Has anyone tried to fix their public school from the inside?

Did you try being on the Board?

Talking to the Superintendent?

Speaking with the school principals?

We are trying to figure out how to fix the public school problems in our District.

Do they run top down? Bottom up?

There are so many people employed, who do we start with to strengthen our District?

Thanks for any ideas / thoughts. Appreciate your time.

I don't think it is possible.

In NYC, it is bottom up. Parents do amazing fundraising. Now that we are in Toronto, in a similar gifted/gen ed combo school, I felt like she was in private school in NYC.

But there was $700 raised per student each year, plus grants to add a computer room, or redo the library.

The money paid for Spanish teacher, a really good music room and teacher, chess teacher, technology, computer teacher. But if you don't have organized parents, it doesn't happen.

I don't know but I'm trying from both ends. I've tried from the bottom talking to the school with limited success. Now I'm on our board's Special Education Advisory Committee to try from the top. I've been told by my predecessor that she quit because she felt she couldn't make a difference but I have to give it a shot. Hopefully something will make a difference.

I think that very much depends on what you're trying to "fix"
If you're talking about "fixing" gifted education, you really can't fix it until there is a working knowledge of the topic among those who have the power to make decisions I've found, so perhaps the best way to start and continue a gifted education fix is with a push for administration to understand the issues, best practice, and differences involved with gifted education. It's my opinion that until that's in place, you'll continue to bang your head on the table.

I think we should learn from -

http://basisschools.org/national-rankings

BASIS Charter Schools educate students at an internationally competitive level, with BASIS students ready to compete with their top-performing peers in Finland, Korea, or China. BASIS Tucson North and BASIS Scottsdale fifteen-year-old students proved this in their 2012 results on the OECD Test For Schools. These results place the BASIS Model above the acclaimed Finnish and Korean education systems, and on par with Shanghai, the world’s best.

My interested is piqued !

Yes!!!! I was talking to a friend who knows all about DS and who is a teacher in our board at the school that used to host the gifted pull out. I mentioned I was joining the SEAC and her first reaction was "I always thought it was odd that gifted fell under spec ed since the other groups have way bigger issues to deal with.". I muttered a stat about gifted kids having high drop out rates and that was all I managed to get out. I wasn't expecting that from her at all.

Yes. A lot of the academic enrichment programs in our school are run by parents. But this doesn't change what happens in the classrooms and doesn't change the "mainstream" thinking of the teachers. Maybe in the long run it will bring about changes. But for now it appears like band-aids.

You first must convince administration and teachers that change is needed or nothing will improve / change. In order to convince them change / improvement is needed, you need to educate them and it's not likely that it's going to be YOU that educates them, it's likely going to be someone with academic credentials. If there is a parent group, I'd suggest bringing in a key note speaker and arranging multiple sessions during multiple staff enrichment days as a start in the right direction.

I agree with this.

Money is money is money. Changes in mindset are priceless.

DS's K teacher this year was mentored by a teacher who specialized in gifted ed. Boy, does it ever show.

That was then.
- Local control of schools via elected school boards.
- Schools perceived they were serving their local population.
- Organized parent groups had influence via providing fundraising, volunteer hours.
- Individual parents had influence via endowment of foundations, scholarships, programs.

This is now.
- Local school boards may listen to the school board associations rather than to local parents.
- Schools perceive they are serving the higher levels of government and vying for greater shares of our tax dollars; National school ranking systems have changed evaluation criteria to closing the achievement gap and closing the excellence gap.
- Extensive student databases reveal demographics including ethnicity and SES of students along with student performance.
- FERPA has been reinterpreted to provide broad access to student data; Student data is collected from birth through college and into the workforce; It is a longitudinal study. For those interested in further information, here are a few possible resources to explore: The Dawning Database: Does the Common Core Lead to National Data Collection?, infographic here. The U.S. Department of Education's factsheet on "Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems", dated July 2009, and available online at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html, may also be of interest. (also archived on the WayBack Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20210809095250/https://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html )
- How well a student does in school is considered to be reflective of how well served the student was in the public school system, as determined by demographic statistic.
- Meanwhile parents of gifted students, as a whole, do not attest to their children being well-served with appropriate challenge in curriculum and pacing; rather parents tend to share stories in which gifted students, required to continuously review material learned years ago (so they do not advance and maintain a persistent achievement gap), develop poor coping mechanisms such as hiding their gifts/talents, underachievement, anxiety, perfectionism, fixed mindset, dropping out... to which the public school system has largely responded by pathologizing the gifted as a whole.

