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!
I agree. Outrageous. And the kids are the ones who will ultimately be harmed, though I'm sure the parents believe they're protecting them.
I disagree. If the cutoff for a gifted program is 130, and if the regular public schools have students with average IQ of 90, with no ability grouping, I'd rather have my 110 IQ child in the gifted program than in regular classes.
Bright Kids NYC operates in the open, so I assume that it is not releasing proprietary information about IQ tests.
By the same token, if the average is 100, and the gifted program has a cutoff of 130; I'd rather NOT have my child (IQ 140) stuck in a class with a number of children of IQ 115, whose parents argue that a 130 cutoff "suits" their kids' needs better than instruction aimed at IQ 100 peers.
It does impact the quality and substance of gifted programming to admit children who don't really meet the underlying criteria.
Understandable, certainly. But still deplorable in a larger sense; self-serving.
How upset would other parents be if I
insisted that my child ought to ride on the SpEd bus because it is "nicer" and a "more direct" pick-up and drop-off than the standard bus? What if I doctor-shopped until I found one that was willing to back me? Makes the route longer for the other kids on it, for sure... and maybe takes a seat from someone else. Not good. The difference is that parents are not, by and large,
clamoring to get their kids on the small, air-conditioned bus.
