Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment bright or gifted?

Floridama, the lower qualifying score of 120 (called Plan B) is for students of low socioeconomic level or if English is not their first language. As I understand it, racial/ethnic background was removed as a qualifier in 2002. That's the Florida law, but it's possible that some school districts are using Plan B in a different way and some don't use Plan B at all.

The article below supports my assertion that a lower IQ threshold for students of certain races to enter gifted programs violates the law -- it says Floriday was "forced" to discontinue the policy and use a 120 threshold for everyone.

Will Florida redefine 'gifted'?
By Anna Scott Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Published: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 6:01 a.m.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20070103/LOCAL/701020365?p=1&tc=pg

...

"Florida was forced to discontinue a policy allowing schools to drop the IQ requirement to 120 for low-income and minority students. By allowing access to all students who score an IQ of 120, the new rule does away with those affirmative action policies. Some experts worry that will actually make the programs more exclusive by giving access to more white students."

According to the Florida Gifted Network gifted programs in Florida face elimination http://www.floridagiftednet.org/ .

No. That story is three years old. At the time the state legislature was considering lowering the gifted program requirement from 130 IQ to 120 for everybody. That change was NOT made.

As for Plan B, it is still in place.

"What is Plan B?

Because of the Florida Department of Education's concern that students from certain groups were significantly under-represented in the gifted population, in the early 1990's a rule was passed to allow districts to adopt an alternative method (informally known as "Plan B") for identifying some groups of students. Currently, students allowed to qualify for gifted education under "Plan B" are those from families with low socio-economic status (the student is on free or reduced lunch) or students who are classified as ELL (English Language Learners). The Leon County criteria for gifted placement under "Plan B" includes measures of academic achievement and creativity as well as the gifted behavior checklist and teacher statement of need."

differentiation is not just for gifted students. the idea is that all kids will get what they need at their level. ideally, differentiation would occur in every classroom to meet the needs of every student- low or high....not just the super smarty pants kids. when differentiation is done correctly, EVERY student benefits. if you had a kindergarten student who knew the entire alphabet, but was not gifted, they should not be made to sit through the entire letter b lesson just because they don't have an iq over 140.

YES!! differentiation should be for all students. This would be the optimal setup for everyone!

And I do not agree that 140 is the GT cutoff!!! I have seen many 130 kids want to pull there hair out in the regular classroom (including my own son.) I cried many a days during his K and 1st grade year because he was SO miserable and misunderstood (and we are in an upper middle class low minority school district.) When he moved to a Full Time gifted classroom in 2nd life changed for him. He connects with other kids, the work is somewhat challenging and he feels safe in that environment.

I have children well above 140 and a child tested in 130's. I can tell you for sure that my 130 kid is not just "bright." There are strengths and weaknesses to each of them not solely dependent on that IQ score they got on that one test on that one day......

Thanks for saying this. I agree completely.

Saying this as gently as possible...I think remarks like "anyone with a score below x is just 'bright' " can be hurtful statements. Whether intended to be that way or not, they can make people feel inadequate for not having an IQ higher than x (in this case, past the 99.6th percentile). The lack of this sort of thing has always been one of my favorite things about this board.

There are so many other things that can drive a need for a differentiated curriculum past a simple IQ score, such as level of creativity (LOC, anyone?) and drive. And IQ isn't necessarily tied to artistic ability or musical ability. People with those talents need differentiated instruction, too, as do talented athletes. Plus, people can be very talented in one or two areas, and at the average or above in others. In spite of incredible talent in one area, these people might have overall IQs below a magic cutoff number.

This is just my 2c; if I'm being rude, let me know and I won't write like this in the future....



Val

Val - I think you are saying what a lot us feel and IMHO you are NOT being rude at all. Frankly the difference between an IQ measure on one test as 138 or 139 (for instance) cannot really be distinguished from 140 or 141. Even the magic 130 mark is a rather arbitrary number. This board has always been good about understanding that different kids may need differentiation under various circumstances regardless of a certain score.

Like Val and GM5 said, the IQ score/test is just one area to consider. One must also consider the child's strengths and weaknesses in other areas. Many children don't do well in IQ tests. It also depends on the tester and their experience with gifted children, etc. So, just using an IQ score as a determining factor is... limiting of the potential of each child.

Like spiritedmama said, differentiation for every child...

Well Done Val!

The Full Scale IQ numbers can be very misleading because so many of us have a few monster strenths, or a few monster weaknesses, plus the IQ test makers themselves say that they don't intend for the IQ tests to be reliable at the Right Tail of the curve. On Modern IQ test things seem to break down around 130. We were just doing the Math and My son has a 44 point spread between his highest Subscale and his lowest subscale - I am so grateful that Davidson Young Scholars program doesn't insist that the Full Scale IQ be consistient with the strongest strengths.

I can imagine that there there are a few places in the US where folks with 120 IQ are average, and with 139 are well accomidated in regular school settings - but those places are few and far between. For better or for worse, that doesn't describe our local public school, or even the expensive private school down the road.

Giftedness is only a 'problem' when the person experiencing it is 'rare' - either at home in their family or at school or in their workplace, and the expectations are tightly geared to the mainstream. Since the more highly gifted kids are more rare, we forget that it isn't the level of giftedness itself that causes problems, but the rarity of that particular level in a particular setting and the lack of experience in meeting the needs a particular highly gifted child may have.

Val - thanks for getting me 'unflabergasted' and able to put some thoughts together!
Grintiy

Phew. Thanks to everyone who replied. It took me a day or so to write that message. I didn't want to inflame anything, but had something I wanted to say....

Val