Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

Wow. Just, wow.

Evidently you think IQ tests are something that you can just study for and any Tiger Mom's kid can nail an IQ test with the right prep - and that it's all about parents who want their perfectly average child to get this label to have something extra and special. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way any more than a profoundly disabled kid with an IQ of 60 can just overcome his disability with committed Tiger Mom and a little prep. It's something kids are born with, it's not about overbearing parents being a squeaky wheel with their average kid because they are demanding something special and something extra for him.

Don't throw the thousands of kids who ARE bright and who ARE capable of accomplishing more with their education under the bus. That pool of G&T kids across the city no doubt includes for example hundreds of low-SES AA kids who are bright and capable - yet you would condemn them to a future of flipping burgers because they wouldn't even have adequate access to the right opportunities that could get them scholarships and prep for college.

God help us all if you in any way represent DCPS, WTU, Council or anyone in any position of making or influencing policy - because you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and are doing thousands of kids a complete disservice. That's not drama, that's reality.

Anonymous wrote:

What you see in the upper grades at Latin is that the school struggled under previous leadership. Some of the high SES kids left (not really sure what color -- does it matter?). Latin doesn't admit after 9th. I see a lot of kids who are choosing to stay at Latin for HS, including kids who get into private and Walls. I see Latin offering a lot of support to students who struggle -- extra work during the elective period, after school help, and summer school. I think you will also see a lot of students staying at Latin just looking at their college placement. Latin got every single graduating senior into college from its first graduating class and in terms of scholarship money for their first graduating class more than Walls did on a per student basis (8 million versus 5.5 million; 109 graduating seniors versus 42).

I don't think you can make any assumptions about high SES attrition at Basis. With Wilson closed to OOB, where do the high SES kids go who don't want to do private and don't live in bounds for Wilson?

You certainly can make these assumptions with some degree of certainty because all the other good middle schools in the city experience high SES attrition between 8th and 9th grades. Deal-Wilson is a classic example - the high school is still only one-quarter white/high-SES in a catchment area that's at least two-thirds white/high-SES.

Latin parents love to claim that the attrition is behind them, but it's not. Yes, more and more high SES kids are staying for 9th, but they're still losing the majority. While graduating seniors are going to college, they aren't going to top schools, which doesn't work for many high SES families.

While high-performing low-SES AA kids can readily win scholarship money in the form of financial aid, high-SES parents who cannot easily afford $50,000+ colleges cannot. Affluent parents often don't want to pay full fare at the sort of colleges Latin graduates are being admitted to, and don't want state schools as their only option. Yes, I know they've only had one graduating class, but they're not exactly on track to become Stuyvesant, which gets at least two three dozen kids into each Ivy League school every year.

The high SES kids you describe often go to the burbs well before high school. Still.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You live WotP, right?

What's foolish is this sort of myopia. What you're seeing are more and more "advanced learners" coming into DCPS and DC Charter due to shifting demographics and the cost of new mortgages and privates both going through the roof. Frankly, what you have are more and more of the children of some of the best educated professionals in the country sitting in the same classes as some of the least educated, families on welfare since the Great Society programs kicked n half a century ago, in an inner city setting.

I wouldn't call my kid "truly gifted" but with Stanford graduates as parents he's already so bored, and disruptive as a result, in K at a respected charter that we're forced to consider privates, the burbs or moving within DC (to Upper NW? to the Brent District? try language immersion?) so he can be IB for a majority high SES school. He's being taught skills he over learned a year ago all school day long and our complaints to the school get us nowhere because they're not set up to educate kids like him.

If only kids like mine were in fact "doing just fine" in the regular school system EotP. For the most part, they are not, explaining broad high SES attrition in the upper grades at Capitol Hill schools in particular. Look at a school like Watkins, which has been struggling to keep high SES parents past 2nd grade for 25 years now. Ask yourself why so many of the college-educated parents go well before Basis becomes an option. It's because their kids are thriving without programs for advanced learners or, heaven forbid, gifted kids? Wrong.

If Basis offered an elementary school program, we'd certainly consider it. Really hope they will eventually for the sake of my property values even if we can't stay in DC public schools.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools like Latin do you have in mind? Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, and Washington Latin would never use use social promotion in any form.

Washington Latin does promote socially.

Sorry, no.

Your evidence?

Now that's funny. This whole thread started with someone basically screaming FIRE! and running out of the room. Evidence, not one piece of evidence has been provided for anything posted on this thread.

My evidence: At Latin, kids who should have failed classes and been retained were repeatedly given extra credit assignments by which they raised their grades sufficiently to be promoted. Latin engages in social promotion.

Are you a teacher or adminstrator who saw the grades of these children and then saw that extra credit was given so that they passed? How are we to know you are actually telling the truth. Your statement is not evidence.

I'm a parent who watched DC do all that extra credit work. Any current or former Latin parent knows about the fluffy extra credit assignments. Even the Latin administration has recognized the grade inflation and decided to do something about it this year.