Our district only does cognitive screening on students who score above the 90th or 92nd percentile on math/reading achievement tests. So there could be students who have very high cognitive ability, but they score in the 50th percentile for math/reading because they have not been exposed to any advanced material, and are therefore left out of any gifted ed opportunities. Are they capable of handling advanced material? Probably, but not instantaneously. For the gifted program, a lot of material is just skipped over. DD went from 3rd grade math to 7th grade math and ALL the kids in the program made jumps of at least 1-2 years, so someone who scored in the 50th percentile for math would not do well there at all. I guess it depends on the content of the gifted program. Is the material at grade level but simply enriched? Does it move at a faster pace? Does it involve skipping material? A lot of districts are concerned about the low-average achieving kids not doing well in a gifted program (one that focuses heavily on achievement), and I do think it's a valid point depending on the content of the program. So the low SES kids that are low/average achievers are going to be left out.
