The strong policy focus on struggling students shortchanges the gifted students in Georgia schools

Nothing new here. Many bloggers have been preaching this sermon for years.

With today’s overemphasis on testing, the goal is to get everybody to a minimal standard rather than to a level commensurate with their ability level.

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The time has come for EVERYONE to homeschool their kids and get them out of public schools.
No more drugs/thugs ………….

Life will be better for kids and their parents.

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I fell asleep reading ‘old school’.
Please keep comments to 50 words or less.

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Teacher and Mom – thanks for the suggestion and you are correct, identifying who is “gifted” is many times more political than accurate and it is those students in this category who come out on the short end. Old School you have some valid points but I don’t agree with all of them. I also recommend reading Look Into My Eyes by John Robinson – gives you some insight into the Asperger Syndrome traits.

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Old School, I’m with you.

Maybe there should be a Get School Bloggers Charter School.

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You must have never meet a home school student…..most of them lack the appropriate socialization skills that are necessary for proper social development (Not all of them, some children are special cases). The teacher can provide higher level instruction if they choose to provide the proper education by adjusting instruction. If people would invest more money in education then school systems would not have to do more with less….the people who complain about higher taxes for schools are then ones that need to zip it if they want better public school. Wait….instead of complaining…go volunteer in the classroom and help the teachers provide differentiated instruction in classrooms of 35 students. If the schools use the appropriate gifted testing strategies then every child should be identified.

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HUH???

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Off topic for gifted education but on topic for hiking trip…Maureen’s trip is one of the reasons I would be happy to move to a modified year-round calendar in Fulton. Having brief time off during different times of the year might permit different kinds of adventures to enrich children outside the classroom. The blazing hot summer makes some adventures untenable. My friend in Decatur is taking her third grade twins to Callaway to see the butterfly pavilion, bike ride, etc. for a few days. They’ve never been. I also think there are academic and emotional benefits (for students and teachers) to taking breaks more interspersed throughout the year.

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My experience here is Georgia is that the gifted are the only ones who get pulled out for instruction in a more challenging way–one period a day. The rest of the “special” children (ESOL, EIP, sped) are served as push in–which seriously dilutes the instructional help they get. Until the day that gifted gets treated as push in, we will be stuck with this terribly flawed model of “help.” If gifted is ever done as push in, you will see all h3ll break lose.

I am speaking not only as a long-time teacher, but as the parent of 3 gifted kids. As a parent, I liked the gifted pull out model, as it meant my kids had at least one class without the lump-lumps (unmotivated or sub-par kids.)

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It definitely is our average and gifted students who are being left behind. Teachers are forced to teach to THE TEST. Those who are already going to pass it aren’t pushed because so much time has to be spent on the lower achieving ones to try to force them to pass a test that they aren’t ready to pass so our schools can be seen as making AYP. My current school didn’t make it this year because our sub-group of special education students who are almost always going to be two or three grade levels behind (otherwise they wouldn’t be special education!!) didn’t pass and we had a sub-group of low socio-economic African-American males who didn’t pass … and that’s with a wonderful African-American principal, an awesome African-American assisstant principal, and at least 10 hard-working, wonderfully caring, African-American teachers. Our safe-harbors couldn’t save us, even with 100% participation and a great yearly attendance score, and, I’m afraid never will again, due to these two groups that have so much emphasis put on them.

As long as so much focus has to be put on bringing up those students, and until the average and gifted parents start stepping up to the plate and advocating as loudly as the special needs parents, our gifted and average students are going to continue to be short-changed.

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k teacher..

Who the hell cares about african-american teachers .
Cant you respond without race issues .I dont give a damn if they are Chinese teachers and ass. principles.

IT STARTS AT HOME WITH THE PARENTS.
Oh, I forgot, it take 2.

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jbstoner, you are highly opinionated and rude about a topic you don’t appear to be knowledgeable about! Get off this blog!

