Anonymous wrote:I'm not arguing in favor of DCPS and DC Public Charter substituting language immersion for GT, far from it, but that's the way it works where neighborhood schools aren't popular in affluent areas of the city. We're raising our own children fully bilingual without help from DC public.

Many of the in-boundary high SES families run off to Tyler Spanish Immersion, Yu Ying, LAMB etc. after zero, one or two years in Ludlow's early childhood program. Parents are convinced that greater challenge and a better social scene will be found in the dual immersion sphere.
On our street, there are a dozen high SES kids under age 8. Not one is still at Ludlow; most are in Chinese or Spanish immersion programs.

SOMEONE in your precious neighborhood is enrolled in LT, as the ECE spaces were largely filled IB. Your logic doesn't seem to add up.

Enjoy your commute to Brightwood.

I'm not arguing in favor of DCPS and DC Public Charter substituting language immersion for GT, far from it, but that's the way it works where neighborhood schools aren't popular in affluent areas of the city. We're raising our own children fully bilingual without help from DC public.

Many of the in-boundary high SES families run off to Tyler Spanish Immersion, Yu Ying, LAMB etc. after zero, one or two years in Ludlow's early childhood program. Parents are convinced that greater challenge and a better social scene will be found in the dual immersion sphere.
On our street, there are a dozen high SES kids under age 8. Not one is still at Ludlow; most are in Chinese or Spanish immersion programs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The best the parent of a gifted child can do in DCPS or DC charter is buy or rent in-boundary for a school without enough high SES families to work to create a home-grown pseudo GT program with PTA funding and support, e.g. at Murch and Brent. Alternatively, language immersion programs function as de facto gifted programs.

All of the above would remain true if one gifted kid (at least by VA or MD standards) were enrolled at LT, or 10, or 100....

Wow -- you really think the ability to learn in 2 languages makes a kid "gifted"? Guess every single kid in many European countries is by definition "gifted"

Of the many harebrained ideas floated on this every growing thread, this may be the winner. Congratulations.

You're misreading the post. In DC it's true that language immersion elementary programs are the closest thing we have to GT programs, at least EotP. Many upper middle-income parents of bright kids use immersion programs to head off the boredom that would probably come by sticking with not-so-great DCPS neighborhood schools. I can count the number of Cluster in-boundary families I know who've headed off to Oyster, Yu Ying, Mundo Verde, Stokes, Sela etc. in search of challenge after 0-3 years at Peabody.

You are displaying total ignorance of what G&T education is about. Language immersion bear absolutely no resemblance to G&T. It's simply a different focus. I don't want to debate the merits of immersion, as there are lots of differeing opinions, but it's by no means more rigorous or challenging than non-immersion, at least by definition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The best the parent of a gifted child can do in DCPS or DC charter is buy or rent in-boundary for a school without enough high SES families to work to create a home-grown pseudo GT program with PTA funding and support, e.g. at Murch and Brent. Alternatively, language immersion programs function as de facto gifted programs.

All of the above would remain true if one gifted kid (at least by VA or MD standards) were enrolled at LT, or 10, or 100....

Wow -- you really think the ability to learn in 2 languages makes a kid "gifted"? Guess every single kid in many European countries is by definition "gifted"

Of the many harebrained ideas floated on this every growing thread, this may be the winner. Congratulations.

You're misreading the post. In DC it's true that language immersion elementary programs are the closest thing we have to GT programs, at least EotP. Many upper middle-income parents of bright kids use immersion programs to head off the boredom that would probably come by sticking with not-so-great DCPS neighborhood schools. I can count the number of Cluster in-boundary families I know who've headed off to Oyster, Yu Ying, Mundo Verde, Stokes, Sela etc. in search of challenge after 0-3 years at Peabody.

Anonymous wrote:
The best the parent of a gifted child can do in DCPS or DC charter is buy or rent in-boundary for a school without enough high SES families to work to create a home-grown pseudo GT program with PTA funding and support, e.g. at Murch and Brent. Alternatively, language immersion programs function as de facto gifted programs.

All of the above would remain true if one gifted kid (at least by VA or MD standards) were enrolled at LT, or 10, or 100....

Wow -- you really think the ability to learn in 2 languages makes a kid "gifted"? Guess every single kid in many European countries is by definition "gifted"

Of the many harebrained ideas floated on this every growing thread, this may be the winner. Congratulations.

Anonymous wrote:Yet all the schools referenced abobe have a 100% promotional rate for students. So, the question who's really doing someone a disservice? Does one say that the test doesn't mean a gosh-darn thing or is that the children don't test-well but are moved hastily on to the next grade?

