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Joanne Jacobs, points to an article in Education Next that mentioned one of my pet peeves, academic acceleration, or the lack of it in our schools.
"accelerating instruction for the 2 percent of students capable of benefiting from it."BS... I think that at least 15 to 20% of students would benefit from academic acceleration. Walk into any middle class classroom in this country and there will be at least that many students who are bored and ready to move on while the teacher remediates the rest of the class.
Besides, there is no true acceleration in this country. Those who would point to things like 7th and 8th grade algebra as acceleration are wrong... that is advancement, not acceleration. It still takes 3 years for these kids to get to Calculus, just like it would take 3 years for a student who started Algebra I in 10th grade.
True acceleration would have students progress through a years worth of study in say 6 - 9 months. If acceleration was done properly, there would be a cumulative effect; each year accelerated students would be further and further ahead of their peers in standard paced classes.
I also ran across this article JS ONLINE: Law lacks direction for gifted students pointing out that Gifted Education is haphazard in this country.
What the law doesn't mandate is how students such as Adam will be educated - even though state legislators have identified programming for students with gifts and talents as one of 20 essential components of public education. The result? A mixed bag of approaches for how Wisconsin students identified as gifted are educated. Some are taught in regular classes with alternative activities to help speed them through lessons. Others are pulled out of class for about an hour a week of special instruction. Some may find a spot in a magnet program with other gifted students. And others get no special instruction at all.While I am a supporter of No Child Left Behind and its high expectations and accountability requirements, I can't help but wonder if it should also be referred to as the No Child Gets Ahead.
I am starting to think that Gifted and Talented programs shouldn't just be eliminated in our schools. If schools truly served the needs of all students, there would be no need for "named" programs, just high quality education that best serves all students reguardless of abilities.
p.s. I accidently posted this here at KTM, I forgot to change the dropdown box on the blogger window, sorry.
16 comments:
I wouldn't be happy if they eliminated Gifted programs from the schools. They kept my son from losing his mind.
I see your point, Rory, and I do agree with a lot of it. But for me, enrichment worked fine with certain subjects as long as it was challenging.
We have a pullout program, so the good thing was that my son would miss the incredibly boring stuff that he already knows and be allowed to work on what he found more interesting with similar kids.
When the pullouts became more regular and with a little larger groups, he was almost excited about going to school.
With enrichment in such subjects as social studies, science, or LA,(I'm talking grade school only, mind you), he just went deeper into subjects. He learned more general knowledge, but was expected to synthesize that knowledge on a higher level.
You could argue that there was acceleration going on since he was acquiring knowledge a year or more beyond his grade level. But much of his abilities, like many gifted kids,(writing, organization) were still stuck in that grade level.
OTOH, I was lucky enough to have a school that felt enrichment would not be enough for him in math and so he is accelerated a couple of years.
The acceleration has been successful, for the most part, but when you're younger doing math with older high-math kids, the actual joy of math can shrink by quite a bit. He was a little kid cranking out a lot of math. He didn't seem to mind it so much until this year.
I personally don't think pull-out programs are the answer. They seem to be yet another band-aid for schools that won't deal with the massive skill differences between children. But, I'd rather have one than none at all.
I would have had to homeschool or hire a shrink just to get him through grade school if it hadn't been for that great teacher and program.
I would put the figure at 100%.
The entire bell curve in public schools in this country needs to be picked up and moved WAY down the field.
Or up the field, if that's the proper analogy...
I thought I had once read that some states treated their gifted population like special needs. That sounds good to me. An IEP would get everyone on board with a kid's progress.
At least if you have gifted listed as a special need, you could possible have the ADA to lean on for backing.
I know in IL they don't have to recognize gifted issues until the end of 3rd grade. Usually, if the ISAT is very high they start pulling out for this and that. That's awfully late in the day for most kids.
Some schools, like mine, start earlier. I had my son tested at Northwestern and later by a psychologist in case anyone gave me a problem. But no one gave me a problem and he started being pulled out in Kindergarten.
Susan
A few comments--I teach gifted students in Kansas one of the few states that includes gifted under the special education umbrella. We write IEPs for our students and they can be a powerful document in guiding academic coursework.
It always tickles me when a kid is deemed "gifted" in third grade--like they weren't born that way? If districts would read the research they would realize that underachievement starts very early in gifted kiddos and is pretty well entrenched by third grade. Teachers and parents really have to advocate for the young ones--we're giving 3rd grade MAP tests (achievement tests) to our first and second graders--this gives us good info about where they are in relation to peers.
Hi nbosch,
Can I come to Kansas?:)
I remember the explanation being that some kids that aren't truly gifted come out of the chute quickly, so to speak.
Of course, even if that were true, they should teach them what they're ready to learn and if they're wrong later, well then don't pull them.
It was a strange explanation, but I heard it over and over.
I was lucky, too, because several of the teachers and administrators in my school were very interested in gifted issues. (Some thought it was a bunch of hooey, though.)
I was able to navigate through the system pretty well by getting the best regular teachers for my son, rather than be stuck with a teacher who didn't believe in any of it. Again, I had no state backing, just a good principal and gifted teacher who carefully worked with me to get the best teacher for him.
Susans,
I'm going to a gifted meeting tomorrow night at our school.
My son made a startling confession to my husband tonight. He said "I just can't stand my class. It's just too easy."
I'm wondering if all this talk of him not being able to focus has something to do with the fact that he is slowly going out of his mind with boredom.
Hello nbosch,
My third grader was labled an underachiever until the CogAT and ITBS tests revealed something entirely different. He recently took the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test.
What is the difference between the Naglieri and the MAP? I mean, I know one is a cognitive test, but why use this test and not the MAP?
