Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Seattle Public Schools to end "tracking"

Agreed. Until recently, even distribution of students in public school classrooms was said to be fair to the public school teachers who were rated/evaluated in part on a comparison with other teachers, of overall classroom achievement test scores.

Therefore to be "fair to teachers", if 20 students were to be distributed among 4 teachers, one might anticipate the pupils to be distributed this way (by inbound ranking of the pupils' achievement test scores):
Teacher W is assigned pupils 1 & 20, 5 & 16, 9
Teacher X is assigned pupils 2 & 19, 6 & 15, 10
Teacher Y is assigned pupils 3 & 18, 7 & 14, 11
Teacher Z is assigned pupils 4 & 17, 8 & 13, 12
working through the highest and lowest student rankings toward the middle.

More recently, public school teachers are not only rated/ranked/evaluated on overall classroom scores, but by scores by demographic... specifically by closing the achievement gap and/or excellence gap. This entails stagnating the top students so that the lower students are making comparatively greater gains.

I find this practice to be unconscionable. Again, I'll contrast the current "equal outcomes" educational goals of American public schools with the acknowledgement of exceptional athletic talent... and the need to nurture it... which we see at the Olympics.

And an additional twist is teacher evaluations that are based on student growth percentiles, which encourage teachers to minimize both high achievers--who have no headroom in the assessments left for growth, and low achievers--who often struggle to make gains, and focus instead on marginally low achievers, who have the most potential for ordinal advancement.

Well said Tigerle and Indigo. I've always said if I had a choice, I would rather have a kid who is gifted in athletics but with average intelligence than the other way around, my life would be soooo much easier then! I think this societal preference for brawn over brain comes from the top down, starting with our elite colleges that give athletes a 5 to 1 preference over a regular high IQ admit.

I would agree that, assuming the population is not 99.9(or more) white, it would seem likely that some gifted children of color are being missed in the selection process or that parents for some reason are choosing not to send them there. I'd be looking at what could be done re: those factors before I shut down a program that was otherwise successful. If teacher recommendations are part of the criteria, for example, then racial bias might be at play in who the teachers think is likely to be gifted.

Another school district ended "gifted and talented" program

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-bcps-gifted-20160810-story.html

Depressing. I think the end result here is more and more parents of gifted children will opt out and homeschool, especially at the K-8 level. Homeschoolers have so many more tools at their disposal now with the advent of the internet. We homeschooled for a couple of years and I could not believe the number of families in our area who homeschool, in a district that constantly touts its "award winning" schools. Many are children of highly educated professionals in the STEM field. Public schools will increasingly become the domain of the average and below average.

I agree. People who know there are vast differences in how individual children learn and what can happen when learning is then matched to those specific children, who have the means (and family setup) to homeschool are doing so. I see that building into a group of highly capable children, later adults, who have every advantage vs. those who got the vanilla version of education.

It's not good from a societal standpoint, imo.

We still have the gifted program in our school district. I heard good things about it but not sure if it is even accelerated enough for my DYS7. Since the gifted program won't start until 3rd grade and I have not been able to successfully advocating for subject acceleration with the district (in-class differentiation did not work for 1st grade), we are hiring a tutor and going to weekend gifted programs at NU CTD. We cannot afford homeschool so this is our current solution. We are fortunate that we are able to do these extra things but think about the families who cannot afford to pay for outside help

Homeschooling is not a status symbol of wealth. Some people make huge sacrifices to homeschool, in some cases this may include schooling during evening hours and on weekends, cooperatively "babysitting" other families' children, etc.

Meanwhile these people continue to fund the "vanilla version of education" which is provided free, from kindergarten through high school graduation (12th grade), through public schools in the USA.

Families with children attending private, independent, or parochial schools also continue to pay for public schools.

If you mean that allowing people to leave public schools in order to homeschool is not good for society, I strongly disagree. Keeping homeschooling as a legal option in the USA is key. Homeschooling demonstrates that children can learn well and be successful, often without having their lessons orchestrated by a highly credentialed professional. Homeschooling often raises the bar, as do private, independent, and parochial schools. If government had the monopoly on education, by eliminating other alternatives to public schools, this would considerably restrict freedom, strike at the the role of the family as the key building block of society, challenge the authority of parents, and restrain intellectual curiosity (by making "plain vanilla" the only educational option).

Many without financial wealth may still possess an indomitable spirit. There is always the public library, free local in-person events and workshops, and many free or reasonably priced online options which can be cobbled together for great educational experiences.