Hello. Yes, my son took Naglieri and had marginal results, despite having tested HG on WISC IV less than two years prior. I had my son privately tested (WISC IV) at age 6yr8mos. He was at a private, somewhat alternative, school at the time and not in the public school system and his teachers/admin were the ones advocating him to skip 1st grade, so I wanted test results before doing that (he was a late July birthday and I held him back, and I should not have!). He skipped 1st, went on to excel in 2nd and 3rd grade with ease.
I was going to transfer him to the local public school for 4th grade (his private school only went up to 3rd). The school district allowed him to sit for its gifted testing, which is Naglieri only, and as I mentioned, he score was marginal (like 70's). He did not seem confused, tricked, stressed, etc. I discussed this with the WISC test administrator (well known, highly respected) and he suggested I advocate and provide the WISC results...truly believed that individual results on an indepth test were more reliable than a 30 minute group Naglieri test. I discussed with the school and bottom line, it would have been an uphill battle to get the school to consider outside results. I should comment that my school district is very small, well funded, and very highly rated, but it does not put resources into GATE. In fact, the consistent feedback I got from administrators when my older DD attended our public middle school for 2 years was 'our regular curriculum and standards are so high there is no need for GATE. GATE is no different'. To me, that Naglieri is the only test administered to determine giftedness, represents how much the district 'believes' in GATE...the answer is, not much. Naglieri is cheap and easy to administer, and I believe that's why it is used. In fact, our district only tests the students whose parents request their child sit for it...is that the case in your district ? This is different than my old district, where Naglieri is used as a general screening tool for the entire population, i.e. Naglieri test is given to all students for gifted screening purposes in 1st grade and again in 5th grade. And if a student did not score above the cutoff to qualify for 'round 2' testing, which was the OLSAT, the parent and teacher could still request the 2nd round testing. Of note, My oldest DD only scored 90 when she took the Naglieri in our old district, but based on teacher recommendation went on to take OLSAT and scored very high. She was re-tested a few years later here by a private test administrator in CA (WISC IV) with results of borderline HG/EG on that as well. Clearly, the Naglieri result was not indicative of her ability. That our prior district had a system for 2nd round testing for those who did not meet cutoff for Naglieri suggests to me that not all school districts consider it inherently the 'best tool' for identifying giftedness. In fact, no one was placed in a gifted program based on Naglieri alone, in our old district. It was a screening test- that's it.
So, there you have it - two stories where I'd say Naglieri results were completely off base compared to individual results.
End result: I decided not to do battle with our elementary school to get my son into GATE for 4th and 5th, knowing that our middle school is not where he would attend thereafter. I sucked it up and sent my son to a private school with IB curriculum for 4th grade instead. He did extremely well and his teacher provided him many options for accelerated material, as it was obvious that he needed it. It is frustrating (and expensive) to opt out of our public school system but I knew I would be spinning my wheels.
If you are comfortable doing so, please PM me your school district...I am in SoCal and would be interested to know if we are in the same district. I hold out hope that I can send my son to our HS some day, though my oldest DD ended up going to a private school out of town to better meet her needs. Good luck.