I read the article on JS Online about the gifted and a particular passage caught by eye:
"Contrary to popular wisdom gifted students aren't all happy, easy-to-handle, interested, quiet and passive. They ask questions, get frustrated, act out and sometimes wallow in boredom."
I know someone whose kid has Asperger's and was tested for the gifted at our elementary school and missed being accepted by one point. The school told this mom that their was not an appeal process, but come to find out later, there was.
Paula,
I know several kids who act out because of boredom. My son started acting up in Kindergarten. When I observed one day I saw that they were counting up to a hundred in a circle, a perfectly fine exercise for most 5-year olds. It lasted for around 20 minutes and the teacher did it everyday.
The look on his face said it all. He looked like he was going to die. That's when I started to set up meetings.
My son never showed any signs of precociousness. He played with a Mr. Potato Head bin throughout pre-school and refused to participate in most of the art projects or song singing. He didn't speak much and he didn't read early.
When he was tested at Northwestern he couldn't tell the tester what his last name was or his date of birth (he was 5 and a half.) I thought, "This is a monumental waste of time. These people are going to laugh me out of here."
When I returned she showed me that he had scored in the 99th percentile in both math and general knowledge. I still thought they had made a mistake.
IQ testing supported it, but it was hard to see from the outside. This is why I think schools get it wrong alot. They could have easily pointed to his behavior as a reason to not teach him differently, instead of recognizing that bad behavior can often mask giftedness, particularly with boys.
Susan,
Thank you so much for your comments. It has helped me to try and figure out just what is going with my own children and their school.
I think you are dead-on about the school getting it wrong a lot. The one thing that concerns me about my oldest son is the fact that the principal keeps bringing up his inattentiveness and lack of organizational skills...like it is a deficiency.
She seemed surprised (she didn't know) that he received a letter from the county asking to test him for the gifted. I cited his CogAt and the ITBS scores and she didn't seem to get that this might mean something.
As the school year ends, he is opening up more and more about his days in class. I think he tries so hard to keep it together during the day and just lets go once he gets home.
Susan,
What test was your son give at Northwestern?
I was just doing some research on the Naglieri test. That test has only 38 items. It's similar to the "Ravens Progressive Matrices," another nonverbal test they use sometimes with autistic kids. The CogAt is put out by the Univ of Iowa; I took it back in the 1970's along with the ITBS tests and it has more questions and sections and isn't totally nonverbal. The stuff I found online were mainly articles (masquerading as "studies") by the publishers of the tests advocating their product. Our district uses the Naglieri because it's supposedly culture-blind and can identify gifted kids even if English isn't their primary language. My 1st grader brought home her results. They just give a number "ability index" and no indication of what it means. Supposedly the school uses this for gifted determination along with finding kids with difficulties. My daughter's score was 138. I did some looking and found that's the 99th%. I was pretty surprised; she's bright and her SAT battery indicated 81st%. So now I need to determine whether to pursue this further; I know the "gifted" program in our district is all enrichment and "differentiation"--my boss said one of her kids qualified but did not participate as she was not all that impressed with the program and the idea she got is it's a label for parents to brag about, which wouldn't surprise me as our community is so competitive about stuff like that. The kids are clustered with a certain teacher and have additional work to do and maybe an hour every week for "enrichment"...probably constructing artifacts or something similar!
Hello Kathy,
Yes, I've read about the Naglieri test. My third grader's scores come back in June.
So there is a correlation between achievement test scores and abilities test scores, right?
I think there's a pretty strong correlation though there are some theories that say ability and achievement are 2 separate things as the achievement is school-based and the ability is more of an abstract reasoning exercise. It was late last night when I was reading these and my statistics course was 21 years ago.
The psychologist told me the same thing about achievement tests versus ability (like an IQ test.)
My son's IQ tests were putting him around the 97th/98th percentile in general, with mathlike subtests being around the 99th. But his achievement scores were more around the 90th at the time.
His point to me was that his achievement scores should be closer to his "ability."
That was his advocacy advice. Since then, most of his achievement testing has been matching his IQ percentiles, so I can't complain.
Paula,
I can try to look it up. It was tesing for young children. I remember the Raven Matrixes something or other (what Kathy said, I believe.) Also, something with Peabody in it. (I used to know what all of these things were, but it's been a while.) Anyway, let me know if you want more specifics. It's not hard to look it up.
The one thing that concerns me about my oldest son is the fact that the principal keeps bringing up his inattentiveness and lack of organizational skills...like it is a deficiency.
That happened to us somewhat with a couple of teachers. The two have nothing to do with each other. My son shows definite signs of having some ADD symptoms, but so far he aces most school tests, gets along with friends and teachers, and show no signs of depression or frustration at his own disorganization, so I don't plan on running to a doctor about it at this point.
One thing that might help is when you let everyone know what his scores are, the chances are good that his teachers will start treating him differently because now they know something about him that they didn't know before.
This happened with a friend of mine whose child seemed to have a lot of behavior and authority problems. Mom knew he was smart, but when they saw that his Performance IQ was 145, they all realized that they had to relate to him differently. He's been a much happier boy since that day.
His problem was that he had a writing disability (and major ADHD-like symptoms, probably exacerbated by the boredom), so they just placed him based on his deficiencies. I think his teachers thought he was smart, but they just didn't realize he was "out of the curriculum" in so many ways.
Susan,
No, it is okay, no need to look the test up. I was just wondering.
I think my son exhibits signs of ADD-like behavior, but aces all tests. He doesn't seem bothered by his disorganization at all. It bothers the teachers and principal more than him!
It will be interesting to see what more testing reveals. The gifted meeting tonight at my school should be interesting as well. Perhaps my questions will be answered.
Thanks again Susan for your comments!
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