special needs students. It doesn't necessarily mean "better" teachers - it just means teachers who can meet them at an appropriate level, for example maybe they are academically ahead and ready for high school content but socially and emotionally still at a middle school level with their peers. Also, it doesn't "drain resources" - those were students who needed to be taught anyways. The only thing you are doing is teaching them differently. And as for your hysterics about "exclusion because of early testing", you are condemning G&T even before it's existed. Nobody in DCPS is doing or proposing G&T admissions in those early years. Given the arguments you've put forward can all be shown to just boil down to disingenuous strawmen, there really isn't much real reason why you should be fighting so hard against it.

No the whole thread is about the New York program. I think it is crazy and against all best practices to do it in kindergarten. I do think it would make sense to provide some option around 4th grade, but I think a it should be a rather narrow band of the top 10% mostly because I want to see all the ward 3 folks scramble when their darling is at just smart, not brilliant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No the whole thread is about the New York program. I think it is crazy and against all best practices to do it in kindergarten. I do think it would make sense to provide some option around 4th grade, but I think a it should be a rather narrow band of the top 10% mostly because I want to see all the ward 3 folks scramble when their darling is at just smart, not brilliant.

Yes, but then what do you do with the Kindergarten kid who is reading chapter books and doing 3rd grade level math? Put them in a classroom where most of the kids may not be able to read or count to 10??? My kid is gifted but not profoundly gifted according to testing done on him. He also did not level out in 3rd grade and remains way ahead of his peers despite not being profoundly gifted.

I say have gifted and talented programs in separate classrooms starting in kindergarten and frequent re-assessments in later years to identify G&T kids. Also, offer every kid a rigorous curricula at their level with high expectations for behavior which is often not the case now since many schools seem to frown upon teaching actual content since they view it as "drill and kill" instead of as the conferring of foundational knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No the whole thread is about the New York program. I think it is crazy and against all best practices to do it in kindergarten. I do think it would make sense to provide some option around 4th grade, but I think a it should be a rather narrow band of the top 10% mostly because I want to see all the ward 3 folks scramble when their darling is at just smart, not brilliant.

Yes, but then what do you do with the Kindergarten kid who is reading chapter books and doing 3rd grade level math? Put them in a classroom where most of the kids may not be able to read or count to 10??? My kid is gifted but not profoundly gifted according to testing done on him. He also did not level out in 3rd grade and remains way ahead of his peers despite not being profoundly gifted.

I say have gifted and talented programs in separate classrooms starting in kindergarten and frequent re-assessments in later years to identify G&T kids. Also, offer every kid a rigorous curricula at their level with high expectations for behavior which is often not the case now since many schools seem to frown upon teaching actual content since they view it as "drill and kill" instead of as the conferring of foundational knowledge.

The kindergartener maybe reading chapter books but can they spell? Write? Decoding isn't the "be all". My kid is profoundly gifted according to his neuropsych and he found stuff to learn and how to behave and act appropriately in the classroom even when there were others who did not learn as fast as he.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Except many gifted and talented programs don't use just IQ to prove gifted-ness. There's usually several tests like the non verbal assessments, cognitive assessments.

Go to the AAP forum of this board and tell me there aren't parents trying to game the students by having them do test prep, tested independently if they didn't like the kid's first results. The same thing is happening in NYC and probably all over the place.

First of all, the AAP forum is irrelevant, because this is a DC thread, check the title: "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" and AAP is meaningless in DC because there are no similar options available here in DC. If you are talking about Fairfax or elsewhere, then why are you even posting here? For our part, we're in, what, according to DCUM is a "well regarded, highly sought after" top DC school with a student who's in the top 5% of high performers there (who did test with high IQ, not that it ever got us anything because DC doesn't offer anything for G&T students) - and we know a lot of families of the other top performers there as well, and virtually none do much if any outside enrichment courses as you are trying to suggest - if anything at all, we (and most other families we know) just use some free online content like Khan Academy, we go to the library, we go to the museums, we let DC explore curiosities, and that's about it. No expensive "prep", camps or outside classes. Frankly, we can't afford it and would prefer to save for DC's eventual college.

