Posted on 12/04/2007 6:03:11 AM PST by yankeedame
ELITIST GIFTED PROGRAMS
The Seattle government school system received an outside review of its gifted education program. The results ... the district should "aggressively diversify its program" because it is "elitist."
Why is it considered elitist? Because three-quarters of the students enrolled in the gifted program are white. District wide, whites only make up 40% of the student population. This would mean that in an egalitarian world only 40 percent of the gifted students would be white. If the number is higher .. than there's a big problem.
Students are admitted into the program after testing in the 98th or 99th percentile nationally in cognitive ability and reading and math skills. Once students test in this percentile, they spend most of their government education with students of the same caliber.
Not good, according to the report. This is "perceived to be 'elitist, exclusionary and even racist.' Yes, racist. Can we please give that word a rest for a decade or so? You score in the 98th or 99th percentile .. and you get moved into the gifted program, no matter what your color. Now we're going to start calling accomplishment racist.
Even admission to the program is being considered "elitist" because it relies too much on a single test to determine aptitude. This is "unfair to low-income students and students without parental support."
There's a book out there I would like to recommend. It truly is an extraordinary read. The title is "In Defense of Elitism" by William A. Henry III. Henry, mind you, is a self-described card-carrying member of the ACLU and a registered Democrat. Here's your link ... order one for your favorite elitist today. Don't bother about me .. I've got my copy.
In the meantime ... stop the child abuse. Get your child out of government schools today.
I’ve never been to Deattle.
“Working the system” won’t get your kid tested in the 98th percentile. That’s some rarified air there.
I wonder if the brain surgeons in Seattle are diversified.
It’s obvious to the less-than-casual observer that the writers of the report would not qualify for the classes, eh?
Failed HS seniors in the Mobile County school system are allowed to dress and walk across the stage with the legit graduates and no-one knows the difference. The failed students would recieve a 'certificate of attendance' instead of a diploma. This is allowed to occur because "something is 'wrong' when almost all of the failures are Black".
When my brother was applying for law school (some time ago now), one of the things the law schools' info packets had was this graph showing the distribution of undergraduate GPA vs. LSAT scores for students who had been admitted.
They apparently wanted to show the quality of their student body ... there was a big cluster of scores up in the corner showing high GPA and high LSAT .... and a few lonely individuals down toward the middle. The really ugly part was that you knew those folks had been admitted for reasons of "diversity," and would most likely flunk out.
a private tutor here and there, familiarity with the test, then I’m sure there’s always exceptions if the parent plays golf with the right school board member.
No. They are talking about the ability to be successful in an academic environment. No matter how politically astute your parents are it won't help you solve simultaneous equations.
I graded some final exams yesterday. Even though the grading was anonymous, it doesn’t take much detective work to see which answers came from students admitted for diversity purposes.
I will take up for some educators(a very few): when my son was in middle school he had a teacher that fought to get a program for the gifted. It was a fight because there were those that against it because “it might take funds away from those that are struggle”, and that is a comment made during a PTO meeting.
private tutor, familiarity with the test = parents who care about getting their kids the best education possible.
Yes, it’s cultural.
“golf with a school board member” won’t change a test score.
I am an alumni of MIT. I interview high school seniors in my area who have applied to MIT. About 7% of the people in my area are Asian. But about 60% of the kids I talk to are Asian. The parents generally have no more than 2 kids, give them all the resources they can, and have high expectations. Additionally, when I look at their records I see involvement in community service, academic teams, music performance (usually piano or a string instrument) and cultural education (e.g., Chinese school). I almost never see any athletic involvement unless it’s tennis or golf, and even in those cases it’s at a low level; they’re not spending hours and weekends on traveling teams and private lessons in the off season, etc.
Well, where I am I have a son that is taking college calculus credit in the 12th grade and a 7th grader who is taking that algebra now and will be in calculus as a sophomore. I have an older son who is has an engineering dgree and is studying rocket science.
And we’re not even Asians!
I think your card blanche attitude towards American education is amiss.
Good point.
If you are going under the knife, how would you like to find out that your surgeon was in the top 20% of his race?
I disagree with the way this article was written, but not necessarily with the report. This is not a racial issue, but there are obviously big problems with the districts method of identifying students.
Most school districts use a multi-criteria approach to identifying gifted students, because of this problem. Acheivement tests measure acheivement, not necessarily ability. Using them as the sole criteria for identifying gifted students, misses a big percentage of students that are truly gifted. Truly gifted students are not high acheivers in a big percentage of cases.
There is a big difference between high acheivers, and truly gifted students. High acheivers get results from working hard, receiving good instruction and having a variety of educational resources. Gifted students have ability, that may or may not be tapped into. Gifted is a measure of potential, not acheivement.
Many gifted students are not high acheivers, because they are not challenged. Many will eventually drop out of school. These are the students that gifted programs are trying to identify for alternative learning. The reason being that these students have the potential for great things, and letting them fall through the cracks is a high cost for society.
MRs. GA Medic
When I went to law school...none of the minority kids graded onto law review. There was a huge stink...
Mind you...all law school exams at my alma mater are graded by a person who doesn’t know the identity of the test taker. You write a number on your exam, not your name.
But surely there was bias! /sarcasm.
Did your brother go to Tulane? Because I had the exact same experience.
No, elsewhere .... but he looked at a lot of law schools’ stuff.
Oooohhhh, now you’ve stepped in it. Prepare for the onrush of “expert opinions.”
Most school districts use a multi-criteria approach to identifying gifted students, because of this problem. Acheivement tests measure acheivement, not necessarily ability.
__________
Undoubtedly true, but that doesn’t mean switching to a multi-criteria approach would lead to a more diverse class...if it were truly applied in a color-blind manner. It appears that some believe the only valid selection method is one that produces “diverse” results, simply to satisfy the sacred goal of diversity - whatever the hell that is.
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