This was the response from our district's GATE coordinator when I questioned why they dont use the quantitative portion.
As far as why we use the verbal and nonverbal portions of the test for our program qualification: each year we have an internal committee of administrators, gifted teachers and psychologists review the data from the students we screened to determine if our criteria is appropriate for our programs. Our goal is to not over test students thus having more students not qualify than qualify, but to target the students that will achieve the cognitive scores to enter our programs. In years past, the district used a combined quantitative/nonverbal score with the verbal score. When reviewing this data, the committee found that the combined score was causing an inflation, or heavier weighing, on the rubric in this one area. Also, with all children now taking the MAP starting in kindergarten, we were able to get nationally normed math scores across the district for the first time this year. Since the quantitative part of the test is based on number sense and number concepts, the committee felt the MAP test would provide us with good information on students who were strong in this academic area. Therefore, the decision was made to take out the quantitative portion of the test and use the nonverbal portion weighted equally with the verbal portion. By using the nonverbal only, it also provided more equity for second language learners since the quantitative has a heavy language component in grades 1 and 2. In August, our committee will meet to review this past year's data where we discuss MAP targets for screening as well as cognitive scores.
