Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion DeVos on gifted ed.?

Capture? If parents don't want to send their children to the neighborhood public school, there is a reason. A business that cannot survive without a monopoly deserves to go out of business.

That's what they actually call it. They say their "capture rate" is only about 70 percent, meaning 30 percent of students who live here do not attend the public schools. They have also referred to the students as "products". Then they wonder why people go elsewhere (I hate our district).

They see the students as data points and dollar signs. They spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on consulting from a for-profit business called the DMC (district management council). This is a nationwide thing, most states have at least some districts with contracts. It's all about how to boost state reading and math (esp. reading) scores on the state tests. So that means focusing on the "bubble kids" who are close to passing, not on sped and not on gifted. In terms of gifted ed, the DMC states that those kids are already meeting expectations so there is no need to make any investment in them.

This is the incentive system of the "No child left behind" system. If 95% of the class meets the standards the goal still remains on the 5% who do not. There is no incentive to deal with anyone else. That being said local schools do try, but the incentives are stacked against them. What we need are revamped incentives from the center.
Also I draw no fault towards the consultants. They are providing a product to the districts to what the districts want. There is no deceit. What is the problem? Also I consider my kid a "Product" of the school. I am not sure why that is a bad label.

I see both sides of this discussion.

On the one hand, public education is essential to the well-being of a nation.

But between teachers with poor subject knowledge, NCLB, and a grab bag of other problems, the US seems intent on destroying its own education system (which threatens our future).

The unions and the system as a whole are largely entrenched in denial. People who mention that teachers lack subject knowledge are accused of "bashing" them. The textbooks are a joke (but they're profitable). The government threatens schools if scores don't keep improving, so test prep starts in September. High-stakes tests focus on trivial stuff. A huge part of the problem is that no one wants to correct hand-written answers. If we insist on using industrial testing methods and on punishing low scores, we shouldn't be surprised when the results show that the kids learned how to take tests instead of how to think.

And the public schools wonder why people opt out.

Two of my kids go to a private school. It's flexible and respects everyone's abilities. The kids read novels, not excerpts in textbooks. They write essays. They use good math books. Everything is corrected by hand in a thoughtful way. Test prep takes up a bit of time the week before the tests ("Okay, let's go over how you fill those forms out...remember to check your work...").

My eldest is in a public dual-enrollment program that's different and run by people who get it: again, novels and history books, not bad textbooks. Essays. No multiple choice in high school classes. Free college classes. It's also isolated from the public schools. Many parents and kids like it for just that reason. In that school, test prep means, "Remember to get here on time tomorrow for the test. Late arrivals not allowed."

I see Bostonian's point about businesses that can't survive without being monopolies. And while I also see that killing the public schools will damage this country, the schools and the governments are the ones to blame, not those of us who opt out.

Sent you a PM Val.

They don't have any experience or training in education or best practices. They are a business. So virtually everything they recommend is geared to finances, like schools are a factory churning out "products"...cookie cutter systems for cookie cutter kids. They are all about increasing class sizes so they are as big as possible and having general ed teachers do as much as possible rather than specialists. G/T teachers? GT coordinators? We can kiss them goodbye because they are not needed, they are not worth the investment. The consultants aren't truly interested in improving education, it's all about increasing their profit margin. They couldn't care less about gifted kids, or best practices for gifted kids, and I think everyone here is looking for what is best for their gifted kid, even if it means a little more money must be spent by the school to educate them. Gifted kids and kids with disabilities are seen as a liability because they have special needs and don't fit into the factory model of education. Let's say the cut-off for proficient is a score of 80. They are going to focus on the kids who are at a 75-79 to get them right over the mark and the school's percentage of proficient kids will go up dramatically. The goal is to make the school look good on paper, and schools eat it up. Everything about it is deceitful because they sell this as something that boosts student achievement, when they are really only focused on reading test scores (and sometimes math), and only certain kids. Groups like the DMC actually recommend taking services away from special education students and shifting the money to large group general ed interventions, which aren't going to help kids with disabilities at all. In the end, two groups of students with the highest needs end up suffering the most--sp.ed and gifted, because funding is being shifted away from them.

I will just say that our school district has made many public statements to show that they are very interested in looking good on paper. Our experience (and our impression) has been that it is funny business, and does not actually provide a better education for most.

I'm most familiar with the situation in Indiana, for example, where Pence is perceived by many educators as having done a lot of damage to public education. I think it would have cost him reelection as Governor, but I'm not sure. Die hard republicans that were educators were all planning to vote Democrat for Governor.

Many of the ideas sound great in theory but the implementation is what really matters for the communities, you know?

Corporations are often allowed to buy failing schools and take them over... but the "buy" part is misleading. There were deals where they paid very little for buildings, etc, that tax payers funded originally. Then they used those resources for profit. That is really shady.

Look at the fail rates of some of the charter schools... in places where they are mismanaged they often fail mid way through the school year and just close up. Then the public schools have to just figure out how to deal with the kids left behind. And the failure rates can be very, very high. So they are not held accountable when it doesn't work out but they get to pull out a profit when it does. I wish my investments worked that way!

Having said that, I am in an area on the east coast where the balance of public schools, magnet schools, charter schools, and private schools seems to be working for most. Our public schools do well and our other schools kind of fill in the gaps where needed. Most people seem very happy, though gifted education is really not very good at all in my district public schools.

My kids are able to attend language immersion magnet schools in our district, which is amazing.