Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How are gifted identified in your schools?

I didn't read all the replies, I'm late to this topic.

In order to get into GATE there are 3 options. 1) Score above 95% on the OLSAT. Optional, a student can take it once a year starting in 3rd grade, outside of the school day but district administers. 2) Score above a certain level on both math & english versions of the state testing. 3) Get a private report from a list of approved psychologist. Parent pays the cost of the evaluation and I'm not 100% sure of what test would be administered.

GATE doesn't start till 4th grade, before that advance work is by discretion of the teacher/principal. Once you are 'labeled' gifted you keep the label but it doesn't affect anything after 8th grade. What GATE involves varies from school to school, and sometimes differs by teacher. In junior high it guarantees admission to the honors humanities track. Advanced junior high math, is by a math 'pre-algebra' test administered at the end of 6th or 7th grade and one of the only ways to get into the honors high school math.

My district also has a dedicated classes for the gifted/highly motivated 4-6th graders. Enrollment is based on primary on a 3rd grade teacher recommendation & various test scores/grades, supposedly not OLSAT but they do see the score. GATE identification not necessary but few kids get into it who aren't already identified. Competition is stiff and done behind closed doors.

The government website dedicated to it gives this information. It's what most people are supposed to learn at a minimum.

"The rationale in both cases was that the standards are tougher and will require more time and effort to teach and learn."

So... let me get this straight. They need more resources to hold general education children to a higher standard than previously. They do not have resources to accelerate some children and bring others to task. So, they have to reduce acceleration.

This is a problem of a tax base that is lazy and under-funded, NOT a problem of minimum standards.

By blaming Common Core, you might as well suggest that we eliminate public education period, so that we can reach high achievers. After all, the high achievers NEED education, whereas the plebes can just go on trailing the plebes of the rest of the OECD, so we can have Algebra in 5th grade for 2%. There's sustainable public policy for you, not alienating the majority of your tax base at all! (Not.)

The problem is NOT standards.

It is a lack of resources coming from a low tax base which comes from low salaries, hoarding, and a myriad of other issues.

But let's suppose someone is willing to defend to the death their child's right to receive a personalized education, at the expense of 30 other children receiving a decent education. This is America, after all, and such a thing would not shock me in the least.

Even so, if Common Core is raising the district standards by a year, then keeping the gifted program at the same place will by definition reduce the advancement by one year. The other kids are catching up. Your kid isn't falling behind. They are being asked to do more. This is good, because your little genius will have more talent to work with when he tries to start a company here. He won't have to deal with visa applications for 15 Finns or something.

Would you please share the link, page, paragraph, quote, indicating where you found information to indicate that "Common Core...it's not a ceiling--it's a floor"?

Lived experience of the standards comes from implementation of the standards; the idea of implementing Common Core as a minimum seems to counter your post here (#185256) in which you seem to defend not teaching above the standards? (Specifically: implementation of standards leading to claims "They do not have resources to accelerate some children and bring others to task. So, they have to reduce acceleration.") *

Lived experience of the standards may impact gifted identification.

* in regard to resources... Multi-age flexible cluster grouping has been discussed on several threads over time as providing a means of acceleration without incurring additional cost. Many believe it is not a budgetary issue, but an issue of attitude toward gifted pupils.

The link you give sends me to the post above, so I'd be interested to see what post you're referring to.

I think it is consistent to say:

-Standards are minimums, not maximums, in every case, including NCLB.

-We should hold schools accountable to minimum standards for every child.

-We should also encourage schools to find ways to help every child who can, exceed the standards.

-We are not doing this because we lack the most important resource: the political will required to make really hard choices, like keeping children back, moving kids ahead, firing teachers, etc.

-Inability to exceed standards results from lack of resources (including political will, which is the real problem in the US) and inequality coming in and going out of the system, not from the fact that we have standards. Otherwise, countries with standards and national curricula would invariably do worse. But they almost always do much better.

I agree that lived experience may impact the curriculum, but if that is the case, it is only because the school previously was not providing high enough standards for the general education population in the first place. In other words, this will only impact you if your child was receiving too much in comparison to the other kids in the first place. They don't have to take anything away if they were already meeting the standards.

Some may say that in several professional disciplines, there are specified quality control tolerances for an item being +/- the "standard".

