Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Too many kids in GT programs?

I live in VA and have two recently identified. Our school district sets their own bar for gifted, currently at 85%. Other neighboring school districts are more like 95-96% on standardized testing.

I also found through calling around that each school district can use whichever tests they want to identify. If we were to move to another district, they could require our kids to test into their program.

I knew by looking at the class list that they had finally ability grouped. I got the same speech about differentiation in the classroom, but it seemed pretty nebulous as described because I wasn't given specifics on just how it's differentiated compared to what everyone else is doing in class. We do our best to provide extra enrichment at home as best we can for our 3rd grader, but try not to overwhelm him. He does take piano, which is a challenge, though he's making great and fast progress.

We live in an affluent, well-educated neighborhood, like the OP. By my own calculations, the G&T program at our school included 3% of the students before the appeals process began, and after appeals, 5%. The way our "selection" matrix is written, the number of gifted will vary every year, depending upon how many qualify.

The program seems limited (it is not a "magnet" addressing all subjects, just a class that meets daily), but it seems light years better than what we had before programming started. We consider ourselves fortunate.

Our state has no mandated gifted education.