The antidote?
- Remembering that students are individuals, not demographic statistics.
- The aim of "schooling" should be a personally meaningful education for individuals, not the contrivance of statistics.

In the interests of closing achievement gap, our school district specifically forbid using fundraising to hire additional teachers. And the county board of education is considered a stepping stone to a more important political position. It is very hard to change anything in a big school district like ours.

IMHO, it's not possible. I've been at it for over 20 years. When I was in high school, our district had some serious issues (in addition to the issues that most public schools today face). I happened to be a student leader at the time who was particularly invested in the particular issue of the moment. I had endless meetings with parents, administrators, students. Nothing progressed ever. I remember thinking at the time that the reason that there was no progress was that I was just a kid and I just didn't have the experience and maturity to move things along.

After I graduated from college, I began working in public schools. I found myself still motivated to work on "making change" in public schools. Endless meetings, promises, organizing. Nothing. Eventually I left public schools for private schools and hospital work.

Recently I found myself back working "with" public schools for change, as my son's advocate. I can tell you that nothing has changed in over 20 years. My opinion: the individual systems found in public schools are too large and political, the quality of teachers has plummeted (this is probably the biggest problem), the legislation over the past 20 years has been stifling and, with regard to gifted ed, the continuing anti-intellectualism all work together to produce the mess that exists. I think that there are tiny little pockets of effective schools and teachers out there. But they are extremely rare.

I think the situation is hopeless, which I find to be sad.

Sorry, but the biggest educational changes are coming from outside the public/private schools. How many former teachers or those formerly associated with public/private education are un/homeschooling today?

I briefly taught at public high school about 15 yrs ago. I left because the institution/administration/public policy makers do not allow change from within. They were hostile to it. It was all teaching to the test and no differentiation whatsoever.

As a parent of a 2e kid, I didn't find the situation terribly different with two gifted schools either, unfortunately. Sad really.

If I really knew the answer to this, I feel like I'd be making a lot more money.

However, I think you have to start with education. Administrators, teachers, specialists, EVERYONE needs to learn the basics for gifted education, including...
- How to recognize giftedness - with the understanding that all gifted kids are different, and some may not be easy to recognize.
- Understand the statistics on giftedness, with respect to level of giftedness. (This has to be spelled out, as in "Statistically speaking, you will probably only see ____ highly gifted kids in a 20 year career.")
- The challenges gifted kids face in the classroom. I think it helps to present this information with case studies to showcase the range of issues students face and how this may present in different ways (including 2E kids).
- Various effective methods for helping gifted kids in the system - subject or grade acceleration, in-class differentiation, cluster grouping, etc. This should be presented with successful and unsuccessful case studies to help schools understand the complexities of each method. Also present various effective methods of differentiation so teachers can choose methods that will work best for both themselves and their students.
- The idea that each student deserves to make roughly one year of progress in each subject every year!

How do you spread these ideas? I'd like to think that undergraduate and graduate education programs would step up, but even if they did, current faculty need to be given this information too. One idea I'd suggest is contacting professionals that deal with giftedness and see if they would be willing to provide some in school professional development for the faculty (make it really easy for the teachers to attend). Realize that you might have to raise money for this, but most states require quite a bit of PD (our state requires 60 hrs/year!), so teachers are often very happy for the help in meeting this requirement.

Honestly, it's a big shift in thinking & will probably take a long time. I'm not sure that such a big change can occur before our children are out of the system. Wish I had a magic answer! But if I did, I can assure you that you'd already know it, because I'd be shouting it from every mountaintop I could find!

I don't think we're wise to lump all public schools into one unchangeable sum. Each school is different because it has different staff. I think in some public schools change can be made, however, the majority of the time one is going to be disappointed if they think that they can affect major change in time for their own child to reap the benefits. It's a long process and you'd best be dedicated to the effort for the long haul.

Yes-- the advocacy that I do with my daughter's school falls into one of two categories:

1. stopgap measures that maintain "least worst" for her, and make things tolerable-- it's all just putting out one fire after another though, and


2. patient, long-term education and persuasion. I have lost any illusions I might have once held that this will ever matter to my own child while she is IN school, however.


On point two, I hold on to one point of pride and one only: in a system of 40K+ kids, it is now routine to evaluate students like my DD for eligibility under section 504. We did that. It took five years, and a lot of occasionally tense phone conferences while I led them using resources from all over, LOADS of time writing and documenting and wordsmithing communications, but they are light years ahead of where they were nine years ago. They are also seeing (nationally) why it is better for THEM, as well-- and I call that a win.

