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An "Excellence" Gap?
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Anonymous
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Is anyone familiar with this issue? I'm trying to understand what it would mean and if I should support it.
http://www.nagc.org/index2.aspx?id=6060
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Anonymous
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I'm in favor of eliminating the achievement gap for kids of all races or SES. But I'm also a little nervous of giving schools and incentive to reduce the Achievement Gap unless there are also measures in place to besure kids at the top of the gap also progess and have opportunities as much as they woudl have anyhow.
Otherwise, dont' schools just have an incentive to not provide a lot of opportunities for advancement to kids from higher SES, and pouring resources into the kids from lower SES, so the "gap" disappears that way? |
Anonymous
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I don't know where this came from or what is in the rest of the bill, but based on your clip, I would support it.
As a parent with a child in a MoCo Highly Gifted Center, I think there is not enough diversity in this program, and I would like to see more kids of color or low income. To me, it seems that much of the focus in MoCo is in getting large numbers of minority/lowSES kids up a step or two on the bottom rung of the ladder, and not much focus is on getting them to the top rung. Several pieces of evidence in MoCo -- 1) the focus on the "7 Keys" of excellence, which are not accepted by most white/high SES families as being rigorous enough, 2) the focus on getting more minority/lowSES students to take AP classes without the concomitant focus on them getting high AP test scores, and 3) the continuing complaints from red zone parents that their advanced learners do not receive the same academic opportunities as those kids in the green zone. Also, I think in general there is a tendency to flatten out the achievement gap at the higher levels by minimizing services to high achievers, rather than providing extra support to kids (particularly minority/lowSES who are on the cusp. Again, evidence in MoCO -- limits on the number of seats in competitive magnets, refusal to clone magnet curriculum in part or whole for other schools, insistence on heterogenous grouping in reading classes, development of an alternative track of "advanced" middle school classes which it is not clear yet are really advanced, no advanced science or social studies until HS, etc. IMO, I would like to see explicit programs to identify individual minority/lowSES kids and support them in advanced learning or what ever other ways are necessary to provide success at advanced levels. And, grants that explicitly provide intervention and then evaluate seem to be a good idea to me. |
Anonymous
| I would definitely support this because it focuses identifying kids at the early elementary grade levels. I think too often not enough attention is paid to kids in those levels and unless you start early, kids won't be able to "grow into" the more advanced levels. |
Anonymous
The full text of the bill is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.+3086: |
Anonymous
Interesting, I agree with this. At our red zone school, there was a great debate at a PTA meeting about the 7 Keys being discouraging. I'm not a 7 Keys fan, but I was thinking, 7 Keys to College? What about 7 Keys to Professional School? It didn't seem to aim very high. |
Anonymous
Yes, I didn't look at it that way (college v. professional school as a goal), but you are right on that. I was looking more at the numbers in the Keys -- 1) taking algebra II by 11th grade, which leaves a kid to take precalc in 12th grade, not IMO good enough to get into an Ivy. Even years ago, it was the norm for most white/wealthy/well-educated kids to take Calc in 12th grade, even if they never had any intention of going into science or math, 2) 1650 on the SAT -- well, the bottom 25% of those going to Brown have a combined 1990, so a combined 1650 may get you into a decent but not great college, and 3) 3 on AP exam -- well if you only take one AP class in high school, I don't think that's good enough to get into a top tier school and if you only get a 3, chances are that many schools would not accept that score for credit (most require 4 or even 5). So, I call these "7 keys to a Mediocre College." Now there's nothing wrong with not going Ivy. There are many great state universities that are way less expensive. Money is a serious factor these days in college choice. The sole key to being successful in life is not attendance at an Ivy League school. BUT, what I hate is that these "Keys" are being sold as success to a population which largely doesn't know that top tier attendance requires much more. And I GUARANTEE you that there are many kids in the red zone who are capable of this higher performance level. The 7 Keys are a floor not a ceiling. So, IMO, this may sound harsh, but I really think the 7 Keys is more of "hide the ball" from the minority/low SES population. Sell them something that sounds good, but keep the real secret to stardom hidden. Or, if you want a