Reply to Gifted programs, lack of, in DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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."

[b]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. [/b]

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

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 [b]75% of the kids at the school
are those that would have been identified as "gifted and talented"[/b] 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.   :roll: 
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