Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion % of kids being gifted

I attended a GT information session in my school district recently and was told that my local school is considered a "center" offering complete curriculum to serve gifted students. I was then told that anywhere from 20% to 35% of the kids in the school have qualified and are receiving these services. This seems insane and pointless to me. Is there anyone this is possible? Even in my highly educated affluent suburb?

At the 66th percentile, children should be about 15 IQ above the average. They may be starting there. You would then get your 35%. Ruf thinks that in communities where the parents are generally of above average intelligence, the children will be, hence a higher percentage than the norm.

Ren

They say that the benchmark score is a 132 on any section of the COGAT and/or NNAT to get you in the pool. Then of that pool only about 60% get in. Our second grade class is about 125 students and the smallest number admitted would be around 25 kids. Is it even statistically possible that 63 or roughly half of all second graders are scoring at or abover these levels?

Ok now for the real confession. My dd is an advanced reader and language whiz. We considered private school last year and had her tested with a WISC IV. Her overall was 131 and her verbal was 138 but when I look at the substests she hit the ceiling on a few in the verbal and in the working memory. Since the GT selection seemed pretty random to me I'm starting to worry that she won't qualify. I don't think she'll thrive with the standard curriculum. Any insight on her scores would be great!

Nope just the WISC. I will post her subtest scores this evening. I know she hit the ceiling on the Vocabulary section of the Verbal.

Okay here are the scores:
Block Design - 13
Similarities - 16
Digit Span - 17
Picture Concepts - 15
Coding - 10
Vocabulary - 18
Letter-Number Sequence - 13
Matrix - 14
Comprehension - 15
Symbol - 12

VCI -138
PR - 121
WM - 129
PS - 106
FSIQ - 131


Let me know what you think.

Thank you for the input. I read some of the Ruf material on levels of giftedness and she fits somewhere in between Level III and Level IV. The school will accept outside data I just fear that GT is used as a reward to active connected parents more than a differentiation of students. Hopefully I'm being overly pessismistic. I have signed her up for the CTY Talent search and we will take the SCAT soon, not sure when. We'll see how the NNAT went, she said it was easy but I'm skeptical :-) Any insight out there on CTY or William & Mary?

Hi Ianfan!

I am one of those volunteer parents at school and both my girls will be in the GT classes. But not because I volunteer, because they both qualify based on test scores.

But, I know what you mean about it seeming that a lot of those parent volunteers have kids in the program. What I've seen as a volunteer is that a lot of those parents actually do have kids that really are very, very smart.

We have pull-out enrichment classes starting in K, but I wouldn't call them "gifted" classes. The real classes don't start til 4th. A lot of parents of very gifted children end up getting involved because the early years can sometimes be rough on gifted kids. They want to be IN the school trying to figure out what the HECK is going on!!!!!!!

Welcome,

Neato

I didn't mean to offend helpful parents. It is just that the district policy is give children who are referred by parents and don't have qualifying test scores the same weight as kids who do have qualifying scores. I know that the tests are not perfect but at least they objective, for the most part. Parents are incapable of being objective.

Well...

Parents who honestly believe their kids are GT are correct much more often than not, I think. I'm not talking about the parents who want their kids in the program, GT or not. I guess there are some of those (though I've never met one). But there are far more parents who think their kids are "maybe a little bright" when they're really quite highly GT!

I'm not sure I buy having ONLY the parent recommendation without any other confirmation. That seems a rather sloppy policy. But I don't know that I buy that parents are incapable of objectively IDing kids as GT or not either.

Not to nitpick. But this is something that people often say as if it's fact, and I don't really buy it. I've seen far more parents of GT kids who are in denial than I've seen of the pushy "stage parents" who want their kids to be GT when they aren't. They're apparently all over the place making parents of truly GT kids look bad, but I've never met one before!

That struck me as very funny!

P.S. We're also in an area with a ridiculously high number of kids IDd as GT. The number apparently changed recently (??? Not sure why...???), and I'm not sure what they're quoting now, but it's still in the neighborhood of 30%, if memory serves.

Granted, it tends to be an affluent area with lots of highly educated parents, but that big a percentage seems pretty nutty to me, too!

Exactly that's really all I'm saying. All I ever hear from administrators is how brilliant all of the kids are. Frankly my response is why not adapt the curriculum rather than label and not label children as gifted. I constantly think that my dd is border line. One of those kids who would do well in a challenging environment but probably doesn't have special education needs. Then I look at the work that comes home and realize that she is light years ahead. The disconnect is staggering. If 30% of our school's children are truly gifted and another 25% test gifted but don't get admitted to the program, then surely this curriculum - 3 letter words on spelling tests in second grade etc etc... - can't be serving anyone very well. But then I tour the halls and from looking at children's work there appear to be plenty of kids who need this level of basic work. This is what led me to believe that the system is becoming watered down and not meaningful. I think my dd is borderline and I shudder to think what is happening to the kids that are way outside the box. How could their needs possibly be served in this system? How can anybody's?

Ianfan.... I certainly wasn't offended! I don't think anyone else was.....I just wanted to offer another perspective.

I agree with everything you're saying here. Just because the administrators tell you how brilliant all the children are, doesn't make it exactly so.