more benign view of the racism of the system -- define a lower level as "success" because you believe that is all the population is capable of. IMO, I think that it should be laid out for ALL kids very early on (not in their junior year of applications) -- this is the range of colleges, this is what you need to achieve in terms of classes taken, GPA, test scores to go to each level school. You, as a student, get to decide your future. Take these classes, work hard, get good grades, and you have more options. Are you a kid who is not interested in this or a late bloomer? That's fine too. There are many other routes to success. Just look at degree-less Bill Gates. But, recognize that your path may be harder or more twisted or need more of something else (talent, hard work, networking, luck, etc.) |
Anonymous
I just couldn't let this pass. Are you serious? You really think there is some sort of conspiracy to keep minority and low SES students out of good colleges? |
Anonymous
Not the PP. I don't think it is a conspiracy. But I do understand the point about making the information available to everyone about what it would take for the top colleges. I think with anything like college, law school, engineering etc. it helps when someone has guidance from someone that has been there and can say - hey you need to take this class to really be competitive. In theory, guidance counselors would be able to do this if the parents aren't doing this BUT who knows if guidance counselors have that type of one-on-one time or they don't have their own idea of who is capable of what. |
Anonymous
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The gap is thought to result from gifted low income kids not having enough enrichment AT HOME. It is true for all races.
My take on it is that if poorly educated parents have a gifted child, they tend to spot it later and nurture it far less than the yuppie crowd would. There is nothing like a 99%ile WPPSI kid to get educated parents excited. That child will be dragged off to museums and educational trips forever. Poorly educated, often low income families don't seem to have the resources or will to nurture that intellect. They are often woefully unaware of what other families are doing with their little Einsteins. |
Anonymous
PP I agree with you. I don't think there's a conspiracy but more the idea that if pooer kids do basically OK and get into A college, that's good enough for them. If you expect average, and you do an adequate job of schooling a child, you will get average. If you expect superlative, you may get superlative -- and kids and parents deserve to know what the highest standards and expectations are. |
Anonymous
OK, I was a little cranky when I wrote that, which is why I followed it with my second more "benign" view. No, I don't think that the people in MCPS sit around the office explicitly discussing over coffee how to keep "those" folks down. But, I do think my view number #2 is entirely accurate. In a prior school system (not MoCo, to be fair), I worked very hard in my child's school to raise expectations for all kids. I constantly compared our performance to other nearby schools that were performing better and asked why our kids weren't performing better and why they didn't have access to the same instructional programs. The responses back, from teachers, the principal, community members of the schools instructional governance mechanisim, etc., was that "our" kids were different. How? This is a "more diverse" school. The parents here "aren't interested" in such things. Providing differentiated instruction would "hurt the feelings' of kids who couldn't perform as well. Translation -- we have too many minority/low SES kids who can't and don't want to perform. We would rather make them feel good about themselves than actually try to teach them anything. The parents don't know the difference, so we aren't going to expend the effort. This was doubly sad for me, because there were a number of extremely bright kids at this school whose parents were knowledgeable about their kids abilities and educational needs, and they all left by the end of 2nd grade for other public or private schools. There were a number of other bright minority (and white) kids whose needs went unrecognized and unmet. While the above didn't happen in MoCo, it is not such a different description that I hear from parents in the MoCo red zone schools. I do think there is a conscious effort in MoCo not to set the 7 keys too high because that would draw attention to and expand the racial and SES "gap" in academic performance, which MoCo says they are working hard to eliminate. It's easy to up the number of minority/low SES kids taking AP in the county; it's harder to increase their performance on the AP exam to a 4 or 5. The former requires simple changes in procedures; the latter requires more intensive teacher training and student support. That may not be an organized "conspiracy" that I could prosecute in court ... but it still reflects a level of racism that I think is unacceptable in our society and our educational system. |
Anonymous
This really does happen. Thanks PP for taking the time to point it out. |
Anonymous
| Just curiuos: what schools are considered a "red zone" schools in MoCo? |