Can someone come up with a way to frame this? That can fit in a 170 character tweet? That passes a focus group?
As a starting point, unpacking, de-constructing, and analyzing the contents of the articles may be helpful.
Beginning with the headline for the 1st of the 3 articles, "
America's gifted education programs have a race problem. Can it be fixed? White children and those from wealthy families are more likely to be identified as "gifted" — despite decades of effort to make these programs more equal."
1) "
America's gifted education programs have a race problem."
The article seems to explain that it is considered to be a problem if the proportion of students of each race/ethnicity identified as gifted and/or in a gifted program and/or receiving gifted services does not match the overall proportion of students of that race/ethnicity in the population.
Is this a sound premise?
- Does this meet the needs of the individual child, for learning in the zone of proximal development, and for intellectual peers?
- Do sports teams, at the school level, the professional level, the elite level of the Olympics choose their members based on quotas for race/ethnicity? Or for characteristics related to aptitude, ability, potential, performance, such as height, speed, condition, health screening?
- I will suggest that it is obvious that the quota-based approach meets neither the needs of the individual nor the team. Imposing/accepting a quota system signals a societal change from valuing the individual as self-determining, to valuing casting the government in the role of decision-maker, placing the government in control of capping the academic/intellectual growth of students from "over-represented" racial/ethnic groups.
2) "
Can it be fixed?"
I will suggest that gifted education can be fixed by valuing meeting the needs of the pupil, for both challenge-level curriculum in their zone of proximal development, and academic/intellectual peers. Measure continued growth.
3) "
White children and those from wealthy families are more likely to be identified as "gifted" — despite decades of effort to make these programs more equal."
This statement bundles and/or conflates race/ethnicity with social-economic-status (SES).
From paragraph 5 -
"
...an IQ test children take as young as 4, that experts say keep gifted education out of reach for kids who need it."
It is my understanding that identification is most accurate and effective if it utilizes several measures. That said, if an IQ test is keeping kids out of a gifted program, it seems obvious that either the child does not need or would not benefit from the program OR the identification criteria should be changed so that children who need and/or would benefit from the program are admitted.
From paragraph 3 -
"
Unlike at Olmsted, the highest-scoring elementary school in the city, students at Eve scored around the dismal city average in math and English in 2019, when fewer than a quarter of students passed state tests."
One might expect that if the needs of the individual students were being met at Eve, with students being regarded as self-determining and taught at a challenge level in their zone of proximal development, then the student performance scores would improve both individually and as a group.
I will read further and continue to reflect on the linked articles, as time allows. Meanwhile, I hope more will post their thoughts! In unpacking and analyzing the article's various statements, I am seeking to separate fact from fiction, point out inconsistencies, assumptions, and biases presented by the article's author. Essentially, unfounded statements which we have all been conditioned to accept.
