issues with Seattle's gifted program.
Are the needs of the gifted children not being met?
My child attends a gifted-only elementary school that contains 700+ kids, but only two African-American students. His classes are full of kids with affluent and well-educated parents.
Are you suggesting that identification is an issue? For example, does admission criteria not match the program and services offered (advanced curriculum and pacing, etc)? If ethnicity or affluence are any part of admissions criteria,this would be a legal issue, therefore I presume these are not criteria. Would you prefer an "equity"-based admissions system with selection criteria based on racial and SES quotas, set to match the general population at large? Would this tend to serve the needs of the enrolled children as well as the present system?
Other areas of Seattle have elementary schools with few Caucasian or Asian students and almost every kid qualifying for free and reduced price lunch.
Would these children qualify for the gifted program? If so, what are the specific reasons why they are not in it?
when people look at our program, they become angry because it siphons out the kids from general education classrooms.
Making other people happy would not tend to be the stated mission of a gifted program. It's mission would more likely be to provide the education which best meets the needs, readiness, and ability of the students who have enrolled.
Gen ed families aren't happy with being left behind because many of the high achievers and affluent students with involved parents leave to join HCC.
"Left behind" in a program which offers a better academic fit???
If these parents believe that their children would become higher achievers by being 2nd chair to the current high achievers (if they had not left for the gifted program), they may wish to read research which indicates these kids may excel only when the already-high-achievers have moved on, providing these kids opportunity to compete to be 1st chair.
If these parents are concerned that affluent parents have left, possibly they could instead breathe a sigh of relief that their child no longer has to hear about the wealthier kids' vacations, extravagant birthday parties, etc.
If these parents are concerned that "involved" parents have left, possibly they can step up to become more involved.
It takes many families
generations of sacrifice to become financially stable and upwardly mobile. Looking around at what others have achieved, not to be positive and learn from them as role models and emulate them, but to complain and be negative may not serve the children well.
As the Olympics are currently underway in Rio de Janeiro, I can't help but make the comparison between the talent development of "gifted" kids and "elite" athletes.