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I find your writings to be biased to say the least and mostl right of center. You are always writing to those who think and look like you without any opposing thoughts or opinions. It like preaching to the choir. As to the gifted children, I believe that all children are gifted, some have social and economic advantages that propel them to the top. I am an upper middle income parent, so I speak from experience. For example, in Dekalb County school system it is known that the worst teachers are generally assigned to the lower income and performing schools and it is factual that the most important person in a any school system is the classroom teacher, period. Morever, in DCSC, we provide 57 extra teachers and extra resources to the so called “gifted” or “smartest” kids in the county. We get even smarter as a system, we then turn to the federal government for Title I funding for these low performing schools to supplement our failures in providing a good education in the first place. Your conservative genes should be upset at the thought of school districts acting out in such a manner. I know, you don’t care about these underperforming schools and kids. Geoffrey Canada in Harlem, New York has proven that these kids are just as capable of learning at high levels as anyone.

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If you’re waiting for public schools to address the issue, good luck. I suggest finding an appropriate private school.

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Angela, the CRCT is NOT used to determine eligibility for gifted. There are four criteria. If I remember correctly, three of which must be met. They are: a) measurement of ability (IQ), b) measurement of achievement (standardized test such as ITBS, etc.) c) creativity assessment (such as the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking) and motivation. The CRCT is a criterion-referenced test. Its goal is to determine if student have met a pre-determined minimum criteria. Most state tests are also criterion referenced tests.

Most measures of achievement (ITBS, CTBS, and SAT – Stanford Achievement Test) are norm-referenced tests. These are the ones that rank students against OTHER students, not against a set criteria.

And, I do agree that the gifted/high achieving students are slighted in favor of bringing students who are below grade level. This is a tremendous disservice not only to these students, but to society as a whole. We are missing an opportunity to get our best and brightest the very best education we can. This, in turn, deprives our world of future leaders, researchers, etc.

Do we need to do the best we can for the low achievers? Absolutely! But expecting a student with an IQ of 50 (100 is average, 130 is gifted, generally speaking) to be at- or above-grade level is absurd. Set realistic expectations and do everything we can to give them — and everyone else — an appropriate education.

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@Middle Grades Math Teacher,

Please remember that all school systems do not give a Norm standardized test. However, if I am incorrect about the CRCT scores as a detector please forgive me. But, unless I am wrong I remember after testing the following year those students with high scores are the ones who are pulled however, I will verify my information with our gifted teacher on Monday or Tuesday when she comes to the school.

Thanks!

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@ Angela — yes, please check it out and let me know! As far as I know, a criterion-referenced test should never be used for gifted eligibility. It’s not designed for that. I know a lot of districts don’t use norm-referenced on a large-scale, but will use those tests for students considered for gifted. They have to have a way of comparing a student’s achievement to their peers. A norm-referenced test is the way to do that.

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CRCT scores are used to screen students to see if they might be eligible for further (norm-referenced) testing to determine eligibility for gifted services. For example, if a student scores in the top 8 % for the district in CRCT Math or Reading, AND has a norm-referenced achievement score at or above the 90th percentile, he or she would be eligible to be tested for cognitive ability and creative thinking.

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One year I was talking to a counselor at my kids elementary school. She told me my son didn’t get into the gifted program (TAG) becasue he was 2 points short on the math section of the CRCT. He had never taken a test for the gifted program. So in Fulton County, the CRCT is a way to “test” for the gifted program.

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I always hesitate to talk with people about my children because they are gifted. I am treated as if their issues – and they have MANY because of their academic abilities, in and out of the classroom – are to be pushed aside because they “don’t need extra help” or I “should just be thankful they are bright.” I am thankful, but it doesn’t make trying to give them an education that fully challenges them any less daunting. So, “unless you’ve been there” goes both ways.

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@ Mom of 2: I’d ask to see the criteria for TAG in Fulton. CRCT is not an identifier, for reasons already explained.

