Aeh, I see your point. The thing is, though, identifying rare students with exceptional talent requires above-level testing. SAT and ACT score averages reflect high-school-aged students only, given that the test companies don't report scores for students aged <13. I don't think it's possible to infer that 10% or more of 9 year olds have exceptional math talent based in 11th & 12th grade SAT scores. In addition, the SAT and the ACT aren't tests for math talent (at least, certainly not at the high-school-age level). They're tests for college readiness. In other words, they're grade-level tests (really, below grade level, given that they test 9th - 11th grade math concepts).
As for the InView test, my understanding is that it's a group-administered test that doesn't test all cognitive areas. The Hoagies site states that it has a "hard ceiling" of 141, which makes it not very good at discriminating between the really talented ones and the ones who are merely very good (in addition to having only a single section for quantitative reasoning).
The district in question used to administer a group of above level tests to find kids who were exceptionally talented. This approach is also used by CTY at Johns Hopkins and other talent search organizations. In Plainsboro, there were 4 or 5 tests and a whole lot of questions in different areas, and they all focused on above grade-level concepts. The fact that a small percentage of kids passed those tests tells me that the tests were probably doing their job properly.
As for ending a gifted program because lots of program and non-program kids got As in high school, I don't really understand that reasoning. Surely, the purpose of the GT program is to stretch the minds of the students and to expose them to ideas that will help develop their minds, not to ensure that they get the highest grades in high school classes?
Last edited by Val; 01/03/16 07:36 PM.