Different words and phrases can mean very different things to various individuals depending upon their knowledge base and lived experience. Whereas the Common Core standards do not seem to articulate plainly that they are a floor or minimum, for which there is no suggested corresponding maximum, many do not assume that to be the case. To alleviate any concerns, CCSS could simply add a sentence or two to clarify. Although this has been mentioned over time, they have failed to do so. To some minds, this speaks volumes.

I did not say this; rather this represents a tossed salad of my words. Some may say the result is patching words together to Frankenstein a new meaning?

Would you please kindly explain what you mean by this?

I mean, every child in the public school system is entitled to resources that help him or her achieve, theoretically, his or her potential to contribute to society. Whether or not this is possible, is up for debate, but certainly, we cannot say that your entering talent level should keep you from getting an education, even if you're in the boring 50th%. Right now, our public schools on average do not do that. So they established higher standards.

The Common Core is set such that all students are prepared to contribute to society by joining the workforce, a trade school, a college, or university upon graduation.

The only reason that a school would need to divert resources from existing accelerated programs to fund Common Core standards, would be if it were not currently meeting Common Core standards.

If it were not currently meeting Common Core standards (or higher), that suggests it was failing the majority of students passing through.

If your child, at the same time as around 80% of the population is being abjectly failed by the public school system, is receiving enriched college prep, I would say that he or she is receiving a disproportionate piece of the pie.

It's public school, for everyone.

Re: standards: Okay, pardon me, I was speaking in terms of education. Definitely, ph balance would be somewhere you wouldn't want to go to far from the standard either way. I live in a bubble, apparently, because here it would be unheard of to take a national standard and claim that we ought not exceed it. People try very hard to exceed standards.


While I like the idea of cluster grouping, it only works for some students, and it is naive to think that there are no budgetary issues with changing teaching methods.


Sorry about that-- I did get words switched around while copying and pasting.

Regarding the wording of CCSS, I am willing to bet they don't put that it is a floor explicitly because they do not want to highlight the existing inequality and insufficient effort among certain school districts. They have put the floors of the highest-achieving districts and international OECD benchmarks into the standards. That's all--whether these are taken as a minimum for now or as a goal (in the case of districts which are far from meeting them) is beside the point. The point is, we need to get everyone up to speed.

Do you really think your district is looking at these and thinking, "Hah. We knew it. Children should be banned from Calculus in high school." Ours certainly isn't.

Some may say it is a false premise that implementation of common core standards will only negatively impact families of children who were "receiving too much" (from their school) "in comparison to the other kids in the first place."


Some may say the explanation quoted above is filled with the myths which families of gifted students and institutions advocating for the gifted have tried to overcome for several decades by raising awareness of the legitimate educational needs of gifted children. Rather than marginalizing gifted children, consider the following...

Students entering a grade knowing most (or all) of the material for the year still need to be learning something new every day. Some would say this does not indicate giving them a bigger share of the pie.

Being a "public school, for everyone" indicates that it ought to also be a learning environment for kids who are gifted/ahead. The opposite of that would be presuming that gifted/ahead kids come from families who could easily afford private educational options. Some may say that forcing gifted/ahead students out of public schools in droves would present another set of victimization issues.

Students not meeting standards is not necessarily indicative of schools failing them; Other threads have discussed familial issues including the neuro benefits of simply talking to babies from birth.

Flexible, multi-age cluster grouping by readiness and ability is not a "teaching method" per se, it is a means to populate a classroom with a less-stratified group of students essentially requiring less differentiation: Some may say it represents a cost efficiency.

Might some schools forsake high school calculus while diverting funds to implementing common core standards? While you challenge the notion here "Do you really think your district is looking at these and thinking, "Hah. We knew it. Children should be banned from Calculus in high school." Ours certainly isn't.", you seem to support it here: "If your child, at the same time as around 80% of the population is being abjectly failed by the public school system, is receiving enriched college prep, I would say that he or she is receiving a disproportionate piece of the pie."

By means of analogy, do schools tell their varsity teams they are receiving a disproportionate piece of the pie? That the varsity team will be benched until the JV team performs better? Specifically until every kid on the JV team performs at varsity level? Not every kid is able to do that; ALL kids... varsity, JV, and non-athletic kids... deserve acceptance, encouragement, and assistance to explore options which are available to them as they sacrifice, sweat, and improve their skills, talents, and abilities. If we can see that in regard to sports/athletics, why not in regard to academics?