Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment NYC looks for new gifted test (NYT article)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/nyregion/30gifted.html
City Faces Many Challenges in Search for New Gifted Test
By SHARON OTTERMAN
New York Times
June 29, 2010

City education officials revealed this month that they would begin searching for a new gifted admissions test in response to complaints about low minority representation in gifted programs and concerns that professional test preparation services skew the results.

But any new test is unlikely to alleviate what many parents consider the most anxiety-producing part of the process � sending 4-year-olds into an exam that could decide their schooling for the next six years. In fact, the city may even begin testing even earlier.

While the city says it is open to considering other options, it will most likely continue to rely on standardized tests for prekindergarteners as the central admissions criteria for the elite programs, and under the new protocol, which would begin for the 2012-13 school year, it could begin testing 3-year-olds born late in the year.

The current test is valid only for children 4 and older, but a new test could work for even younger children, allowing the city to speed up the admissions calendar to make it simpler for parents who are balancing private school deposits and kindergarten wait lists, education officials said in interviews and public testimony over the past several weeks.

Over all, the search for a new gifted test is not an easy one, as the city faces a series of constraints that make selecting gifted students in a million-student system more complicated and political than in the suburbs, city officials said. A look at what happened with the current testing contract helps explain why.

<rest of article at link>

As usual for such articles, well-known facts about intelligence, discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence and other places, are ignored.

Blacks score about 1 standard deviation below whites on IQ tests such as the WISC and the Stanford-Binet, and those tests are not "biased" in the sense of underpredicting minority student academic achievement. Hispanics score about 2/3 of a standard deviation below whites, and East Asians about 1/3 of an s.d. above. Intelligence is positively correlated with family income, because smart people tend to earn more money, and intelligence is highly heritable.

There are, of course, bright and dull children from all racial groups and income levels, but there is much evidence that the distributions differ. People should be treated as individuals, and grown-ups should not be shocked by "disparities" that have obvious explanations.

I think that (public) schools aimed at gifted kids should just have open admissions. The important thing would be to ensure that there is absolutely, positively, no watering down of standards.

So, for example, anyone can sign up for the gifted kindergarten, but promotion to the first grade in the same school would require that students meet certain benchmarks (set, say, at around what kids at the 98th percentile would be capable of doing). The kindergartens would use ability grouping and could use materials that are designed for different ability levels (e.g. SRA for reading and/or reading buddies in a higher grade).

Kindergarten might have tons of kids, but all those kids need to be in kindergarten anyway, so a city could adapt by having lots of feeder kindergartens. For example,schools with multiple K classrooms could reserve one room for the gifted program, and kids who clearly don't belong there could be moved into regular K classrooms quickly. Others who struggle through the year could be moved into grade 1 classes in the same building, and the gifted ones could start first grade in a school where everyone is at or above the 98th percentile.

This approach would get around the testing mania, everyone would get a chance, and the HG+ kids would be served.

Obviously this idea would require a lot of planning, but it would serve gifted kids and get around all the problems related to diversity, test prep, and so on.

Val

Val,

I tend to agree with you. Old-fashioned ability grouping would solve a lot of problems. Every step of the way a child either can or he can't. He either knows or he doesn't know. These things are easily determined without the need of an "IQ" test.

There shouldn't be a single "gifted" kindergarten class. Instead there might be one section for students who arrive functioning at about the second-grade level, two sections for those who arrive functioning at about the first grade level, a dozen sections for average kids, and then a few sections for kids who are behind the curve and need to be taught such things as letter recognition and print orientation. Getting students properly placed might take a couple of weeks, but it would be well worth the effort.

I agree completely.

There shouldn't be a single "gifted" kindergarten class. Instead there might be one section for students who arrive functioning at about the second-grade level, two sections for those who arrive functioning at about the first grade level, a dozen sections for average kids, and then a few sections for kids who are behind the curve and need to be taught such things as letter recognition and print orientation. Getting students properly placed might take a couple of weeks, but it would be well worth the effort. [/quote]

In theory, I agree, but in practice, parents would hothouse their kids into working above grade level to get them into the higher-level kindergartens. this is what happens now with test-prep mania over ERB testing in New York. This is why I was thinking about open admissions (but no dilution of standards). Non-gifted kids just wouldn't be able to keep up.

