Gifted programs, lack of, in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This topic keeps coming up because people refuse to look at the history and see just how bad DCPS fucked up "tracking" for several generations before home rule. Now, the people who were the victims of that situation have enough political clout to keep it from coming back, even though the "solution" is no solution at all.

http://usedulaw.com/333-hobson-v-hansen.html

This is really helpful cite. It appears that the court did not find tracking objectional but instead found that the process for placing the kids in the various tracks was. Kids were placed based soley on one aptitude test, and the court found that the test was biased. If that is the case, I don't see why DCPS could not institute this again but using a more equitable method of placement.

Agreed, thank you PP for the useful link.

it seems that the judge mostly objected to:
"Once assigned, students had virtually no opportunity to switch tracks."
"...the tests were not actually measuring ability because they were biased in such a way that poor, Black children would inevitably earn lower scores and, as a result, lower track placements. Thus, children were being assigned to tracks based not on ability, but on status."

Neither of which apply to current gifted programs. So, while it certainly helps to understand the past connotations of the word "tracking," that is a mere distraction from the conversation about best approaches to gifted education

I would only support this if DC started the program in elementary and added a new grad each each year. Basically starting from the ground and building it up. At such an early age of testing for giftedness, I hope the kids cannot be prepped and drilled for entry. That's when you should get the truly gifted versus the academically advanced/readied as a result of parents disposable income.

Nope: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/nyregion/new-york-city-schools-struggle-to-separate-the-gifted-from-the-just-well-prepared.html?_r=0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This topic keeps coming up because people refuse to look at the history and see just how bad DCPS fucked up "tracking" for several generations before home rule. Now, the people who were the victims of that situation have enough political clout to keep it from coming back, even though the "solution" is no solution at all.

http://usedulaw.com/333-hobson-v-hansen.html

This is really helpful cite. It appears that the court did not find tracking objectional but instead found that the process for placing the kids in the various tracks was. Kids were placed based soley on one aptitude test, and the court found that the test was biased. If that is the case, I don't see why DCPS could not institute this again but using a more equitable method of placement.

Agreed, thank you PP for the useful link.

it seems that the judge mostly objected to:
"Once assigned, students had virtually no opportunity to switch tracks."
"...the tests were not actually measuring ability because they were biased in such a way that poor, Black children would inevitably earn lower scores and, as a result, lower track placements. Thus, children were being assigned to tracks based not on ability, but on status."

Neither of which apply to current gifted programs. So, while it certainly helps to understand the past connotations of the word "tracking," that is a mere distraction from the conversation about best approaches to gifted education

I would only support this if DC started the program in elementary and added a new grad each each year. Basically starting from the ground and building it up. At such an early age of testing for giftedness, I hope the kids cannot be prepped and drilled for entry. That's when you should get the truly gifted versus the academically advanced/readied as a result of parents disposable income.

Nope: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/nyregion/new-york-city-schools-struggle-to-separate-the-gifted-from-the-just-well-prepared.html?_r=0

Not at all surprising. Perhaps we should test at infancy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Won't happen because the racial makeup wouldn't match the city.

Because only rich white kids are "truly gifted"

In the US as a whole whites score about 15 points higher on IQ tests than blacks; don't bother to get upset, it's a well known and established fact. Based on NAEP scores, the black white gap in DC is signicantly larger than any state; the blacks in DC tend to score significantly below blacks in the US in general, and whites significantly above. If you used an IQ test to determine entry then yes, it would be almost completely white if a significant number of the white families in DC went public instead of private.

You've posted this before. Please tell me who takes their kids to receive IQ testing? And who's administering these test? I've never found the need to have my DC testing and they are doing great academically. I'm not being snarky, but I honestly don't know of very many Black or Hispanic people paying to have their DC tested for IQ. Is it a white thing?

