Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Elitism

Indigo-- thanks for your response. I don't accept your characterization of my statements or the choices you have given me as clarification. I meant what I said or would not have posted. It's just a viewpoint that happens to have data and policy behind it. That's all.

"allegation/accusation" as you appear to be mentioning violations of the law: https://www.findlaw.com/civilrights/discrimination/race-discrimination-in-education.html

Please feel free to share the data and policy which inform your view that "in some places they are not recognizing minorities, children from impoverished backgrounds, etc."

My point in responding to you was to make clear that I do not intend to change my post.

I did not ask you to change your post. I asked whether you could back up what you said, by providing even one place where what you claim, is occurring. I also asked if you could clarify your meaning.

After you mentioned data and policy in a subsequent post, I asked if you could point to data and/or policy which informs your view.

If unable or unwilling to provide any substantiating facts or source, your statements may be considered "unfounded."

I don't understand what you're disagreeing with. For a community focused on gifted education and gifted kids at the upper end of that scale, this should be something that we've all read about many times over.

Someone might disagree with the position papers out there but it makes no sense to argue from a position of "Show me something that supports your claim."

https://www.edpost.com/stories/gift...eing-ignored-and-thats-bad-for-all-of-us
In this link, they briefly explain how those kids are being ignored. In districts that use a universal screening approach, they find more Black, Hispanic and low income students. In areas that don't use universal screening to find gifted kids, it's perfectly reasonable to state that they are ignoring such students - particularly the low income ones.

There are plenty of papers out there about how, in districts that rely on teacher referral to gifted programs, black students are not referred to gifted programs with the same frequency as their white or Asian counterparts when they are paired with non-black instructors. That is an example of being ignored. You can find plenty of links covering this but we should all already be familiar with the broad strokes.

We can probably shrink the conversation to the concept of "educational malnourishment". Essentially, too many gifted programs identify students based on achievement rather than on giftedness. They admit to their programs around the 2nd or 3rd grade after discrepancies in educational opportunities have calcified certain achievement differences.

This places students from lower education backgrounds at a disadvantage for identification, either via teacher referral or achievement tests. Hence why universal screening done earlier in the student's academic life id's more black, Hispanic and lower income students -- it seeks to id the students before the school system has placed them behind better resourced students.

But that's not really the point of my post. The point of my post is that this is easily found information for anyone who bothers to look. You can argue about if you agree with the widely claimed causes for those kids being ignored but it doesn't make sense in this day and age to pretend that the claim of students being ignored is so unusual that someone has to source it before it can be addressed seriously.

Frankly, it's dismissive.

https://www.education.purdue.edu/geri/new-publications/gifted-education-in-the-united-states/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...k-students-odds-of-being-labeled-gifted/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...k-students-odds-of-being-labeled-gifted/
https://www.nagc.org/sites/default/...g%20Gifted%20Students%20of%20Poverty.pdf
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ898573.pdf
https://edublog.scholastic.com/post...are-overlooked-gifted-talented-education

Anyway, there are some links that also address this subject. It's hardly exhaustive but it's an okay place to start.

Hello philly, how interesting of you to share what informs YOUR viewpoint, as though this must also be what has informed spaghetti's viewpoint.

In the list of links which you provided, I find nothing newer than 5 years old, therefore I do question the current tense of spaghetti's statement that "in some places they are not recognizing minorities, children from impoverished backgrounds, etc."

Although some may disagree, it makes sense to seek clarification, facts, data, policy, and source.

Thank you Philly. Good sources.

It makes sense to seek clarification, etc. when we're talking about things that are rarely discussed or generally unknown, especially when it's an uninformed audience. But this isn't such a community. At the minimum, based on the frequency of your posting, you certainly don't post like you're an uninformed member of the community.

So, you can understand my surprise when you start demanding proof for something that is heavily discussed in the gifted education space. You certainly have to come across it many, many times prior to this thread. If you don't agree with it then just say that instead of asking posters to jump through empty hoops.

And it's not about what informs my perspective or spaghetti's, it's the information repeatedly discussed and shared by the people who research and engage this field. Similarly, the 5 years don't matter. If you have more recent facts, data, policy, or sources, just attach it instead of demanding proof of something and then trying to minimize the information you received without rising to the standard that you tried to set for others.

I am as well. I am also a proponent of making sure that the offerings are focused on advanced academics that are appropriate for gifted students. So not merely acceleration into classes for average students and not "enrichment."

And as far as qualifying goes, I am a proponent of making it essentially opt-in while at the same time ensuring that standards remain high. This means that students who opt in and for whom the work is too difficult are allowed to exit the program or class easily and without penalty. This is different from what you describe regarding AP classes being dumbed down to appeal to a larger group.

It makes sense to seek clarification, facts, data, policy, and source when one has a question as to what has informed another's viewpoint. The gifted population, and those who study them, are not a monolith but represent a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge bases.

Remaining on topic, I will share for the OP and all future readers of this thread, a reminder that correlation does not mean causation. This remains true regardless how often it may be implied otherwise. Regarding correlation/causation, these links may be of interest:
1) How to Lie with Statistics (1954) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics
2) Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

When considering whether gifted education equates/translates to "Elitism," it is OK to disagree. It is also OK to seek clarification, facts, data, policy, and source which informs one's viewpoint.