Ability grouping in the non-gifted kindergarten classes (and other grades) would address the needs of all the other learners, from bright kids who aren't gifted to kids who are below average. But, yes, there could be a K classroom that has reading/math/whatever groups for kids who are a year above grade level

I guess this is part of my fantasy school (still needs a lot of work on the details).

Val

There is a real hot housing issue, but I hate to call it hot housing. Parents of more educated and financially well off homes tend to work with their children, playing with ABCs, puzzles, counting to 10 books as a matter of what you do with your baby and toddler.

The whole OLSAT saga began with the Dept of Justice threatening to sue the DOE because it was getting influential at the top gifted schools so they had to get an easy to administer test, that was not too costly, and then all top scoring kids go into a lottery for the most desirable schools. Hence why we got the 2nd choice in our district because there were only 2 spots open for grade 1 in the school we wanted.

And even if a spot opens up, they won't give it to us but to someone who may move into NYC over the summer and test and qualify. It is ridiculous.

So if you go with Val's suggestion, you would require all kinds of "gifted" programs on the west side where 1/3 qualify for the top gifted schools and some districts in the Bronx where no one qualifies and you cannot fill a class in some neighborhoods.
Ren

And there are studies using twins, adoption, and intermarriage that show that black and hispanic kids raised in white homes have the same or better IQ as the white population.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-IQgapgenetic.htm

Mathematically, there are two main problems I see with the race-IQ issue.

The existence of the Flynn Effect contradicts these results. If the IQ ratios between the races were fixed, and IQ is mostly innate, then you could not have a steady increase in IQ across all races. You should see much smaller increases than we do for blacks and hispanics.

And when you look at the distribution of National Merit Scholars, the presence of minorities in the list does not match what you would expect using normal distributions. There are very, very few blacks and hispanics when you would expect a greater presence due to just raw random distribution.

There are some hidden variables and those are nutrition, schools, and parenting - mostly expectations.

Here are the excerpts from the link above:

Reading or playing with puzzles isn't what I meant by hothousing; I definitely wasn't trying to say that! These activities are great if the preschooler wants to do them.

What I meant was this: puzzles, etc. are a part of a good childhood experience and aren't the same as sending a child to a test prep consultant. I define one aspect of hothousing as activities conceived solely by adults that are designed to boost scores on standardized tests.

I kind of doubt that 1/3 of children in a large geographical area would qualify for gifted programs aimed at the 98th percentile and above. But yes, the idea is to serve everyone who qualifies as gifted, and to put other kids into learning environments most appropriate to their needs.

There would be crossover (eg, gifted at reading but struggling with writing). Ability grouping would help here.

Val

Well Val, they do qualify. You have many of the highest income earners in the country, most educated by capita.

And I think what I described with puzzles etc could be considered hot housing. Many undereducated and lower income homes just don't do this. And as Austin pointed out in his contraction on race IQs. You place a different race child in an upper income home, you get a different IQ outcome.

So what really is the definition of hot housing? Preparing your child for life -- which really means school, or a test to get into the best schools?

I know I start a big debate there. But the IQs in NYC due skew to the upper ends based on the percentage by capita of kids qualifying for Hunter, above 98th percentile on the SBV. Particurlarly on the upper west side.

Ren

Good parenting--paying attention to your kids and playing with them--is not hothousing. Just because some people ignore and maybe even neglect their kids doesn't mean that being kind to one's kids is hothousing.

Hothousing is about the parent, not the child. It's about prestige or not wanting to be embarrassed because the child isn't "good enough" or prioritizing the parent's goals over the child's healthy development and happiness. It borders on abusive. Possibly something is withheld if the child doesn't comply, most commonly affection, but potentially even food. If the kid is having fun, it isn't hothousing.

Singing the alphabet song or playing a game doesn't qualify on any of these counts.

Doesn�t this whole discussion go away if the system was built to allow each child to progress at some natural rate?