Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy WHAT are they thinking when they say.......!!????

omigosh! That just made me gasp!! One of the things that is driving me NUTS is the members of the IEP team who don't understand what the evaluations and measurements mean.

Educators should have to take a stats review course and a measurements and eval review periodically.

It is also interesting to me how the positive (high ability) information on those tests seem to mean nothing to the educators, but the negative (LDs) information seem to be written by God himself in their eyes.

sigh.

Yeah, isn't it funny how sometimes at an IEP the low scores are of great concern and targeted for intervention and treatment, yet the high scores are typically ignored and sometimes even written off as not accurate?!

And what about when a child does well at school and the teacher takes credit for being a great teacher but when they don't do well it's because the child isn't motivated or paying attention? What's with that attitude? (I'm not meaning to bash all teachers, just noting that this attitude exists!)

Last year, I asked the school counselor (who does the evals for acceleration) to clarify the assessment requirements. Was that "95" needed to accelerate meaning 95th percentile on the test, or 95%? She replied, "Yes". I asked her again and got the SAME answer..."Yes". I knew we were in trouble at that point.

Incidentally, the test she gave DS5 required him to solve multiplication & division problems, which I don't think is pertinent to skipping kindergarten.

Christi

They also tend to round everything out so the child doesn�t appear twice exceptional, they are �average�.

The other night at the YMCA, there was a woman walking the track who wore a T-shirt that made me laugh and sadly think of this topic. It said, �Manipulate Data and Thrive�.

In the case of younger children, of course you know they can't trust the high scores because, well, the bright kids will all "level off" by third or fourth grade when the others "catch up." (rolling of eyes)

Oh yikes, I'm sorry for the runaround you've been getting. If it comes down to it, go directly to your state superintendant of education. Usually that will produce some kind of immediate results....puts the fire under the feet of the responsible parties at the district level. A simple e-mail should do it.

I can't wait to hear how your meeting goes! Good luck!

Thanks for the empathy and the advice. So far we haven't had the district superintendent involved since last May, when we were advocating for early first grade. Hopefully we won't have to go any further than him, but I will find out who the person would be higher up, just in case.

I am still waiting for the principal to get back to me about a time that hub and I can review the Saxon curriculum at the school. Funny thing, DS came home yesterday and said that his math teacher gave him a test - only him. He said it was easy, that the only question he didn't know asked him to color in the centimeters and he didn't know what a centimeter is (we've only done inches, darn!). So apparently they are doing some pretesting that we didn't know about.

Good news, DS is pretty happy with the rest of school right now. Reading has been bumped up to some lengthier books with some plot to them and he is enjoying them. He actually likes doing the comprehension questions, too. And he says he LOVES it when they do science and social studies stuff. So, at least there's some good going on. Perhaps that's why he is calmer and more agreeable to going to school lately.

I'm getting anxious for the meeting as well. DS knows we are meeting and he says he can't wait for us to get him some "hard math." Here's hoping it goes well!

Wow! I just got off the phone with the principal and you've GOT to hear (or read!) what he said:

Principal: "I've got all the curriculum materials you requested here in my office for you and your husband to review."
Me: "Thanks so much. We can come by today at noon."
P: "Just to remind you, I can't let you copy any of the material or take it out of the school. This is material used for assessment and if it left the building it could skew the results of testing."

WHAT???!!!! It's curriculum!!! NOT standardized assessments!!!!
I could purchase the whole program online if I had a few extra hundred dollars sitting around! Oh, brother. I don't know how I will get through this meeting - count to 10, deep breath. Keep breathing!

And then I asked if the math teaacher is testing DS. He said, "yes, she is testing him using some of the end of year assessments to get an idea of his current level of knowledge. I thought that might be helpful information to have at our meeting next Wednesday."
yeah, I agree. I asked for this in early December. Good idea, sir. Glad you thought of it. Hah. There's my infamous sarcasm peeking out!
Well, off to get some work done at work, then out to look at this Saxon stuff. Happy day. (oops, more sarcasm!).

Hey Debbie -
((Warm hand on your back))
You will find the right path somewhere in this mess. Problem is that it takes a while to look back on it all and see where the turning point was....

Your son is in the "happy holding mode" - for now, I am grateful.

Best Wishes,
Trin

Debbie-
This probably won't catch you in time, but it sounds more like the principal is having the math teacher do a "screening" not an "assessment". An assessment has to be administered and interpreted by the school psychologist or a SPED teacher who has advanced training in evaluations and measurements.

At least that's my understanding of it.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about Saxon math.

best of luck...