This isn't gathered by random IQ testing, but by testing large cohorts of kids. IQ testing companies have representative population samples to norm tests. A good summary from Wikipedia:

"Rushton & Jensen (2005) wrote that, in the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. They stated that the black-white IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations (SDs), which implies that between 11 and 16 percent of the black population have an IQ above 100 (the general population median). According to Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton the black-white IQ difference is largest on those components of IQ tests that are claimed best to represent the general intelligence factor g.[46] The 1996 APA report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" and the 1994 editorial statement "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" gave more or less similar estimates.[47][48] Roth et al. (2001), in a review of the results of a total of 6,246,729 participants on other tests of cognitive ability or aptitude, found a difference in mean IQ scores between blacks and whites of 1.1 SD. Consistent results were found for college and university application tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (N = 2.4 million) and Graduate Record Examination (N = 2.3 million), as well as for tests of job applicants in corporate sections (N = 0.5 million) and in the military (N = 0.4 million).[49]"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS can't even meet the needs of average students never mind the gifted. The majority of kids in DCPS in all testing grades are below grade level in reading and math including high schoolers. Quite understandable why they don't bother with gifted education since they are woefully inadequate in teaching anyone.

Which is why focusing on in-class differentiation that ensures all kids are taught at the right level is the right answer. It doesn't have to be either/or.

[Anonymous]

"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

So there's not ability-level grouping at Janney, within classes? THey don't meet in small groups with the teacher or an aide? I'm shocked, honestly. This happens in every class at Murch.

In terms of whether it meets all kids' needs and whether it's "gifted education," I guess we need to define our terms. Because if we're talking about profoundly gifted kids--the ones who are doing calculus in elementary school, etc.--you're right. But then what you're really talking about is a tiny, tiny percentage of the population, maybe a couple of kids at each school (if that).

But if you're talking about the sort of gifted education that tracks kids who are performing significantly above grade level (say, a 2nd grader reading on a 5th grade level), then I can say from experience that in-class differentiation does, in fact, meet those needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

So there's not ability-level grouping at Janney, within classes? THey don't meet in small groups with the teacher or an aide? I'm shocked, honestly. This happens in every class at Murch.

In terms of whether it meets all kids' needs and whether it's "gifted education," I guess we need to define our terms. Because if we're talking about profoundly gifted kids--the ones who are doing calculus in elementary school, etc.--you're right. But then what you're really talking about is a tiny, tiny percentage of the population, maybe a couple of kids at each school (if that).

But if you're talking about the sort of gifted education that tracks kids who are performing significantly above grade level (say, a 2nd grader reading on a 5th grade level), then I can say from experience that in-class differentiation does, in fact, meet those needs.

No, this doesn't happen at Janney. I think the population at Janney is far more homogeneous than that at Murch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

I posted just above you, and I agree--looking across my older kid's grade (where I know pretty much every "advanced" kid), I can think of one child who might be a prodigy. The rest are just varying degrees of "bright."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

So there's not ability-level grouping at Janney, within classes? THey don't meet in small groups with the teacher or an aide? I'm shocked, honestly. This happens in every class at Murch.

In terms of whether it meets all kids' needs and whether it's "gifted education," I guess we need to define our terms. Because if we're talking about profoundly gifted kids--the ones who are doing calculus in elementary school, etc.--you're right. But then what you're really talking about is a tiny, tiny percentage of the population, maybe a couple of kids at each school (if that).

But if you're talking about the sort of gifted education that tracks kids who are performing significantly above grade level (say, a 2nd grader reading on a 5th grade level), then I can say from experience that in-class differentiation does, in fact, meet those needs.

No, this doesn't happen at Janney. I think the population at Janney is far more homogeneous than that at Murch.

Maybe..although at Murch in a class with five groups, three are working at or above grade level. So there's differentiation within the "advanced" kids, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

If 75% of the kids would be identified as "gifted and talented" they are not truly G&T.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

Agreed. I have 3 kids at Janney and there are not routine pull outs for advanced kids. Kids have been given more difficult spelling words or math work to do but that's about it. However, this serves the population just fine because 75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented" in a large suburban school district like Fairfax which identifies something like 20% of the kids as "gifted".
At Janney every parent I know was an overachiever themselves and were in some sort of gifted and talented program. Their offspring are very bright and have had every advantage from birth on. Of the dozen so Janney kids i know who took the WIPSI at age 4/5 (with thoughts of maybe going to private school),
all were within the 95-99.9% range. We laugh on my block because all 6 Janney kids were tested in the 99% (we laugh because certainly these tests are highly susceptible).
Anyway, that all said, I don't know a single Janney kid who I'd truly consider "gifted" or a prodigy. You know the "doing advanced Algebra in second grade" type. These kids (who would really need a gifted program) are exceedingly rare---probably less than 10 per grade level in DC or even less than that.
It would seem a bit extreme to start an entire school to serve less than 100 kids city wide. For better or worse, what you have at Janney or other NWDC public elementary schools ARE "gifted programs" if gifted means what it has come to mean in most districts-----"very bright kids working a few grade levels ahead but not extreme academic prodigies".

