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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My dd has a GAI of 134 but because she has ADHD her FSIQ is only 120 due to very slow processing speed. So far she is a straight A student but the school states she is not appropriate for g&t?? She is a white middle class kid though.[/quote]

My kids are in the G&T in NYC. My older son has ADHD and an IQ of 146. Being in that G&T classroom has been essential for him - his ADHD manifests as hyperactivity. He has rapid processing speed but he is always stimming. Being in this class with similarly bright kids allows him to get challenging sfhoolwork from a teacher who does have to pull up lots of struggling students, so that he is rarely bored (which means he doesn't become a disengaged troublemaker).

Before anyone says anything, my family is Black, Asian and white. We did not do any test prep drilling with my kids - we followed the directions on the NYC DOE G&T webpage, did the practice exam once, and went over the question (it was only one question) they didn't get. And then we.did the same practice test a second time. My DS1 got a 99 and my DS2 got a 97. So it is possible to get a qualifying score on the test without excessive expensive test prep. Also, my son with ADHD did not have any special accommodations for the test - he had a neuropsych and was diagnosed when he was 6 and already in the G&T. And my kids are not the only non habits kids in the G&T classes at their school (although, yes, it is mostly white).

That said, there are many things that can be done to improve the G&T program, now that Adams has pledged to continue it in some form:

The qualifying score for the G&T is 90 for a local program and 97 got a Citywide G&T school like NEST+m. Because there are too few available seats in these programs, most seats are filled with 99s in the City wires and 96-99 in the local ones. I'm sure many more Black and Brown students would be in the G&T if there were enough seats. So, I would expand the program to many more schools.

Also, even though this is such a hot button issue in NYC, very few people seem to know about the program or have their kids test to enter it. I have proselytized about it to other Black families at my kids' school. They always seem either uninterested or a bit intimidated about it, maybe because they don't see a lot of other Black or Brown families participating, or maybe because they think it's bougie or elitist. The solution would be to have all students evaluated for the program (yes, just like the proposed Brilliant NYC program). I would make it mandatory or at least opt out rather than opt it. It would not take too much school time to do this. All students who scored 85+ could be offered a seat.

I would also make a set aside for students to be offered seats based on teacher recommendation (this is how I entered the G&T, as I mentioned in a post above). Say 50% of seats based on teacher assessment.

Also, because there are so few seats currently, it was very difficult to get in after Kindergarten. I would have rolling admissions, so that every year a classroom could be created at most schools. If a school cannot make it work budgetwise, students would be allowed to transfer to schools with available G&T seats.

Differentiation is supposed to happen in every classroom. But because of widely diverse abilities in one classroom, teachers are.forced to focus on the remedial students. By having the G&T students in their own classes, teachers would be better able to give differentiated teaching to the remaining students. I think providing accelerated work for those remaining students, via Brilliant NYC, would then make sense. This would help the students who are late bloomers or are middle of the road, get teaching on their level of abiloty. So, rather than binary G&T and Gen Ed tracks, you'd have G&T, accelerated Brilliant NYC, and Gen Ed. Diffentiatikn also is helped by smaller class sizes and co teaching , so fewer students per teacher.

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