A lot of people come to the board saying that their admistrator, upon receipt of a super high IQ score, such as your DD's, tell the parent: "Not to worry, we have tons of kids like that at our school(pat, pat). We know what we are doing."

And you might find if you start advocating, that you might hear something like this: "Well, there are children here that are even SMARTER than YOUR daughter."
-disclaimer-don't start borrowing trouble, you may never hear this.

It just seems like I've heard so many parents report that they have been told that, I've become convinced it's in some administrator handguide somewhere. Meant to get parents to "simmer down"!

Ianfan, just be careful and make sure you really want to peer behind the curtain. It seems like you are picking up some unfortunate subtleties of the system very quickly(hmmm,,,,wonder where she gets it from?)
You might not love what you see.

Yes that all sounds very familiar. We got that exact script in response to our concerns about reading. She had a bad teacher one year and it was a total disaster which is why I am so paranoid. In general we're happy with the school. My comments on rewards for active parents were not worded very well. My concern is basically this. If 40% of the kids that have qualifying test scores don't get in how is it that many kids get in through parent referrals without the scores. I have heard through the grapevine that if you push your kid will get in but have no first hand knowledge. It just seems like a strange system. If the test scores are worthless, which they may be, why make the kids take them at all? Why not use a different method?

I also know people, many people, who pay for COGAT/NNAT prep testing. So their kids take multiple practice test and receive instruction on how to solve the patterns etc.... The whole thing is just crazy the environment is so competitive. I just want my dd who loves to read and write to have a rewarding school experience and trying to achieve that is like walking through a field of landmines. I came to the board to for input on her test scores as a realty check looking for an objective opinion. Sometimes I worry that I'm getting caught up in the competitive whirl and losing all perspective :-(

Is the GT program good enough to merit all that pushing and prepping?

No one here does any of that because the program simply isn't worth it!

Everyone says it is like a high quality private school education in the public school system. They automatically accelerate math and reading and them compact them through sixth grade so essentially by the end of sixth grade kids are at a high school level. At least that's the idea.

Ditto here. They don't test them until 3rd and then they do nothing for them until they are in 7th. Big waste of time. Of course, the program is hugely underfunded. Our school receives $10 per year per identified gifted student.

We have about 5% gifted in our district (130 or above). About 2% of those (2 of 100 gifted) are highly gifted (145 or above). A town in the northern part of the state where there's a national research lab boasts 30% gifted.

I am in a district where everyone preps and pushes. A little girl in DD's ballet class does 2 ballet classes a week, 2 language classes, plus a bunch of other things, does her "homework" with her older brothers and she is only 4.5.

She even tells her mother she doesn't want the ballet classes, she wants to go to a fun creative movement.

I think it is horrible, but there are mothers who probably think I am horrible with DD's schedule. There are times I feel like if she just got into the gifted school...

There are 200 kids scoring over 99th percentile for 50 spots. It is tough, you want your kid to go there instead of the general education program where they already know how to read and do simple math. What are they going to do for a year or two?

So part of me thinks it is terrible and part of me just wants the opportunity for DD.

I had drinks with a mother of a child in DD's preschool two nights ago. It turns out she went to the gifted school herself. She is mid to late 30s. She went to Tufts and was talking about Ivys and someone in her class and I asked why she didn't apply. She said she was in the middle of the pack. In a a gen ed program she would have been a top student. In the gifted school, she was in the middle of the pack and didn't think she should even apply to Harvard because she clearly wasn't the smartest. Gave pause to consider that.

How do you balance the chance to motivate and challenge your gifted child and yet maintain good self esteem when in a class with all uber bright kids?

Like DH says, he was clearly the smartest, probably in PA at the time, winning all kinds of state awards. Goes to Harvard and finds out there are so many people smarter than him.

Ren

Ren, the environment you describe sounds very intense. It is hard to maintain your balance in the face of such pressure and competition.

I grew up in a very different environment--and I just want to reassure you that going to a regular public school and then on to a non-ivy league college is not the end of the world. It can even be the beginning of a wonderful, fulfilling life.

Your DD has so many things in her favor--she has supportive parents and a lot of talent. Don't lose sight of that There are going to be setbacks somewhere along her path to adulthood and you will all weather them just fine.

Thanks. But you do have to respect what fulfills one. Not to put your own expectations on your child.

And also try and hear your child and give them what they want. Like her push, for a year, for violin. And we thought it was just a 3 year old thing, watching Sesame Street or something. But we go these Philharmonic children's concerts and they can try a small violin after. And she doesn't want to give it up and they tell us that she seems to know how to play it. Give her lessons. After a few times, you think that you are not listening to what your child needs.

So we bought a piano today, she started private lessons and after a year in piano, she can start violin. (Russian method -- the piano lessons first tune the ear, they tell me). I would never have thought I would be heading down this path.

Two months ago, I was sure that I wanted her to go to Hunter. Now I am thinking that for her, the Special Music School may be a better gifted option. Although, I am told the pressure is worse. But is this what she wants?

So I say it from that perspective. I also think it is good not to be the smartest, but have uber bright people around you. I think of it like tennis, you get better if you play with better people. I think it is very easy to get lazy if you can get the best grades, even if you don't show up for school 1/3 of the time. My experience on the last.

Ren