If 75% of the kids would be identified as "gifted and talented" they are not truly G&T.

What's "truly G&T"? Are MoCo and Fairfax identifying "truly G&T"? Or just bright/working well above grade level? Because what PP is saying is that in a school like Janney, most of the kids are working above grade level, and many score in the 95th+ percentile when tested. That doesn't make them "gifted."

[Anonymous]

Why not just change the name of the program from "gifted" to "academically advanced." Then let those kids that are academically advanced for whatever reason get in. Maybe that would motivate those parents aren't prepping their kids to start prepping them if they want them into the advanced group.

In-class differentiation is great if you have a fairly homogeneous population such that even if the teacher has to teach down the middle, it's not that far off from the top and bottom learners. But in schools like those on Cap Hill where high SES kids are in class with kids from the projects, in-class differentiation is harder to practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is frustrating that pull outs in DC seem to focus on kids who are behind rather than those that are ahead.

Not the experience at our elementary school (Hearst). While those who are behind are getting pullouts, many of the kids who are ahead are getting pullouts as well to give them more challenging work. In fact, some have been concerned that the advanced kids are being pulled out too much.

But is that 3 kids in a whole class of 20+ or how many advanced kids getting pulled out?

And may I ask why anyone would be worried the advanced kids were being pulled out too much? (honest question!) For how many hours a week are they being pulled out? Is it the parents of the advanced kids that are worried or other parents?

Thanks!

NP here, but in-class differentiation thrives at our upper NW ES, too. In ELA and math there's a combination of full-class instruction and ability-based small group work. Usually 4-5 groups per class (of 20 or so), rotating through stations (including work with the teacher or an aide). One of my kids is advanced in math and the other in ELA, and both have been appropriately challenged throughout their ES years.

I grew up in a traditional tracked gifted program, and I think the in-class differentiation approach is superior. It keeps kids in heterogeneous classes and allows for fluid regrouping, which I think is huge--it allows teachers to respond to what they're seeing over time and doesn't consign kids to rigid tracks. My math kid has moved from the highest small group to independent work (when he was working ahead of the group on a particular unit) and back to the small group again. The teacher has the flexibility to make these changes in real-time.

The huge caveat is that the success of the in-class approach is completely dependent on a strong principal and teaching staff--the principal has to believe in it and create consistency in how teachers are applying the model. I recognize that this is not happening at most DCPS schools and that many kids are not being challenged appropriately. But I'd much rather see DCPS focus on implementing effective in-class differentiation at all schools than spend resources creating a gifted track that simply sucks out the "smart"/well-prepped kids.

I think the key thing here is you are in an upper NW school where the difference in the classroom are less stark then in an EoTP school where gentrification is happening. You truly have kids 1-2 grades levels in the same class with kids who are reading 2 grade levels behind. It takes a lot more than small group differentiaton to deal with that. Its shocking how many 9th graders in DC read at an elementary school level. Because they have been passed from grade to grade without any real focused or tracked help for them when they needed it most-in early elementary school. If my kid was at Janney I wouldnt worry about tracking. We are EoTP though and the differences in ability are shocking and sad. They become painfully evident by 2nd grade. This is also when more behvairoral problems creep into the classrrom. thus, the high SES flight from the school if that is an option. In DC, its not even so much about being gifted. The sad fact is that if your kid is proficient at GRADE LEVEL they are already ahead of 70% of their peers. I don't know if the solution is pulling out the gifted kids or the struggling kids, but its just unrealistic to think these two groups with such a significant learning gap can learn effectively in one class together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Where well-heeled PTAs pony up for teachers aides, or pay for enough stuff so that schools can afford them past K (e.g. at Janney, Murch and Brent) gifted elementary school kids are increasingly pulled out for enrichment systematically."

Not true at Janney. The advanced kids are offered the option of doing more challenging homework, and have the opportunity on certain assignments/projects to do more work, but there aren't pull outs for the advanced kids.

And differentiation is far different from gifted education, and it doesn't ensure that all kids' needs are being met.

"More homework" is not what gifted education is about. This is a another good example of how schools and teachers are not doing differentiation in a meaningful way.