Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Are gifted education programs a waste of money?

http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worth...fted-education-programs-need-reform.html
In my latest Globe and Mail piece, I summarized a study by Sa Bui, Steven G. Craig, and Scott Imberman on the effectiveness of gifted education. The authors look at students in a large urban American school district who were evaluated for gifted programming in grade five. They ask: Who does better on the grade 6 and 7 standardized tests, the students who just made it into the gifted program, or the ones who fell just below the gifted threshold?

The authors have an impressive amount of data: standardized grade 5 test scores for 5,500 students either side of the gifted cut-off point before the gifted programming begins, and the same students� grade 6 test scores, one year later. They have similar information for 2,600 grade 7 students.

To test the effectiveness of gifted education, they measure how far each student was away from the gifted cut-off. The authors then estimate grade 6 and grade 7 standardized test scores as a function of distance from the gifted-eligibility threshold and some other controls. A "regression discontinuity" analysis is used to figure out if those who make it into the gifted program experience a jump in educational outcomes.

It's easier to explain with a picture than with words: [graph at site]

For reading and language - the green line and the red line - there is no jump in the test results at the gifted threshold. There's a kink, but not a shift. From this, the authors conclude that �students exposed to gifted-talent curriculum for the entirety of 6th grade plus half of 7th grade exhibit no significant improvement in achievement.� This is despite the fact that the students in the gifted-talented program have more educational resources coming their way � they are in classes with higher performing peers, are more likely to be placed in advanced classes, and more likely to attend a gifted-talented magnet school.

The lack of improvement in reading and language can be explained in a number of ways. The less able "gifted" students might feel discouraged by being in the bottom of the class and thus put less effort into school. The standardized test scores shown in the figure above might be measuring innate ability rather than what is taught in school. Reading and language scores may be more influenced by home environment than what is taught in the classroom.

But what is really striking is the suggestion that math results actually *fall* for those identified as gifted.

<rest of article at link>

The study is also discussed at http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/267179/end-gifted-programs-robert-verbruggen and http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/2011/05/gifted-education-not-smart-idea.html .

I certainly don't think well-run gifted education programs are a waste of money, but advocates of gifted education will need to respond to the paper of Bui, Craig, and Imberman.

I read this blog last night about what good teaching looks like. �I'm not sure how correct the ideas are since I don't know anything about public school education but the blog was very entertaining and convincing.
http://instructivist.blogspot.com/

This described one of my kids. He took a grade-level standardized test last year without any review (he was accelerated in math by two years relative to grade level). His math scores were average to slightly above. This year we did some review (not a lot) and his scores were in the 9th stanine. Sample size of one, but it makes sense.

Emm. On closer inspection of their graph, I'm questioning the conclusion that math scores "fell" among GT kids. The "fall" doesn't look like much of a fall to me. It actually looks like it's about 0.05 of a standard deviation. In easily-understood IQ terms, this would be a difference of less than 0.75 of an IQ point. This is a difference? "I am smarter than you. You have an IQ of 124.25, whereas mine is 125."

I didn't see the original study and have to get my kids right now, but I'd be interested in knowing how they discussed this apparently very small difference and how much emphasis they put on it significance WRT special programs for gifted kids.


The scores increase steadily with increasing distance above the threshold (and decrease likewise in the other direction). So the study shows pretty clearly that smarter kids got higher scores on tests of the same academic material.

Given this observation, it's not too surprising to me that people whose IQs are nearly identical might have test scores that are nearly identical.

(Of course, I'm speaking in aggregate terms here: on average, the smarter kids did better. But some smarter kids who didn't study probably got lower scores than a less-smart kids who did study.)


Philosophical note: the authors were "test[ing] the effectiveness of gifted education," but they were making an assumption that standardized computer-read multiple choice tests are a good measure of the success of education.

I disagree. These tests don't measure a student's ability to synthesize knowledge or think of new solutions. They're focused exclusively on answering relatively straightforward questions quickly. They may be a crude measure of processing speed. But I don't think they measure "education."


This statement "might" be an exaggeration in the sense that saying "The ants were bigger than a 1954 Chevy and they ate my parents" might be an exaggeration.

Them! Them!

Viewing it in terms of money and test scores very much reminds me of the conversations of parents I hear IRL as well as online regarding NYC and the testing which everyone complains about. Here there is so much focus on what the gts get[i][/i] meaning the specials, chess, mandarin, Singapore math. Basically the argument is that if all kids had that stuff they would be doing better and love school too. There are two camps about that - the my kid deserves that stuff too camp - and the they all catch up in 3rd grade so it doesn't matter anyway camp. Some will focus on the they move faster argument, other on the depth argument. Here there is almost a rejection of the need while saying my kid has to have it. The lake woebegone effect as it were.

My personal view has changed so much watching the development of my kid. A year and half ago, I wanted a nice private because of the small class size, then I started to realize more was needed, so then the local gifted became my focus, then the citywides as each time my DS forced me to realize these options will likely not entirely serve him. But still it's better than being gen Ed, where he would always be waiting. What is the price for not waiting - if you look at private plane costs, apparently it's worth a very large sum!

DeHe

Andrew Sullivan ran a link to the same article and got a lot of flack from people over it. At least he listened.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the study. My kids are not in gt classrooms to improve their test scores. They are there to get work at their level, have a peer group and get extra social and emotional support. Any gt program focused on test scores sorely misses the point.

Maybe one problem is with the idea of GT programs. My understanding is that many of these programs are brief pullouts one day a week rather than meaningful approaches to meeting the needs of gifted kids. Everyone here knows that gifted kids generally need to move faster and/or go deeper.

Schools could fix the "move faster" part of this problem at very low cost by just scheduling the same classes at the same time in lower grades (this solution would also address the needs of kids who do okay in reading but need to repeat last year's math). A private school around here found a way to get kids from the middle school to the high school for advanced classes. It is simple. They put them on a shuttle bus. Other private schools (and our local charter school) manage to teach geometry and other HS subjects in 8th grade. Most or nearly all public schools outside of very rural areas could do this if they wanted to. But I think that many simply do not.

Oh well.

Val, my kids are in full-time gt classrooms, not pull-outs. I guess that is another question -- what kind of gt programming model were they using in the study? Were they full-time classrooms or pullouts?

Wow, your kids are lucky. Do the classrooms accelerate the kids?