You know, children do not have to test advanced to be promoted. Let's examine basic and below basic numbers and talk about promotion.

Separately, how exactly does the achievement ago make the case for pull outs? If it is merely that many kids score advanced then I agree, if it is the achievement gap then I hope you are taking about pull outs to address the achievement gap as well as serve advanced learners.

Kids of all abilities need to be met where they are at through small group learning. This is so regardless of race.

Yet all the schools referenced abobe have a 100% promotional rate for students. So, the question who's really doing someone a disservice? Does one say that the test doesn't mean a gosh-darn thing or is that the children don't test-well but are moved hastily on to the next grade?

Gosh.

If anybody wants to flash forward armed with a feel for what sort of achievement gap LT is likely to be grappling with once a critical mass of high SES kids hits the testing grades, the stats below may be of use. I wish that DCPS furnished the stats to make that high SES kids of all races, but they don't.

As of summer 2013, only three Cap Hill DCPS neighborhood schools had enough white kids for scores to be pulled out by subgroup, Brent, Watkins and Stuart Hobson. Maury will join the group in several weeks, when 2014 CAS scores are made public.

The stats speak for themselves, making a strong case for pullout groups. If you disagree, tell us why.

Brent 2013:
AA students Testing Advanced, Math: 14%
AA Students Testing Advanced, Reading: 14%
White students Testing Advanced, Math: 24% (1.7 x rate of AA)
White Students Testing Advanced, Reading: 46% (3.3 x rate of AA)

Watkins 2013:
AA students Testing Advanced, Math: 11%
AA students Testing Advanced, Reading: 11%
White students Testing Advanced, Math: 64% (5.8 x rate of AA)
White Students Testing Advanced, Reading: 59% (5.3 x rate of AA)

Stuart Hobson 2013:
AA students Testing Advanced, Math: 9%
AA students Testing Advanced, Reading: 8%
White students Testing Advanced, Math: 59% (6.2 x rate of AA)
White Students Testing Advanced, Reading: 51% (6.3 x rate of AA)

Ludlow Taylor 2013:
AA students Testing Advanced, Math: 21%
AA students Testing Advanced, Reading: 17%

PROJECTED ACHIEVEMENT GAP AT LT BASED ON WATKINS’ 2013 SCORES:

White students Testing Advanced, Math: 64% (3 x rate of AA)
White Students Testing Advanced, Reading: 59% (3.5 x rate of AA)

It's not a non-starter, not with neighborhood demographics changing so rapidly and the charter lotteries getting tougher and tougher. The new LT principal will have come under increasing pressure to appease high SES parents with programmatic offerings designed to increase upper grades challenge in face of the achivement gap as time goes on. Once a critical mass of 3rd grade white kids (25+) take the next generation of standardized tests linked to the Common Core, with subgroup scores pulled out, the pressure will mount.
I'm guessing that will happen three or four years hence. The Watkins white kids test advanced at four to five times the rate of AA classmates for both reading and math. I don't expect the gap to be nearly as wide at LT, but a big gap it will be.

Anonymous wrote:+1. The mostly low SES children who are already there won't necessarily be replaced by other low SES kids as they age out. To serve the mostly high SES neighborhood well, LT needs to start offering more of the sort of programming appealing to local parents. Pullout groups for advanced learners fits the bill. No brainer.

The thing is, LT is already serving advanced learners well. Differentiation seems to be working at LT. It doesn't make any sense to create & implement an unnecessary G&T/pullout program just to pacify parents who refuse to believe -- on the basis of nothing, not evidence or experience -- that the school can't serve their kids b/c their kids are white & high SES.

I suspect one reason the whole G&T/pullout question is a non-starter is because black administrators (in schools & at central office) interpret white requests for those programs as a request for segregation within schools, and take umbrage.

If the school has the data of every child within DCPS and whether they are G&T, P&R and any other statistic. Do you think it would be an eureka moment for DCPS to say this is what's needed at L-T. I believe some of this posters and parents are closeted parents of special ed children but are too shame to admit it.

So are the programs supposed to just exist in theory?

but this is coming from the same people who are saying there are not advanced learners at LT...

+1. The mostly low SES children who are already there won't necessarily be replaced by other low SES kids as they age out. To serve the mostly high SES neighborhood well, LT needs to start offering more of the sort of programming appealing to local parents. Pullout groups for advanced learners fits the bill. No brainer.