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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Anonymous wrote:
I just cannot believe there are all these gifted and talented children in Washington, DC. Come on now, really!!!!

National demographics and studies show typically 3.5%-6% of the student body test and qualify as being Gifted & Talented - by IQ, et cetera. With around 80,000 students enrolled in DC schools, that means there are probably around 4,000 G&T students from very SES and background scattered across DC schools - with NO G&T program in the public schools to serve them. Probably at least 2,500 of the 4,000 are AA, including low-SES - IQ is not a function of your skin color or your parent's income. DCPS schools does not and will not meet the needs of those 4,000. Many of them have been fortunate to make their way to schools like Basis and Latin - yet here we have people who not only deny the existence of these kids, they deny them any opportunity to do more, holding them back to sit bored out of their minds in a classroom, twiddling their thumbs, zoned out in daydream, even acting out and causing trouble because they are wasting a month learning a concept that only takes them a week. They not already deny them any adequate academic opportunity in the DCPS system, they also want to deny them the opportunity of attending a more challenging charter that's more their speed. Unbelievable and utterly naive and clueless.[/quote]

Not exactly. The fact that there may or may not be 4% of the student body, nationally, that can perform on a test that allows districts to designate those kids as somehow "gifted" does not at all mean there are 4,000 kids in DC bored out of their minds and daydreaming all day. No, it means that maybe they can pass a test on a day that lets their parents advocate that they are somehow more deserving than the vast majority of kids who need support to access the existing curriculum.

In fact, there are very few truly gifted children and those that are gifted are not languishing in classrooms without an inadequate education. If the bar for special education students is that they be able to access the curriculum to meet FAPE, then the same bar should be in place for the talented test takers who test in an advanced category. In this city, it is foolish to divert resources to create "gifted" programs when there are so few truly gifted students and so little need for programs to serve them when they are doing just fine in the regular school system.[/quote]

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