Secondly, even if someone were to try and boost IQ scores through prep, or getting an independent test result, any gains would be minimal. Even a gain of 10 points would be an unrealistic expectation. Maybe Fairfax has some parents who are a little nuts like that but I hardly think what goes on in the AAP thread is any meaningful indication of anything other than that a handful of nutcase angst-filled posters exist on DCUM. And, "trying to game the system" doesn't necessarily translate into "successfully gaming the system". No amount of test prep will meaningfully boost little Johnny Average's IQ into the gifted range.

Thirdly, to what ends? It ultimately just ends up putting the student on a more demanding and challenging path, with a lot more work and a lot higher expectations involved. It's not as though you just get a medal for achievement, barriers are removed, a red carpet is unfurled, and somehow everything is suddenly magically better for the student.

And fourth, you didn't address the question - if low-SES families aren't even going to the library or museums or making use of the wealth of things they already have available to them, do you seriously think adding something more will somehow change anything?

so if you are the topic police then why did you allow a topic about the new york city pubc schools

secondly the income divide means wealthy people can afford to hire tutors to prep their four year olds to pass a gifted test and take their kids to libraries and museums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No the whole thread is about the New York program. I think it is crazy and against all best practices to do it in kindergarten. I do think it would make sense to provide some option around 4th grade, but I think a it should be a rather narrow band of the top 10% mostly because I want to see all the ward 3 folks scramble when their darling is at just smart, not brilliant.

Yes, but then what do you do with the Kindergarten kid who is reading chapter books and doing 3rd grade level math? Put them in a classroom where most of the kids may not be able to read or count to 10??? My kid is gifted but not profoundly gifted according to testing done on him. He also did not level out in 3rd grade and remains way ahead of his peers despite not being profoundly gifted.

I say have gifted and talented programs in separate classrooms starting in kindergarten and frequent re-assessments in later years to identify G&T kids. Also, offer every kid a rigorous curricula at their level with high expectations for behavior which is often not the case now since many schools seem to frown upon teaching actual content since they view it as "drill and kill" instead of as the conferring of foundational knowledge.

Testing in 3rd or 4th grade makes sense since studies show any bonuses early readers have over late readers usualy even out by the time they are 8.

[Anonymous]

what if dcps did a center model like the aap/hgc? They pick the school with the lowest population/most space and have a special gifted class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Except many gifted and talented programs don't use just IQ to prove gifted-ness. There's usually several tests like the non verbal assessments, cognitive assessments.

Go to the AAP forum of this board and tell me there aren't parents trying to game the students by having them do test prep, tested independently if they didn't like the kid's first results. The same thing is happening in NYC and probably all over the place.

First of all, the AAP forum is irrelevant, because this is a DC thread, check the title: "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" and AAP is meaningless in DC because there are no similar options available here in DC. If you are talking about Fairfax or elsewhere, then why are you even posting here? For our part, we're in, what, according to DCUM is a "well regarded, highly sought after" top DC school with a student who's in the top 5% of high performers there (who did test with high IQ, not that it ever got us anything because DC doesn't offer anything for G&T students) - and we know a lot of families of the other top performers there as well, and virtually none do much if any outside enrichment courses as you are trying to suggest - if anything at all, we (and most other families we know) just use some free online content like Khan Academy, we go to the library, we go to the museums, we let DC explore curiosities, and that's about it. No expensive "prep", camps or outside classes. Frankly, we can't afford it and would prefer to save for DC's eventual college.

Secondly, even if someone were to try and boost IQ scores through prep, or getting an independent test result, any gains would be minimal. Even a gain of 10 points would be an unrealistic expectation. Maybe Fairfax has some parents who are a little nuts like that but I hardly think what goes on in the AAP thread is any meaningful indication of anything other than that a handful of nutcase angst-filled posters exist on DCUM. And, "trying to game the system" doesn't necessarily translate into "successfully gaming the system". No amount of test prep will meaningfully boost little Johnny Average's IQ into the gifted range.

Thirdly, to what ends? It ultimately just ends up putting the student on a more demanding and challenging path, with a lot more work and a lot higher expectations involved. It's not as though you just get a medal for achievement, barriers are removed, a red carpet is unfurled, and somehow everything is suddenly magically better for the student.