Would that I'd had such success on the GT front. Sadly, no. The stonewalling there is that my DD is too unusual to be a test case of anything, and that most of her needs are out of bounds even for highly capable/high potential students. I tried. {shrug}

The alternative is to own the system.

At a minimum, you will need to be a principal or have a majority of the school board, of which you are preferably the president, on your side.

I know a woman, a bit of a legend around these parts, who's been actively advocating for GT education for decades -- to the point of bringing a lawsuit against the district for not following state law in terms of gifted education (the district lost, but is still out of compliance -- over a decade later).

She started advocating when her children were grade school students within the scope of their school... her grandchildren are completing their schooling and she's still advocating, now at the state level. There has been positive change due to her advocacy, but not nearly enough compared to the massive effort she has put into it (in my opinion).

It first came to me back when we were trying to get DD (then 7) a grade skip. The principal was in favor (or so she said) but the district pushed back sharply against it. They did offer that she would be designated as TAG though.

"Do you have a pull-out program?" I asked the principal.

"No, but you could volunteer to run one!" She sounded like she was granting me a big favor and I suddenly realized that, from the school's point of view, DH and I were going to be solely responsible for our DDs education. That if we didn't get her what she needed ourselves, it wasn't going to happen.

In a way, I'm glad we had this rude awakening early, because it allowed us to be more aggressive in getting her what she needed and not waiting for change to happen. Otherwise she might be languishing in public 5th grade, bored and underachieving at school and stressed and acting out at home, while we endlessly attempted to work with the school trying to get any kind of accommodation.

I do still advocate on the state level, providing written testimony on the importance of GT education, making calls to education committee members, and passing along relevant research when education funding bills are discussed. But I'm not doing it for DD, I'm doing it for all the other kids.

BTW, we have several "boutique schools" here in town that I know of, started by parents as unaccredited private schools specifically to serve the needs of their own kids (and open to other children with similar profiles). For these parents, creating a system that they own must have seemed like the best available solution.

You'd still have to fight the parents and the state and federal governments.

I think Ivy summed it up nicely. I'll work towards change, but I won't sacrifice my children to an ideal which at this point doesn't exist.

Well-stated, Tallulah.

Not really.

You just ignore them and do what you feel like doing.

Until they fire/sue you.

More people inside the system than you'd imagine have good hearts and understand children and want to do right by them but are restrained by the system. It kills them, but you can only bend the rules so far.

I've known two people who ran school boards that way. They got a lot done (it probably helped that they were both very smart, with one having an IQ of 160). The first one started a meaningful gifted program for HG+ kids, and the second one had the school system running at a surplus pretty quickly. Everything fell apart almost immediately after they left. Two years after number two was gone, they begged him to come back to fix the enormous deficit they'd already racked up. He had been paying attention to what they were doing and was disgusted. He told me there was no point if the other people from his tenure weren't there, too, which was not going to happen. Thus, there was no point to going back alone and then being blamed for what would have been continued decay. He was right.

Thinking about this just makes me feel so jaded and exhausted, knowing what little we've been able to accomplish here, and knowing how much time and energy I've put into trying.

But now you understand the magic of human group bureaucratic dynamics!

That was hard won knowledge!

Or hard-taught behavior anyway. I am on an Edu-committee. During meetings, most people adopt what I call "committee voice," which is a particular tone of voice and way of speaking that people use when in meetings. Everything is very neutral, and it's critically important to focus on paradigms related to planning and maximizing our impact. Sorry, we can't talk about those code violations; they aren't part of today's agenda, though we can certainly form a sub-committee to investigate your suggestion that they're serious. Dan? Can you look into that?

This approach pretty much guarantees that nothing meaningful will ever be accomplished by the committee. The troublemakers never use that tone. It's how the others can identify them as such in order to marginalize them and then blame them when OSHA starts imposing fines for code violations. But the troublemakers use their confrontational speech habits to secretly identify each other as the ones to talk to after the meeting in order to figure out a way to get stuff done behind the backs of the other ones. Thus, they avoid problems with OSHA (and of course, any credit therefore, but troublemakers aren't usually terribly competitive in the committee environment, anyway).

Our region has full-time self-contained gifted-only classes for the top 3% of students, but these gifted programs are always contained within certain regular schools.

Our region also has high levels of crime and poverty.

The gifted programs are generally placed in schools in dangerous areas.

