Reply to Fairfax County GT/AAP Decisions

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Falling through the cracks" I can completely relate to what you wrote.  I feel like there is a type of gifted child who is falling through the cracks in this process and it is very disheartening.  It is as if the committee is assembling a low-maintenance class of like students. Perhaps they've become more budget minded than needs minded.

PP, I would argue that the GBRS is actually quite subjective.  How does one draw the line between "rarely" and "occasionally"?  "Occasionally" and "frequently"?  What benchmark is used?  Would one teacher's "occasionally" be another's "frequently" or even "consistently"?  Aside from a few class "stars" who broadcast their brains how often do teachers even get to see this type of behavior in a individual child?

When the folks who prepare the GBRS for a child have had even less contact with a child, objectivity virtually evaporates.  It allows hearsay and opinion of only one or two teachers to reign supreme.

While the GBRS is based in a valid model of behavior, it appears to have become a thinly veiled tool which enables base schools to virtually hand pick which children should receive level IV services.

Test scores should be used to identify gifted children who had not otherwise been recognized as such by the school.  I suspect there are many gifted children who, for various reasons, do not shine enough in first or second grade to get noticed as such.   But from what I've read test scores alone do not cut it.  Even the perfect ones.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this.  The GBRS seems to play too much of a role in the selection process, and to call it an "objective" measure is simply laughable.  No sour grapes here; my child was admitted, but I was very worried that a low GBRS score could cancel out my child's stellar test scores.

That notwithstanding, there does need to be some sort of way to capture those kids who don't test well but really should be in the program.  Perhaps there could be two ways to make it in -- one with test scores alone, at a high threshold like 140+, and one with test scores and GBRS considered.  That way, those kids who exhibit giftedness on the tests aren't eliminated due to the misfortune of having a teacher who doesn't believe in them, yet there is still an avenue for those kids who don't test well to make it in.[/quote]

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