And fourth, you didn't address the question - if low-SES families aren't even going to the library or museums or making use of the wealth of things they already have available to them, do you seriously think adding something more will somehow change anything?

so if you are the topic police then why did you allow a topic about the new york city pubc schools

secondly the income divide means wealthy people can afford to hire tutors to prep their four year olds to pass a gifted test and take their kids to libraries and museums.

Jeff is the topic police. But that's not to say the rest of us aren't free to exercise our own speech to call something out when it's irrelevant or inappropriate.

And secondly, you seriously think you have to "hire" someone to take your kid to the library or a museum, help them with homework, help them prepare, or to sit with them and read a bedtime story? WTF? The vast majority of us don't "hire" someone and it's FREE. It's called "parenting".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No the whole thread is about the New York program. I think it is crazy and against all best practices to do it in kindergarten. I do think it would make sense to provide some option around 4th grade, but I think a it should be a rather narrow band of the top 10% mostly because I want to see all the ward 3 folks scramble when their darling is at just smart, not brilliant.

Yes, but then what do you do with the Kindergarten kid who is reading chapter books and doing 3rd grade level math? Put them in a classroom where most of the kids may not be able to read or count to 10??? My kid is gifted but not profoundly gifted according to testing done on him. He also did not level out in 3rd grade and remains way ahead of his peers despite not being profoundly gifted.

I say have gifted and talented programs in separate classrooms starting in kindergarten and frequent re-assessments in later years to identify G&T kids. Also, offer every kid a rigorous curricula at their level with high expectations for behavior which is often not the case now since many schools seem to frown upon teaching actual content since they view it as "drill and kill" instead of as the conferring of foundational knowledge.

There was just a thread a couple weeks ago on here about how DCPS uses Junior Great Books programs (small group pull outs or in-class groups) for advanced readers including in kindergarten in many of its schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Except many gifted and talented programs don't use just IQ to prove gifted-ness. There's usually several tests like the non verbal assessments, cognitive assessments.

Go to the AAP forum of this board and tell me there aren't parents trying to game the students by having them do test prep, tested independently if they didn't like the kid's first results. The same thing is happening in NYC and probably all over the place.

First of all, the AAP forum is irrelevant, because this is a DC thread, check the title: "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" and AAP is meaningless in DC because there are no similar options available here in DC. If you are talking about Fairfax or elsewhere, then why are you even posting here? For our part, we're in, what, according to DCUM is a "well regarded, highly sought after" top DC school with a student who's in the top 5% of high performers there (who did test with high IQ, not that it ever got us anything because DC doesn't offer anything for G&T students) - and we know a lot of families of the other top performers there as well, and virtually none do much if any outside enrichment courses as you are trying to suggest - if anything at all, we (and most other families we know) just use some free online content like Khan Academy, we go to the library, we go to the museums, we let DC explore curiosities, and that's about it. No expensive "prep", camps or outside classes. Frankly, we can't afford it and would prefer to save for DC's eventual college.

Secondly, even if someone were to try and boost IQ scores through prep, or getting an independent test result, any gains would be minimal. Even a gain of 10 points would be an unrealistic expectation. Maybe Fairfax has some parents who are a little nuts like that but I hardly think what goes on in the AAP thread is any meaningful indication of anything other than that a handful of nutcase angst-filled posters exist on DCUM. And, "trying to game the system" doesn't necessarily translate into "successfully gaming the system". No amount of test prep will meaningfully boost little Johnny Average's IQ into the gifted range.

Thirdly, to what ends? It ultimately just ends up putting the student on a more demanding and challenging path, with a lot more work and a lot higher expectations involved. It's not as though you just get a medal for achievement, barriers are removed, a red carpet is unfurled, and somehow everything is suddenly magically better for the student.

And fourth, you didn't address the question - if low-SES families aren't even going to the library or museums or making use of the wealth of things they already have available to them, do you seriously think adding something more will somehow change anything?

so if you are the topic police then why did you allow a topic about the new york city pubc schools

secondly the income divide means wealthy people can afford to hire tutors to prep their four year olds to pass a gifted test and take their kids to libraries and museums.

