Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Too Many Geniuses or Not Enough?

I thought this article was interesting.
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/gifted-and-talented-2013-7/

We are in Ohio and not in one of the big three metropolitan areas, so we have the opposite problem. Yes, we have pervasive redshirting, grade inflation, empty platitudes about the importance of academics and education, and the widespread belief that everyone’s child is gifted. By the same token, anti-intellectualism is very strong here.

Although gifted programming is scant, there isn’t much competition for those programs that do exist. For example, my cousin told me that her son’s school in a neighboring district wanted to test him for giftedness. She was hesitant to have him take the tests. She said she would rather he “be the smartest kid in the dumb class rather than be the dumbest kid in the smart class.” I advised her to have him tested and convinced to do so. She was relieved that he didn’t qualify for the gifted program and said she wouldn’t have enrolled him even if he did qualify. In districts like ours, students aren’t even screened unless a parent requests it or a teacher recommends it. Needless to say, there are very few students identified as gifted in the district. This reinforces the idea that gifted services should not be restored in our district despite the recent levy passage because there is no demand.

Whether the problem is too many “geniuses” or not enough, gifted kids are denied access to programs they need and deserve.

I guess there is an upside to me only worrying about whether DS4.10 will be in an am or pm Kindergarten class, since there's no gifted class here! Glad to NOT live in New York!

Oh dear. Well, at least we know now why things are such a mess in New York.


And there's more after this little gem! Click ohmathmom's link for more exciting insanity!

Wren, if you're reading this, you must be so glad you left.

There is a bit of chicanery in the reporting of those numbers. They are meaningless without reporting what percentage of total kindergarteners took the tests.

P.S. Found a reference that says 13600 of the incoming 66000 kids took the test. So about 20%. 20% of 20% is 4% and 40% of 20% is 8%.

The real concern should then be the number of seats available that completely defy their set standards. And please, 3% = genius?

I don't think that the author understands the statistics he is quoting. My understanding is that the families who chose to take the gifted exam are self selected--meaning that not everyone takes it. So right there you're essentially eliminating the left side of the curve. That together with the probability that the smarter a family is, the more likely they are to be motivated to do the testing. So you have fewer kids of average intelligence than you would if everyone with an IQ >100 took the test.

I wouldn't surprise me if self selection was the major contributor to the seeming over-representation of kids at the 90th percentile and above. Hot housing just completes the picture.

Okay, that's a really good point. I thought they all had to take it as part of entering kindergarten or something. My mistake!

Something has to be off in these numbers. Typo? 66,000 is a larger number than 13,600, so I can't imagine that 66,000 kids took the test if there were only 13,600 incoming students. I thought that maybe you left a zero off of the 13,600 number, but even if it is 136,000, 20% of that wouldn't come out to 66,000.

I do also think that there is a lot of studying to the test in NYC to the point that even 50th percentile IQ kids can come out in the top 3-10% on national tests, so even if the whole left side of the curve is lopped off (they didn't test), the remaining 50%, say, of kids (those who are average all the way up to HG+), aren't well distinguished. I don't doubt that a young child who is average or slightly above can appear gifted with significant teaching to the test such as with services like this: http://www.brightkidsnyc.com/test-prep/pre-k-1st-grade/erbwppsi-iv/ that are rampant in NYC.

Hi Cricket, as I understood it there were 66000 kids and 13600 of those 66K took the test rather than the other way around (based on the earlier post at least, I haven't read the article though so I could be wrong!)

I think there is a percentile confusion again. But if less than a quarter of the kids take the test it is reasonable to assume that only those who think their kids ar gifted would take the test. While there will be some that are hot housing or deluded there is a good chance that most will be at least 1 SD above the mean so a high number meeting the standard is fair.

I think they should put the scores in order and offer places to the top scorers. I don't get the lottery idea although it has been used here too.

Ack! I clicked through Cricket2's link. Sheesh! WPPSI and WISC prep materials? That's just wrong. With the stakes so high, I guess I get why people do it, but YUCK! I would be steamed if that affected my kid. They are cheating!