Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help requested, scores included, advice needed thx

For the most part - not well But there is very little they can do about it. OTOH, the few parents I've known well enough to hear their true feelings on it were actually happy after they got over being annoyed about it - our district's magnet program is heavy on loading kids up with extra work and is very rigid and structured, whereas our district also has a ton of great charter schools and some very good neighborhood schools and a gifted pull-out program where kids' intellectual and creative talents can be nurtured without weighting the kids down with hours of homework. So, ultimately, the families I know who were "kicked out" of the magnet program were much happier.

Our district has an elementary pull-out program too (96th percentile ability and achievement required), and student's don't have to requalify each year. Once kids enter middle school, there is no more "pull-out" program and honors LA/Math tracks replace the gifted program for all kids except the exceptionally gifted level (> 99th percentile). Entry into the honors program doesn't depend on IQ but on achievement test scores given to all district kids at the end of elementary. The pull-out gifted kids used to be required to requalify based on those, but parents who's kids didn't qualify were really REALLY upset and successfully collectively convinced the school district gifted program to drop that qualification for their kids so that kids who had an off day wouldn't get dropped. I expect there are kids who really wouldn't meet the qualifications no matter how many tests they'd taken simply because it's possible to wiggle-into the pull-out program if you have a teacher really pulling for your student in early elementary, and the pull-out program doesn't push kids ahead in terms of skills, it instead focuses on different types of learning experiences for enrichment, plus the achievement score to get in can be in either math or reading, doesn't have to be in both, so you could have kids who are strong in one, not the other but still auto-qualifying for both.

The magnet program continues, and there is another program in high school, all require re-testing to qualify.

polarbear

I am surprised to see that some districts retest kids already admitted to GT programs.
When we moved to our new district they would not accept my ds's IQ scores at 99% (he was coming from a HG GT program) since those scores were 3 years old. The new district would not admit him to their GT program until he had new scores. I found this to be a double standard since the students already in that program aren't retested every 3 years. It didn't make much sense to me.

Thanks for your thoughts on my dd. I do think she will benefit from the pull out even though it's just more work. She does like to connect with other highly able students and needs some higher level learning.

I do have to stop worrying about the other students performance in the class. It's tough, though, since the teacher only seems to relate "classroom performance" to ability/GT, etc.

I've been reading some old threads on this board regarding the Cogat and what it measures. I'm really surprised and disappointed to see that it seems to have value in predicting future academic success. My ds is exceling in a HG GT program (for years now) and his Cogats never topped the 92%. I'm feeling concerned that my daughter's low scores on her Cogats might mean such low academic success.

From these older posts, it certainly seems that the Cogat is more highly regarded for accuracy than I thought. I guess I don't understand the discrepancies my children have between private IQ and Cogat....

Our school district requires re-testing every three years, unless the staff and the parents agree that there's no need. So basically, as long as the child is continuing to keep up with the GT program, it won't happen.

One good thing about living in a state where as a general rule the education system sucks is that there are no rules for my son. We don't have gifted programs, pull-outs or any of it. Partial or full grade acceleration is how most of the schools deal with GT kids.

My DS goes to a public charter and every yer all of his teachers sit down and decide what classes they think he should take next. They give no consideration to grade level but rather what they think he needs. So far, it's working and he loves it.

If he had to test every couple of years, he would be on a very different track. He can not take a test that involves a timer.