Jeff is the topic police. But that's not to say the rest of us aren't free to exercise our own speech to call something out when it's irrelevant or inappropriate.

And secondly, you seriously think you have to "hire" someone to take your kid to the library or a museum, help them with homework, help them prepare, or to sit with them and read a bedtime story? WTF? The vast majority of us don't "hire" someone and it's FREE. It's called "parenting".

I clarify here...rich families can afford to do expensive things like enrichment camps/tutoring/vacations/kumon/test prep AND free things like library/museums/etc. Stating that poor families can compete with just the free activites is just not being realistic.

[Anonymous]

^ And maybe some rich families do. But most of us are not members of the 1%, most of us do not spend money on those things. If you want to obsess on what 1% of the population does and use that as a means of denying the remaining 99% of the population an opportunity then I think your priorities are out of whack.

(And by the way, tutoring, camps and test prep won't boost anyone's IQ score that significantly. Sorry, IQ tests don't work that way. Camps and test prep won't ever turn little Jeremy or Madison into an Einstein. So so what if they throw their money at those things? And, let's not forget that the rich for the most part don't bother with DCPS schools anyways - they move to the burbs, go private, or if they get lucky enough to get in, they go charter)

[Anonymous]

No they won't change the IQ, i.e. working memory, but knowing more, having a better educational exposure makes you a better student or employee.... If it did not make a difference rich people would not do it. There has been clear proof for a lot of years that lots of test prep can change SAT scores, I am sure it can game these admission tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ And maybe some rich families do. But most of us are not members of the 1%, most of us do not spend money on those things. If you want to obsess on what 1% of the population does and use that as a means of denying the remaining 99% of the population an opportunity then I think your priorities are out of whack.

(And by the way, tutoring, camps and test prep won't boost anyone's IQ score that significantly. Sorry, IQ tests don't work that way. Camps and test prep won't ever turn little Jeremy or Madison into an Einstein. So so what if they throw their money at those things? And, let's not forget that the rich for the most part don't bother with DCPS schools anyways - they move to the burbs, go private, or if they get lucky enough to get in, they go charter)

^^^ Not to mention that most of these camps suck, in hindsight. College drop-outs and moonlighting teachers don't provide college-level tutoring. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ And maybe some rich families do. But most of us are not members of the 1%, most of us do not spend money on those things. If you want to obsess on what 1% of the population does and use that as a means of denying the remaining 99% of the population an opportunity then I think your priorities are out of whack.

(And by the way, tutoring, camps and test prep won't boost anyone's IQ score that significantly. Sorry, IQ tests don't work that way. Camps and test prep won't ever turn little Jeremy or Madison into an Einstein. So so what if they throw their money at those things? And, let's not forget that the rich for the most part don't bother with DCPS schools anyways - they move to the burbs, go private, or if they get lucky enough to get in, they go charter)

For the umpteenth time most gifted programs do not use iq tests for screening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ And maybe some rich families do. But most of us are not members of the 1%, most of us do not spend money on those things. If you want to obsess on what 1% of the population does and use that as a means of denying the remaining 99% of the population an opportunity then I think your priorities are out of whack.

(And by the way, tutoring, camps and test prep won't boost anyone's IQ score that significantly. Sorry, IQ tests don't work that way. Camps and test prep won't ever turn little Jeremy or Madison into an Einstein. So so what if they throw their money at those things? And, let's not forget that the rich for the most part don't bother with DCPS schools anyways - they move to the burbs, go private, or if they get lucky enough to get in, they go charter)

For the umpteenth time most gifted programs do not use iq tests for screening.

That's not true - a vast number of programs across the country do indeed use IQ tests or some other form of broad-based quantitative assessment. If they aren't, then they are probably flawed and likely to be gamed by someone who could simply do some test prep or be skewed by unobjective biases in the system (such as grades and teacher recommendations). And by broad-based quantitative assessment, that means it should objectively and quantitatively examine capability across a wide range of factors, like working memory, patterns, logical reasoning and critical thinking, spatial intelligence, and many other types of aspects and intelligences. It should *never* simply be culturally or knowledge based, as in "do you know what this term means".