A few weeks ago, I was appalled to learn that the identification standards here have a convenient embedded veto power for administrators. Students MUST be identified as GT by teacher/administrator appraisal, which uses a garbage-in-garbage-out set of inputs for assessment: leadership, classroom achievement, enthusiasm, motivation, and participation. It's as if they deliberately read the GT literature and asked themselves, "how can we systematically under-identify the truly gifted?"
I find myself seething whenever I read these asinine policy documents. It's a loathsome blend of wilful ignorance and anti-GT ideology wrapped up in a neat, flaming package on the proverbial threshold of every true GT child's identification process.
A few days ago, I seriously wondered to myself if there are grounds for a class action lawsuit against the public school system for hate crimes against the GT when explicit identity suppression and denial is such a central part of the process. Similar transgressions against transgendered students (imposing administrator-perceived gender identity) have been found to be permanently damaging and ruled unconstitutional. Just a musing.
