I don't ever think there can be too many kids in a GT program. A GT program size should never be defined by a percentage or a cut off number of students, rather, the number of students should be defined by how many NEED the services offered within the program. That may mean adjusting the program to meet the needs of varying numbers of students from year to year yes.
I agree. I do think, however, that when 15% or more of an UNDIFFERENTIATED schooling environment is being grouped as "gifted" then that raises different red flags about what is going on there.
It is a quota of a different sort at that point.
I'm pretty sure that nobody here wants kids at the 90th percentile to be excluded from appropriate instruction-- just that maybe the kids who are 98th+ would do better if THEY were getting appropriate education, too, and that it's not likely that it is identical for those two groups.
I sure wish that all students' needs were met.
Which just goes to show that some sort of ability grouping is required. The 85 percentile kids probably really do need more than they get in a class aimed at the bottom half. But they don't need the same as the 99+ percentile.
This is the issue in my area. At the end of 2nd grade, about 20% of my DS's grade was IDed as gifted (there were about 20 kids total) for the 3rd grade. I don't live in an affluent, well educated area, but many of the kids who statistically would not be considered gifted - (ie would not be 130 or more (our state says top 98th percentile)are identified for the gifted program because they see putting them with the other 80% as a diservice to them. The interesting thing about the situation was they did a cluster grouping model for the gifted program but they took those 20 kids that they had over identified and put them in 3 different classrooms. We left that school before 3rd grade.
It just makes no sense. They know or have a good idea who needs extension. Instead of putting them together to make it easier they put one in each class! Surely putting them at least in pairs wouldn't upset anyone.
My kids' school admits to doing this. They take the top 3 kids from each grade and make sure they are all in a different classroom the next year (until they are forced by the district to do cluster grouping in third grade, but even then they don't necessarily put them in the same class). The goal is to make it "fair" to all the teachers. Another thing the principal is doing with grades that have the cluster group, is that he is putting the kids at the rock bottom in the same class, so that the ability levels average out to the same as the other classes. Maybe that's why the teacher has NO TIME to do anything with the cluster group. I think every single disruptive boy in the grade is in DD's class. She can only think of about 4 boys who are NOT disruptive.
It's also possible that the reason is related to teacher skills.
My mom was a
great teacher for kids who had specific LD's and she was also
strongly preferred as a placement for ADHD children because of the low-drama, routine-driven, highly-structured way that she ran her classrooms... but the upshot is that she usually had about 20-30% of a class being kids who had those kinds of challenges.
Her classroom would have been a
hideous placement for an HG+ child without such challenges, however. Not sure that administrators would have seen that, though.
