Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AAP was not created to serve the gifted, contrary to popular belief. AAP serves the high achievers. Like a previous PP said, being gifted and being a high achiever are not synonymous.
It was a gifted program when it was called GT, it is still a gifted program after they changed the name. The program didn't change when they changed the name.
When it was GT, it served about 5% of the students. Now, it serves about 20% who are LIV qualified and another 6-7% who are principal placed in the LIV classrooms.
When it was GT, they put the top 10% of the annual CogAt scores into the pool and accepted some parent referrals (down to about 125 on WISC, if they were big performing). That has not changed. When my eldest went through it, about 30% of his classmates qualified (McLean ES). Now there are just more ESs with the demographics of that ES. Some of the growth is legitimate.
Only 6% of students were in GT in 2000. 19% were in AAP in 2015. FCPS acknowledges that it's casting a much wider net for AAP eligibility than it had in the past. Kids are now qualifying who wouldn't have done so 20 or even 10 years ago. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is an entirely different debate. I'll admit that my DD wouldn't have qualified for AAP in the past, but is doing well in the program now. She's a bright, motivated student, but she's not gifted.
The profile of a typical AAP student is a bright, motivated, high achieving kid with an IQ in the 120s or 130s and working about one year above grade level. A kid with an IQ in the high 150s does not fit the profile of the typical AAP student and would probably not be well served in AAP. I doubt that such a kid would have been well served in the old GT program or pretty much any public or private school system. AAP might be the best fit for such a kid, since many of the teachers would have been trained in how to extend or challenge the very top kids, but that doesn't mean that it would necessarily be a good fit.