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Ds6s teacher gave me the print out of the overheads from a training day on the "modern learning environment". There were 20 overheads. 6 were on "ability grouping or tracking".

they use a scale of -1 to 1 for affect ratio. 1 highest positive, -1 lowest negative, 0 neutral.

overhead 1/ tracking .11, reading 0, maths .02, attitude .10.
Minority students are 7 times more likely to be labeled low ability.

OVerhead 2/ potential for racial discrimination where tracking is used.

Overhead 3/ as above for socioeconomic factors.

Overhead 4/ children in low tracks suffer from low expectations.

Overhead 5/ experiment of labelling kids in 1968 and affect on teacher perception.

Overhead 6/ ability grouping for gifted .3
enrichment .39, acceleration .84.

But if all students respond to high expections and acceleration, is there a need for Gifted and Talented tracks.



Great. The one good thing for my son is that from next year (equiv g2) there is some ability grouping across g2/g3 and g4/5 groupings.

I have a bad feeling but I hope I am wrong.

Really just venting. Thanks.

I don't really understand what your concern is? The training day did admit to some positive effects of things they can do for gifted children, which isn't always the case! Also seems positive that the teacher shared it with you... What am I missing?

Maybe I am missing something? But it seems like the presentation is a clear argument against tracking/ability grouping?

Yeah, this looks like an anti-tracking/grouping presentation to me. Was this given personally to you in response to something in particular?

I guess you could seize on the fact that their data (likely cherrypicked) is endorsing acceleration, and demand it.

Using an experiment from 1968 is...uh, not the greatest way to convince me.

Seems like it is designed to fail. If you come out of the gate giving positive and negative labels, yikes.

No; the presentation gave positive scores to both. It did also mention some issues, but those issues exist, so...?

Well, I'd be a little concerned that this is was written by an educator without a great grasp on grammar and usage. But I'm guessing that isn't what the OP was most concerned about.


Leaving aside for a moment the issue of the missing question mark at the end of the clearly rhetorical question, there, I'm concerned with the ASSUMPTION being made in that rhetorical question.

The underlying assumption is in the word all in that sentence. If all students respond (equally well) to high expectations and acceleration...

WHOAH.

Do they??

Well, they DON'T. Where is the evidence for THAT statement-- even the more lukewarm version actually stated, I mean.


There are studies which suggest that enrichment and exposure to brighter peers is good for ALL children. There are mixed ones that say that "high expectations" may be good-- but ONLY to the point that they remain "appropriate" to the child's underlying ability, that is.

It is a LONG way from that set of facts to the statement above.


The assumption implicit in that statement is that while, sure, GT children respond VERY well to enrichment, tracking, and to acceleration; it is probably only because we don't make those things available to all children.

I see this statement as a covert "all children are gifted, so shut up about your special snowflake-- they're ALL snowflakes." Or even "there's no such thing as gifted."

It would make me wary, too.

This is a clear (and I say this as someone who grew up learning the peculiar language of elementary educators in an immersion environment) coded message for

in-class differentiation.

Probably to rather limited practical affect, at that. "Enriched" for the center of the distribution unfortunately looks very little like "enrichment" that HG kids need in early elementary.


It also has a bit of the subtext that it's wrong of the GT children to be selfishly "sucking up" all of those resources directed JUST at them...

Sorry, but I've seen this kind of attitude before-- and it has used pretty much the same language for forty years. That finishing statement is EXACTLY what my mother (a lifetime educator) firmly believed. Even though such an outlook actively damaged me as a child.


The one effective tool that I ever found for combatting this set of beliefs with educators was the question;

What, then, about "high expectations" for highly capable children? Don't their expectations need to be "higher" by definition?

But I'm going to make a prediction here-- I predict that such inquiry will be met with "Oh, but _____ can learn other things in the classroom... like helping. Sharing... being more compassionate and developing social skills with age-mates. Fostering patience."

Which of course is based on a number of other assumptions.

This is an argument for sending all of the kids to classes a grade below, because don't we want ALL kids to learn sharing, compassion, and patience?

I think that is where all students in all classes are presented the same material, in which case, being with brighter peers can only be of limited benefit. The huge benefit of ability tracking comes when advanced students are taught advanced material.