Parents of the Gifted Resist a Call to Share a School Building

New York Times ^ | 6/6/06 | ELISSA GOOTMAN

[freespirited]

There they were, parents and students from the New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math school, banging drums and shaking maracas in front of Cipriani Wall Street to disrupt the black-tie benefit where Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein was speaking.

There they were again, hundreds representing NEST, as the school is known, passionately chanting "Save the NEST" in front of City Hall. And there they were, hoisting "Don't Tread on Our School" signs on a wooded patch of East Hampton near the Ross School, a private school founded by Courtney Sale Ross, the wealthy widow of a former Time Warner chairman.

In the two months since parents at NEST learned of the city's plans to place the Ross Global Academy, a new charter school also founded by Ms. Ross, in their building on the Lower East Side, they have filed a lawsuit, hired a publicist and printed buttons and postcards. The city has not budged.

Now the battle over NEST, which has about 730 students, has become a tale about the intersection of class, race, parents, politicians and philanthropists in the New York City public schools. It pits the mostly middle-class parents who have nurtured NEST, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school for gifted and talented children, against Ms. Ross, a multimillionaire with homes in the Hamptons and on the Upper East Side whose supporters say she is creating a school to help the poor.

"They're trying to destroy our school," cried Arianna Gil, 12, a NEST seventh grader, at the Cipriani rally, as she handed out gift bags embossed in silver lettering with the NEST logo and filled with publicity materials. She warned of "complete chaos" if the Ross charter school moves in.

[wideawake]

"Mainstreaming" gifted children with "special needs" children is insanity, social engineering at its worst.

In practice, one finds that administrators acknowledge this insanity and that's why at magnet schools in NYC for gifted kids, you will find a mix of: gifted children, average kids picked out for their above-average work ethic and "special needs" kids who are carefully cherry-picked - as I said before, bright kids with dyslexia or bright kids with physical disabilities like paraplegia.

[leda]

there are plenty of special needs students (dyslexics,
behavioral cases, paraplegics) who are quite bright

yes there are! a student my husband tutored was in a
wheelchair due to a physical disability. he was bussed
to another school because it was more accessable and had
sp ed classes. the problem with this was that his intelligence
was not compromised by his physical disability! armed with
some information about his rights (ahem, from us), his parents
successfully had him back in grade level classes at his own
home school.

[CobaltBlue]

Being gifted is considered a special need all by itself.

Handicapped gifted children are one thing.

"Children from all academic abilities" is something else entirely.

[CobaltBlue]

that's why at magnet schools in NYC for gifted kids, you will find a mix of: gifted children, average kids picked out for their above-average work ethic and "special needs" kids who are carefully cherry-picked

Obviously why New York has so many private schools, and why the attitude is "put them in a private school."

More than one way to destroy public education. Dumbing down coursework for gifted kids is one of the stupidest.

[AppyPappy]

We have very few black kids in our schools which is really hard on them when they move to the area. One girl from Richmond complained about the lack of black kids in her grade. When several mixed-race kids complained, she responded "If your momma ain't black, you ain't black". It caused a LOT of problems since all their mommas were white. But kids aren't comfortable being a minority when they have grown up as a majority. And we are still a very segregated society.

[after dark]

>The whole ridiculous Gifted & Talented thing is hoax, put together to make certain parents feel better about themselves.


I agree with you. Gifted and talented classes are a tax supported private school. Most of the people who use them can afford real private schools. There is nothing worse than listening to a parent with children in gifted and talented classes putting down parents who have had to pull their kids out of public schools.

[CobaltBlue]

I was considered gifted, then I got over it.

Disbelief.

[cyberaxe]

.....Ditto.....

.....we are about to run into this same type of issue here in upstate SC.....

.....One of my children is attending a fairly new GT program.....

.....it was started by by a past School Superintendent with the intention of actually giving that small minority of gifted students the same amount of attention that was being giving to "other" minorities of special needs students.....

.....but alas.....

.....the current School Superintendent has found that it (the GT program) represents an untapped fiscal and PR resource just waiting to be hijacked for her own pet project.....

.....So much to the windfall of the local private schools and the dismay of the parents with gifted students without the means.....

.....the mass exodus from the current GT program has begun.....

.....what a shame.....

[wideawake]

Obviously why New York has so many private schools, and why the attitude is "put them in a private school."

That's not obvious at all.

New York has dozens of private schools that completely predate the entire public school system - Collegiate School dates to 1628. Was there a Dutch West India Company school system with lax standards for gifted kids that forced parents to set up Collegiate?

New York also has many private academies for Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Episcopals and Lutherans, even one for doctrinaire atheists in order to provide instruction in values that parents put a premium on.

No, the one has literally nothing to do with the other.

[CobaltBlue]

One of the smartest kids I ever interacted with is as black as it gets.

His dad IS a rocket scientist, Ph.D. in astrophysics, and his mom is also something incredible. Both from Africa.

I think, for him, being labeled as "black" is ridiculous. He's just himself. He needs to be with other people like himself, no matter what color.

[wideawake]

When several mixed-race kids complained, she responded "If your momma ain't black, you ain't black".

Clearly she's a little racist who needs to wise up. Who made her the authoritative arbiter of everyone's heritage?

[AppyPappy]

I read an article about some Africans who settled into a housing project in Roanoke Va. They were getting harassed a lot by the other kids in the project. The reason: They were too black. They were too dark in color. I found that really odd. But if you look back in history, color differences were considered an indication of things.

There is a large cultural divide that is difficult to cross sometimes. This is particularly true of Southerners. We like things "our way" and that "way" can vary widely.

[after dark]

This is a socialization issue. Unless people in gifted and talented programs can rub elbows with all the thugs in public schools ,they are not any better socialized than kids in home schools or Christian academies.

(I am being sarcastic on so many levels...)

[subterfuge]

Disbelief.

Acrimony.

[Jonx6]

I wouldn't send my dog to a public school...

[subterfuge]

You know, someone could make a similar snide remark about your comment--that it's designed to make certain parents who don't have gifted and talented children feel better about themselves.

By golly, I think you did just that. You see, I just don't feel government wonks have the ability to discern brilliance. Have you taken notice who is running the schools free?

[CobaltBlue]

How old are your kids?

If they're young enough, it's worth your while to fight -- if they're older there's always AP classes, and if there's a local college that will accept them they can take courses there, young and old (not younger than 13, usually).

National Association for Gifted and Talented.
http://www.nagc.org/

Duke University Talent Identification Program.
http://www.tip.duke.edu/index.html

Summer Institute for the Gifted.
http://www.cgp-sig.com/

Center for Gifted and Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins.
http://www.jhu.edu/~gifted/

Distance Learning (K-12) for gifted children.

I've interacted with all of the above, they're useful and helpful.
http://cty.jhu.edu/cde/

[AppyPappy]

Dunno. It's just the way she looked at things. You have to remember that she came from an environment where black women were the anchor for the family. Everything came down from that hill. The mother was the major influence. A fat little white girl can't teach a kid how to be "black" anymore than a Yankee can teach a kid how to be "Southern".

I was a city kid and my wife's people are Appalachian folk. I know how to pick a Chardonnay and they gut deer in the front yard. It was a tough transition.

[CobaltBlue]

Unless people in gifted and talented programs can rub elbows with all the thugs in public schools ,they are not any better socialized than kids in home schools or Christian academies.

Funny.

[CobaltBlue]

Acrimony.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.