@ Terry: 1) See what “I Teach Gifted” said. First, gifted students aren’t always gifted in all areas. A gifted child may be extremely talented in some areas, average in others. 2) We’re not talking about providing them with “extra help.” We’re talking about providing them with extra instruction. Example: “Average” students in my math class generally need several lessons and repeated practice in a topic to be competent with it the concept. A mathematically gifted child can master the concept in one lesson. That child needs a pace of instruction that will either a) let them move ahead; or b) provide them with a broader range of experiences with that concept that will allow the student to learn more and stay engaged with instruction. And that, my friend, is difficult to do in a class of 28 students. The majority of the class is working through 4 lessons. The gifted child(ren) is/are sitting there, going, “I GET THIS! Can we PLEASE move on?”

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Whoa, educate yourselves, folks, BEFORE you post as if you know something. (At least this allows those who know to share the facts – IF the mis-informed will listen.)

As a couple of others have posted, CRCT, grades, teacher motivation assessments, etc. may be used for screening but there MUST be a supporting nationally normed score (COGAT, ITBS, Stanford AT) to substantiate INTELLECTUAL giftedness. (For those of you in the every-kid-is-gifted camp; intectual talents and gifts are identified in this program.)

And if you question equity issues between funding for gifted and special education programs, look at what happened in school systems generally supportive of gifted programs this year. Did special ed classes move to maximum class sizes equal to regular ed? No. Did gifted classes? Oh, yes, or even more.

The only funding for gifted at the federal level is for research grants. The level of federal mandates – with some funding – is legendary; even the stimulus money for education was earmarked for IDEA, Title I and construction.

Don’t know how this STEM plan is going to work without some more emphasis on gifted ed. Teaching to the CRCT will NOT be a means to the end of global competition!

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@ Angela, et. al — I would think that a high (defined as WELL above 850/exceeds) on CRCT might get a parent/teacher thinking…”Hmm…maybe we need to see if this child is eligible for TAG.” But you can’t show eligibility using CRCT.

I’ve had students who were average/above average academically, but not in TAG, who have scored 950 and 990 on CRCT. Two such studentsI had last year were hard working, motivated, asked lots of questions, had “gazelle-like” focus in class. They completed all work, weren’t afraid to ask questions if they didn’t understand something, and didn’t let it go until they DID understand. And, I didn’t let it go, either, until they did. In middle school, these students, even if they didn’t qualify for TAG, were eligible for advanced placement classes.

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@high school teacher,

On an additional note, I am expected to differentiate my lesson plans for my honors classes just as I am my regular classes. Funny, I thought having an honors class was differentiation in and of itself…

I thought so too! However, it sounds like you might just be a DCSS teacher where sooooooooooooooo much is expected since KING Beasley (or should I say DR. REV. perhaps King does not put him on a high enough throne) is on the scene we have so much unecessary paper work to do. There is so little time to teach.

Also, from experience and one who requested that program in her elementary school some years ago – you might just like teaching them instead of the so called gifted. If you do the differentiate grouping and especially in high school you might just find that your other students may want to meet the challenge. I did in my elementary class. But, there is still the added paper work – well, I ain’t got no answer for that. But, maybe I do perhaps you can think of a standard routine that you will do in your class and start writing your lesson plan to reflect that with little modification needed. Such as Area 1 will routinely do xyz, Area 2 will routinely do abc, etc. each group will rotate daily so that everyone covers each area within that week. This is what I do on the elementary level. Hope it gives you an idea.

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Well hello there ‘Save De Kalb Schools’, so nice to hear from you.
How’s yo momma and them???
So nice to know you are doing well..

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You can go online to the GADOE and find the requirements for Gifted, and no where will you find the CRCT. It must be a norm-referenced test.