This is a deal-breaker for us and we don't participate. We don't wish to place our children in harm's way, and we don't appreciate gifted children being used as pawns in various statistical and political games. Many others feel the same way, and participation in gifted programs is much lower than it would have been if the programs were located in nicer areas.

We don't feel the need to "get in there" and try to change things. The education system (and much else around here) is a basket case. It's a lost cause. Nevertheless our non-participation (along with many others) definitely sends a message.

Perhaps, of all the things I've read on this forum over the last couple of years, the message that seems common in this thread is the one that those in education need to be aware of most, that the majority of those with gifted children find the current system and efforts by that system so very inadequate that they've given up on it doing much of anything meaningful in their child's time in that school system. That speaks volumes.

Yes, it does. But a quick look at any state reveals that this is not just the opinion of those posting here-- it's a legal/legislative reality most places. Parents who have a wide social justice streak themselves will try to do something about it-- but after they have seen the inside of a local school for a few years (about 2nd to 4th grade) they realize that they cannot change things in enough time for it to matter to their own kids.

Some fight ONLY for their own kids' needs at that point, and others separate the two strands in their approach, and cease using their own children's educations as the reason for advocacy, whilst still fighting to get their own kids' neesd met using any means possible and pragmatic.

The latter approach can be rather freeing, I must say. It allows you to widen your scope as an advocate, and also to make compromises and make decisions as a parent that you wouldn't want to do as an advocate. To get what your own kids need often seems to require some tactics that I find distasteful as an advocate-- it often feels like throwing others under the bus when you make backroom "special" arrangements that you agree to keep to yourself (or everyone will know and ask for the same)...

But yes-- speaks volumes. Absolutely.

There are people who support better education for the gifted and who shudder at the term "social justice". From the Wikipedia page of Friedrich von Hayek:

Or that we can't change anything at all in a meaningful, long-term way.

When I first found this forum, my kids were very young and I was full of enthusiasm for trying to improve some of the problems in the school system. Back then, I was sad to see older members saying precisely what HK just wrote.

Nearly seven years later, I've realized that they were right. There's nothing we can do as individuals or even as small groups because the schools aren't interested. I've tried multiple ways of approaching this challenge, and nothing really works. I've tried volunteering, committee time, advocacy about individual kids (from gentle and obliging to aggressively assertive), and grant review. I've tried suggesting (twice) to the people who run a struggling private school that there's a niche waiting to be filled in serving gifties, and they didn't even respond to my emails. Years ago, a school said that my son could do fifth-grade math when he'd finished his second-grade work, but then his teacher got him to tutor other kids instead. I've interviewed principals who've told me, "I've never allowed a grade skip in 20 years here, and I never will." Etc. and depressing etc.

The only real solution is to find a school that gets it. Unfortunately, they're rare. Even in Silicon Valley, the high-performing schools are organized around high achievers. A school I used to think of as being like Davidson Academy in Silicon Valley shut down. We're still getting over that three years later.

Back in the 80s, parents of disabled kids had a lot of success by banding together and complaining very loudly. I remember attending a meeting for the local "gifted program" and realizing that they were giving all the money for gifted kids to special ed. The parents at that meeting were, literally, yelling "What are you going to do for my kid?!? He can't read!!!" at the school board. Those board members were sweating bullets, and those parents forced them to make changes. They certainly didn't do it because it was the right thing to do. This won't happen with gifted kids until the same thing happens or unless there's another Sputnik-level event that forces the hand of the government.

This is what you get when you put mediocre types in charge of something so important.

A lot of this discussion depends fundamentally on where you live.

IF you live in a state that recognizes giftedness and provides funding, then you're got some leverage or ability to shift public policy.

IF you live in a state that does not recognize giftedness and provides zero funding, then the steps to get any accommodation through the state level is fraught and often comes to naught. That's the harsh reality. So what do you do? It's awfully difficult to change public policy with a wall.

Even in a state, such as MA, that doesn't recognize giftedness or provide funding in terms of giftedness, there are some towns or schools that do on a limited basis. What often happens is that the parents end up moving to those school districts so they can get something rather than nothing and affect the local schools that make those modest accommodations.

"They sentenced us to 20 years of boredom, trying to change the system from within ....First we take Paris, the we take Berlin". It is hard to change systems from within because to do well enough to progress within you have to fit with the system." People who haven't developed the "right? Mindset don"t get into positions to make meaningful change.

You can get operation changes by agitating from the bottom up but the progress you have made will disappear with a change of management.

Unfortunately I was jaded from banging my head against walls before I had kids. I know I should fight (my social justice radar is pinging) but I just do not have the energy.

