Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments More on the gifted test in NYC

It's back again: the NY Times has another article about test prep and kindergartens for gifted kids.

I have a question: why can't they just create these programs in each district and set the 90%ile cutoff on a per-district basis? This would eliminate the test prep controversy.

I'd be interested in hearing from new Yorkers about why the schools there don't just do this.

Val

Val, I think that's a terrific and simple idea. Of course it fits with my definition of giftedness: Special Educational needs that aren't likely to be met in the regular classroom.

Since 'the regular classroom' is certainly one's neighborhood school, and has nothing to do with someone else's neighborhood school across town taking the top 90% in each district seems totally logical if the district is rather uniform in demographics.


I find this to be so sad. But I'm hopeful that a new system of some kind will be tried and perhaps a few more new systems will be tried until people find a way to get a reasonable outcome.

shrugs and more shrugs,
Grinity

Interesting article. Really sad that the parents interviewed were not appalled by the test prep but dishearten that they can't afford it for their kids or didn't know the prep services were offered. And I have to add if their children weren't prepped and took the test and didn't meet the cutoff stats then perhaps theirs is an example of the system working and perhaps their children were not proper candidates for the program. The issue I have is all the prep time devoted to students who probably would not have made the cutoff. BUT I do agree with the argument that entrance to these schools should not be based solely on a test score.

I have to wonder about the implications past the test. It seems to me that either many more children could excel in gifted classrooms (in which case a solution is to change most of the classrooms/curriculum to the same one that is being used in these gifted classrooms/programs); or that, under this system, children who aren't gifted are negatively impacting children who are gifted by lowering the level of rigor in these gifted programs/classrooms. It seems to me that while it is possible to game a test, a child who isn't gifted shouldn't be able to keep up in a quality gifted program. If children who aren't gifted ARE keeping up, then:

It's not necessary to score above the 90th percentile in order to thrive with this level of instruction (since I think it can be safely assumed that without all that prep many of the students in those rooms would have scored at a lower level). Therefore, it would make sense to simply export the curriculum/staffing/approach and offer it to everyone. These gifted standards become the new grade level standards.

OR

The sense of what is possible for gifted children has been depressed by a flood of children into these classrooms who--absent the rigorous test prep--would not qualify for the programs. Instruction is often adjusted based on the response/outcomes for students, and if a majority of students in a classroom hit ceilings at certain paces/levels, then that will likely drive the expectations and plans for that classroom.



I'd like to see a foundation pay to deliver the same quality of test prep to the Head Start school that was mentioned, and maybe 1-2 other pre-schools as well. In the face of some hard evidence on the impact of test prep, it would be harder to justify continuing a system that discriminates--as this one seems to--based on socio-economic class.

I guess one problem is that the vast majority of schools don't think in terms of levels of giftedness. Giftedness is just defined a static thing, as though there were no differences between the learning abilities of someone with an IQ of 120 and someone with an IQ of 140 (or 160...).

Preaching to the choir here: the kids at or above the 90th percentile need a different learning environment. But the ones at the 98th need an environment that's different again. And so on.

Which leads back to Grinity's/my point about setting the 90th percentile locally. Why force kids from neighborhoods with completely different demographics to compete with one another?

<shrugs>

Val

Oooh! What a great idea! I think I'd even contribute $$$ to help make that study happen.

Actually, studies like this have been done. They find what a lot of people have been discussing here: you can prep someone into getting a higher score, but prepping doesn't raise IQ (long-term studies how this effect).

This could be one reason for why some kids identified as gifted at one time don't test as gifted later.

Another thing the city could do would be to use real IQ tests, which are more immune to the effects of prepping (how many numbers can you remember forwards? Backwards? Can you put the pictures in order to make a story? Here's a list of symbols and the letters they stand for. Now, solve the code below as fast as you can!)

Val

Oh, I know it's true, Val. That's not even an issue. But I'd love to see NY prove it to themselves that their system is idiotic and discriminatory.

I'm curious how much it would cost for all of America's public schools to offer higher level classes to whoever wanted them, without a cut-off, but with no guarantee of passing either. �Even if the classes had to combine a few grades to make the student/teacher ratio worthwhile. �And charge each parent cash to attend. �A couple hundred a year would cover the school's extra cost and be more affordable than a few thousand a year for private school. �If so many parents want their kids in gifted classes so badly it's not gifted envy or label envy, it's a sign many parents think American public school �education is substandard. �If the so called watered down "gifted classes" are what so many parents want, why shouldn't the school offer it? �What's the worse that happens? �We raise the standard of education in the country. �It wouldn't help the gifted community, but it would help the country.
We would still need to come up with a separate system for exceptional or special needs kids on either end, but this would solve the problem seen here of kids being passed off as gifted just because the system sucks and the parents don't see any other choice to get a decent education. �The gifted would be right where they are now, patchworking solutions with various accelerations. �Or maybe I'm wrong and just don't get it and the parents are trying to grow orange trees from apple seeds. �But I give most people better credit than that. �I think they just want a better alternative to the dumbed down classes they'd get otherwise.
It's like Taminy said (more better than I) that if that many non-gifted kids are keeping up in those classrooms then it should be more widely available to the public. �I just offered a cheap, practical way to offer it and still keep all the education budget cuts our new trillion dollar national budget seems to suggest that we need.

For the most part my HS did this. In the younger grades you had to test into certain classes but in HS you were pretty free to choose. I think if you were probably failing out of school they would've encouraged you not to take honors/AP classes but for the most part they let everyone in. It worked... sometimes. Some of the classes were amazing, others, well, it might have more to do with the teacher teaching them, but were pretty bad.

In the end it was pretty much all the upper middle class/rich kids that took the classes. I was probably by far the poorest kid in there...