Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Seattle Public Schools to end "tracking"

The dirty little secret about differentiation being, of course, that it is really impossible to do while actually *teaching*, ie engaging in direct instruction, such as telling kids something they dont yet know or showing them something they cant do, with the aim of having them know or be able to do it themselves. A teacher has exactly one mouth to speak with, one set of hands to show stuff with. As long as they are actually imparting instruction at one level, teaching at another level cant concurrently happen, because its physically impossible.
Unlike differentiated tasks, when students can actually each work at their level at the same time. So, that is what tends to happen. But what if you want actual *teaching* at the individual students levels?
If you look at the PISA results of a country such as Finland, widely lauded for managing to keep the achievement gap as small as possible while still getting high results, two things stand out:
One, by the time Finnish kids get to high school where course selection (vulgo: voluntary tracking) begins, fully half of them have at one time been considered special ed students, meaning their instruction was the responsibility of an extra special ed teacher, within or without the regular class room, where the regular teacher continues to teach at above average level. Not enough for gifted kids, sure, but much better than teaching to the middle or to the lowest common denominator because you need to "catch kids up" dring regular class room instruction.
And two, even within that country, with low levels of immigration and barely any child poverty, the achievement gap between the 5th and the 95th percentile students is *still * the equivalent of SEVEN academic years. Add high levels of second language learners and high levels of disadvantage, add the top and bottom 5 % into the mix and have one classroom teacher try to impart instruction at every level found in the classroom. 10? 12? 15? One after the other, within one school day, or worse, one period? Granted, the kids tested for PISA are 15, but I'm sure you would end up with at least seven levels in an elementary classroom as well. In every single subject. How many teachers do we want to put in a classroom? Talking at the same time or one after the other? And how exactly would everyone who is not currently being instructed focus on their work?

Of *course* if you have but the one teacher in the classroom as usual, every bit of time spent on a high level students will come at the expense of low level students. And there you are.

Are there any solutions?
The Montessori solution is putting three teachers in a classroom of thirty, but boiling down direct instruction to a minimum, keeping the classroom as quiet as possible and have every student work individually with the Montessori materials at their own pace in the prescribed fashion and in the prescribed sequence, often at the expense of flexibility, creativity and the stimulation that personal interaction with teachers and peers can bring.
It does work, but is not ideal for everyone.

I still think if people were honest just about how wide the spread of ability actually is even if you could factor out poverty, immigration, mainstreaming, gifted ed, all that jazz, and honest about the fact that differentiated instruction, with actual differentiation in level and content, isn't possible without grouping and temporal segregating and not affordable without clustering (after all, statistically, a gifted kid in a regular classroom would always be in a group of 0.5, similarly for kids with learning disabilities), one could take the Montessori classroom as an inspiration. There could be a home room in which you could do all the social engineering you wanted, age segregated or not, where kids would do their individual work, where projects would happen, where one could do music, drama, arts and crafts. And all academic instruction would happen in pull outs, grouped and clustered strictly for academic readiness, no ceilings, regardless of age, sex, race, SES, whatever, with constant assessment ensuring fluidity between groups (something you could put all that data collecting to a good use for).

It might reduce voluntary SES segregation and racial segregation by school. It might even reduce segregation by neighbourhood. But it's probably asking for too much honesty in the system.

Tigerle, I want a like button. Very well said.

Most contemporary curricula are written for three levels of differentiation within the classroom, designed to capture roughly +/- 1 SD. Below that, RTI tier 2 programs (typically small group pull-out) should be capturing an additional 10-15%, and tier 3 and special education the remaining 5-10% (with overlap at each of these levels of intervention). Sadly, the other end of the double-ended RTI triangle rarely exists, especially prior to high school.

The plan Tigerle describes is essentially (plus some whole grade skips) how most members of my sib group went through much of elementary and secondary school, after extensive parental advocacy, and some media attention. On a note of optimism, one of the schools continues, decades later, to allow a fair amount of cross-grading (both directions) on the grade 6-12 campus.

Tigerle, very well put. It would take a serious societal mindshift, but it is what, imo, all students deserve and what we as a country need if we really wanted everyone to achieve.

I just finished a book called "The End of Average (How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness." It addressed many of the same issues re: learning speeds and variability within individual students we discuss here, with much the same conclusion as you drew. (It was a bit more fond of technology as the solution than I am, personally.)

Very well said, Tigerle!

I agree with much of what was already been said, but there are still issues with Seattle's gifted program. My child attends a gifted-only elementary school that contains 700+ kids, but only two African-American students. His classes are full of kids with affluent and well-educated parents. Other areas of Seattle have elementary schools with few Caucasian or Asian students and almost every kid qualifying for free and reduced price lunch. So, when people look at our program, they become angry because it siphons out the kids from general education classrooms. Gen ed families aren't happy with being left behind because many of the high achievers and affluent students with involved parents leave to join HCC.

Are the needs of the gifted children not being met?

Are you suggesting that identification is an issue? For example, does admission criteria not match the program and services offered (advanced curriculum and pacing, etc)? If ethnicity or affluence are any part of admissions criteria,this would be a legal issue, therefore I presume these are not criteria. Would you prefer an "equity"-based admissions system with selection criteria based on racial and SES quotas, set to match the general population at large? Would this tend to serve the needs of the enrolled children as well as the present system?

Would these children qualify for the gifted program? If so, what are the specific reasons why they are not in it?

Making other people happy would not tend to be the stated mission of a gifted program. It's mission would more likely be to provide the education which best meets the needs, readiness, and ability of the students who have enrolled.

"Left behind" in a program which offers a better academic fit???

If these parents believe that their children would become higher achievers by being 2nd chair to the current high achievers (if they had not left for the gifted program), they may wish to read research which indicates these kids may excel only when the already-high-achievers have moved on, providing these kids opportunity to compete to be 1st chair.

If these parents are concerned that affluent parents have left, possibly they could instead breathe a sigh of relief that their child no longer has to hear about the wealthier kids' vacations, extravagant birthday parties, etc.

If these parents are concerned that "involved" parents have left, possibly they can step up to become more involved.

It takes many families generations of sacrifice to become financially stable and upwardly mobile. Looking around at what others have achieved, not to be positive and learn from them as role models and emulate them, but to complain and be negative may not serve the children well.

As the Olympics are currently underway in Rio de Janeiro, I can't help but make the comparison between the talent development of "gifted" kids and "elite" athletes.

I don't get how "siphoning off" the percentage of the student population that scores in both the 98th percentile on the cogat and the 95th percentile in achievement can in any noticeable way affect the rest of the student population, or how distributing them across the district could in any way make a noticeable difference in classroom diversity.

I disagree with this simply because it is not the job of the gifted kids to create balance in a classroom environment, any more than it would be an obligation on the part of a special needs child to provide the same.

These are kids that deserve an appropriate education, and the augmentation that they would provide other children should not be a factor in whether or not they receive it.

That's basically asking children to subsidize their own intelligence to benefit everyone else, regardless of whether or not it actually benefits the student.

No one is stopping those gen ed families from trying to get their kids into the same HCP. It's an equal opportunity program. The social engineers just want equal outcome, which isn't possible as long as we all still have different parents.