Piggybacking on what Val writes above-- I think (and I say this as an advocate on two issues, only one of which is GT ed)-- I think that the problem is that WHILE our kids are in the system, there is a limit to how much human capital we are willing/able to burn on aggressive advocacy.

There has to be. It's pragmatic. If you push TOO hard, you will lose the day-to-day goodwill that softens the edges of the letter of obligations/agreements. In other words, you risk alienating a classroom teacher or school principal to the point that they will ONLY do what they are obliged to do on paper.

On the other hand, if you no longer have a child in the system you're trying to change, it means one of two things:

1. You've spent a decade or so battling to get your child's needs met... day... after... grinding... day, or

2. You've given up and removed your child from that system in favor of another schooling arrangement, often with significant financial or temporal consequences-- or both-- and probably with significant cynicism or bitterness attached.

Neither outcome is very conducive to effective, ongoing, or assertive advocacy for change.

It's a rare individual parent who is willing and able to continue to be a forceful advocate under either condition.

I'm glad I'm in a state that gets it on paper and in a school district that follows the spirit of the state's expressed intent. But even if the state, the district, and the principal get it, we still have to dice with teachers each year.

It does seem that people rarely show up here when everything's roses.

We've not even tried the public schools yet (three different private ones, with one relocation between K and 1st). I called our local school, heard they didn't really do anything until 3rd grade and didn't bother visiting. We need to go visit now that DS is going to be in third grade next year, but honestly, I don't know that with a PG kid, it's going to be worth the effort to even do that until we get closer to middle school.

We are in a state that has legislation and some funding. Raising these children and working takes all the energy we have... although I entertain fantasies about advocacy (beyond our own situation) someday.

I agree with your thought pattern HowlerKarma and also have walked that dangerous line of alienating teachers and administration where my sons go to / have gone to school attempting to advocate and make change. Unfortunately, we're open enrolled and I can't even run for the school board. When finally after decades they put together a parent advisory board for the GT program, they excluded any parent who knew their arse from a hot rock on the subject matter to be on the committee. They weren't stupid, they wanted sheep and that's what they got.

I think separating long term advocacy and doing what's best for my own children is the direction I've learned to take as well. I have the feeling I'll actually be able to do MORE when my kids are through the system than I am now.

Very true. On the other hand, while your kid's in the system, you have every reason to strive for change.

We have seen locally that pushing for a change because of one child's needs can also bring about administrative changes that will help a lot of children. Our family usually rides that line HK describes, and it is not a piece of cake, but I persist in thinking it's still possible. Ask me in a couple of years whether it worked.

For the most part, it seems to me that what a system needs is a strong leader who then has to take the time necessary and the persistence to make change.

Three years ago, I arranged for the principal at my son's school, the curriculum assistant superintendent and some other teachers and parents to visit a neighboring school district to observe a highly gifted program there. My DS had just done a mid year skip into second grade and I was hoping they would offer the program in our district in the 3rd grade. He is now in the 5th grade and attends that neighboring district's program.

Two weeks ago, my son's former principal who now works for the district presented the districts plan for gifted education - it contains an elementary and middle school self contained program - initially starting elementary in 2014-2015 with expansion to middle in 2015-2016. While it is 3 years too late for us for elementary school, I am excited about the opportunities for other kids and my own in a few years. I like to think that some of those efforts 3 years ago planted the seed for some of the change.

Our district also went through creating a strategic plan and got a huge Race to the Top grant which has really created a change mindset - a mindset that seems at least at the higher levels to recognize that we have to serve all types of kids.

Anyway, it did not happen quickly but I do see some change over time in our district. My son will be coming back here for middle school - oh and I will start serving on the school board in January. I filed to run and no one opposed me.

Tonight, I am just hoping that for the last part of this year, the teachers all just really want to teach.

I am sensing some sort of 'movement' in which there are people assigned to teach, but their definition of teaching is so different from ours. We actually want our child to know things.

It seems as if the emphasis is on everything except the attainment of knowledge. We still think actual knowledge is helpful, useful, necessary.

Yes, admin., testing, skills training, team building, etc., is wonderful, but we also want the teachers to want to teach, to be passionate about teaching and to actually be teaching.

We are hoping that what we have experienced is just part of elementary school with an all inclusive, no child left behind legal mandate.

We are hoping to move on from this stage eventually and get to the knowledge attainment level for our student.

Can anyone else relate?

Well said.

Congrats. Keep that advocacy spirit alive and many will benefit.