Okay, read Most of the study.
First off, they state that all students cover the same curriculum and take the same statewide tests.
This is a pet peeve of mine: it has been established again and again that if you want a study to show that congregated classrooms lead to higher achievement gains for high ability students, teach them an accelerated curriculum and test them on that. If you want to show that mixed ability classrooms don't harm them, teach a standard curriculum and test that.
If the kid is nit challenged or engaged by the curriculum, it doesn't matter for their achievement what kind of classroom they are in (student satisfaction may be higher, though).
Further down, my knowledge of statistics isn't good enough to understand most of what they've been doing, but these numbers scream at me loudly and clearly:
There was a gifted classroom established in every school where at least one child was identified as gifted for that year. Usually there were no more than three or four. After which the classrooms were filled with another 15 or 20 of the non-gifted top achievers, whose achievement scores, naturally, were higher than predicted by their ability scores.
I fail to see why that would be called a gifted program at all - teaching a standard curriculum to a classroom full of above average motivated high achievers, with a couple gifties thrown in - of course this is a program that's perfect for the high achievers, but why would gifties thrive?
Edited to add that it appears (I only skimmed that section) that whereas high achievers moved from classrooms with average peers to strong peers. hat placed gifted kids moved from classrooms with strong peers achievement wise (due to being found disproportionately in high SES schools) with (possibly) some individual attention into classrooms with somewhat stronger peers with (presumably) no more individual attention.
So moving from one unsuitable environment to another. Why would that not be helpful...
Last edited by Tigerle; 09/08/14 10:41 AM.
