Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Quota system would dilute school's quality

Did you read any of the links I posted? My reading of all of them is that this is not about letting in unintelligent students in the name of diversity. And, i take tremendous, personal offense (as the mother of an African American male who has tested as profoundly gifted) that the presence of under-served minority students in gifted programs can only be achieved by lower the requirements to let in stupid children. Believe me when i tell you, we've already heard it about our child--who is only just finishing up kindergarten--from upper middle class white parents who don't understand why he is getting services their children aren't receiving.

Honestly, some of the opinions of people on this forum are the reason we have not yet applied for DYS, even though we are sitting on test scores that would qualify him.

While I agree that there are significant differences in intelligence between students, I wholeheartedly disagree that the reasons for racial differences in achievement are due to innate differences in intelligence.

Mom of 1, I did not mean to offend you or make any implications about your son or about anyone else. I simply said that I inferred that many or most of the kids who need remediation probably need it because they're not as smart as many of the kids who don't. Given the lockstep pacing of schools today, this was a reasonable conclusion.

I didn't say anything about race in that regard and wasn't even thinking about it. Given that I have no idea about the makeup of the remedial classes, it would silly to make that assumption anyway.

Unfortunately, even suggesting that differences in achievement in school may be due to differences in ability is often taken out of context as making some kind of racial slur.

For the record, I think that it's possible that poor pre- and post-natal care as well a nutrient-poor diet can lower intelligence and that feeding poor children properly and ensuring that they have access to medical care are critical to helping them achieve more (I didn't say anything about race here). This is why I keep harping on improving the quality of school lunches.

Mom of 1, I hope you don't believe that most of us here agree with all the racist and/or pseudoscientific and/or politically regressive and/or exclusionary opinions voiced above.

IMHO: Many people don't leap in because this forum has been around this loop a few too many times. Bostonian posts these inflammatory things regularly (surely from a conservative education listserv somewhere) and trolls for responses. I do not think most of us have the energy to take the bait any more. I certainly don't have hours to spend in debate. Which is not to say that we find those views any less repellent than you do.

Thanks for speaking up, Mom of 1. I hope your son, all our kids, and yes, all kids, get an excellent education. Each of them.

DeeDee

Respectfully, this is precisely what I mean about the elephant in the room. Anyone who says that some people are less intelligent is automatically labeled a pseudoscientific racist troll. This type of reaction squelches debate and leads us to the mess that we're in with our schools right now. Toe the line or else! Conform!

It's okay to say that not everyone is tall or good at sprinting or good at drawing. But suggest that some people aren't good at academics and people jump at the chance to call you names.

Well, I think the less-intelligent bit is actually a bit off topic anyway, isn't it? Wouldn't you agree that top-notch achievement depends on environment too? Isn't it likely that some of the people who just missed the cut in the old days were laboring under the effects of some relative disadvantages?

Some families are much less intelligent than other families.

My father's side is much less intelligent than my mother's side.

Yes, and if you want to have a school for high achievers, then you will get people from families with money.

If you want to have a school to *develop* high achievers, then you look for *potential* achievement, which means that you use IQ scores (or whatever measure you want to use).

So, the question is whether this school wants people who are *already* high achievers or whether it wants those with the *potential* for high achievement.

No. Given the fact that "race", "class" and "successful at school" are not mutually independent categories means that any discussion of "lack of success at school" that attributes that lack of success to intelligence instead of including a full discussion of the incredibly detrimental and real effects of racism in the US means that people will call you racist.

I just finished Lisa Delpit's new book "Multiplication is for White People" about racism and education and it is an incredibly engaging read--less academic and detached than her first book "Other People's Children" but still well worth it for people who want to spur their thinking around these issues.

The admissions policy of a high school for gifted students is a valid topic for this forum. Several people besides me in this thread -- Val, DAD22, master of none, and La Texican -- think the article made valid points. That's about as many people as who have objected to it. You don't need to speculate about my sources, since I identify them. I deliberately have not commented on this thread yet, but I agree with what Val has written.

some issues that i think have been overlooked.
1) TJ's enrollment with new criteria is more Asian, more Male
and less white and less female. the black, hispanic and poverty enrollment DID NOT Change.
2) remediation has not been defined. the only article that mentioned remediation was written by what might be a cranky old physics teacher that doesnt like change. ( read some of the comments written by TJ students on the articles and in face book) It may just mean that kids have not been required to already have both algebra one and geometry before high school as they used to. That would reflect the middle scholls feeding in, since not all of the feeder schools offer double advanced math. this meant previously none of their kids got in and now some of them do.
3) this has been a long contensious issue in NOVA. there are lots of articles to read over the controversy from the last 4-5 years of the recent retooling. and even further back to other changes.
4) the quota thing in the title is really deceptive. there are no quotas.
Ironically the people wanting quotas now are the rich white families that are increasingly shut out. the school is now 2/3 asian and 25% white.
5) Virgina completely shut down many of its public school systems in the late 50's for as long as 6 years to avoid integration. It was called massive resistence. there are still many wounds in VA because of it. it gives overtones to any discussion of education in VA.

6) there are no real labor unions for teachers in VA. they cannot set work rules or contracts or curriculum. look at TJs web site. they are advertising for teachers now. they get to pick who they want it seems. they just use Fairfax for the application process. tons of good and bad teachers have been laid of in VA due to state education budget cuts, even those with tenure. Sped teachers, social workers, school counselors reg ed teachers. yet the gifted school is hiring.

7) there are tons more applications and preapplications for TJ than there are spots. noone gets into TJ without being gifted. it is just the flavor of gifted that is altered. the concern is that they are now using criteria that can be gamed, much like new york gifted kindergartens. if there were enough spots for all the qualified kids, perhaps there wouldnt be a problem. the former white elite are being outcompeted by the tigermoms. and they dont like it. it is not a matter of less intelligent needing remediation.

Used to live in VA. familiar with controversy.