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A couple of things:

CRCT is not used as a criteria for entrance into the gifted program……CoGat measures mental ability (IQ)..Students are automatically in the program (with parent approval), if they student scores 96% or above in an area. If the student scores around 90%, then they must meet 2 other criteria….Creativity, Motivation, and Achievement (ITBS)….the scores must also be 90% or above in any of these areas and there must be 3 or 4 areas where that score is met, otherwise, no entrance into program.

And yes, kids can be kicked out of gifted. My son was in 8th grade, not due to grades, but because he had a couple teachers who didn’t like his attitude. He did end up back in gifted classes in high school and took AP classes as well. He graduated in December from Georgia Tech, with honors.

We found that for both my son and daughter that there are many teachers (high school) who think that gifted kids can just teach themselves. Maybe that is what is meant be not leaving these kids behind. Challenge them so that they can achieve even more!

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Hey people just for the record if you go back and read my first post I said as a detector NOT the determing factor. I also, wrote there are a battery of test. I might be wrong of what I thought I was ask and told. I will verify my information on Monday or Tuesday when our gifted teacher comes to my school.

People calm down it ani’t that serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although Miss/Mr who posted that ridiculous statement about DCSS teacher and the county there is a little bit of truth to the fact that all students are gifted in some form. They and we just have not found what they are gifted in even if it is not what we would respect or deem appropriate – just food for thought. (Even theives (I don’t mean petty) can be gifted at what they do – guess how many will never be caught).

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@decaturparent,

Oh and by the way I meet each and every criteria that I am evaluated on when I am observed. I guess that is why I still have a position.

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It’s a blog conversation. People often write their thoughts off the top of their head. This is not the place to nitpick grammar or spelling. Decaturparent — do you always speak with perfect placement of parts of speech?

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Angela –
You’re embarrassing yourself. Stop while you are ahead. If you still have a position in Dekalb County, be grateful for it. Learn about the various programs your county has to offer students. Learn how students become eligible for those programs. Learn how to best serve students in those programs. Those of us who have QUIETLY worked in this profession for years have done just that. It does not happen overnight, nor do we brag about it on blogs. Now … go study. It may take awhile. Start with the GADOE website that is available to every teacher, parent, and student. The rules for gifted eligibility are clearly outlined. You do not have to wait until Monday. Look it up for yourself. Learn the difference between a norm-referenced and a criterion-referenced test. You should have learned that distinction in college.

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Your children aren’t gifted. They’re above average. Mozart was gifted.

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“Oh and by the way I meet each and every criteria that I am evaluated on when I am observed. I guess that is why I still have a position”

And this statement may prove that we have some problems with the evaluation programs in our schools. I realize that you are not writing for evaluation on this blog, but I advise teachers every day to remember that everything they do is a reflection on them, our school, and our profession. We certainly don’t need to provide ammunition for the critics. Yes, all of us make mistakes when speaking and writing. The occassional mistake is not the issue. It is the repeated mistakes that cause concern – incorrect word form, missing commas, run-on sentences, comma splices, etc. Please tell me you are not teaching writing!

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The comment about the lack of professional development for the needs of gifted kids is SO valid. Everyone’s supposed to differentiate for the slightly-below to just-above-average learner, and significant emphasis is placed on differentiation for the “struggling learners,” but children in gifted or honors classes are all the same.

There is significant discrepancy in resource allocation for students outside the range of “normal IQ,” i.e. basically 71-129. (Although many in that range will qualify for other special ed services such as specific learning disability, hearing impaired, speech, etc.)

All gifted students with IQs of 130+ (some may have slightly lower IQ if identified through multiple criteria) are funded at weight 1.6681. This is what is earned, however, only for the periods in which they receive gifted services; as noted before, this is often one day per week or one class per day, so they are at regular ed funding weight the other time.

Students with IQs of 55-70 are funded at a weight of 2.8178; those between 25 – 55 have a funding weight of 3.5897. Specific learning disabilities are funded at weights between 2.3954 – 3.5897. Kindergarten at 1.6596 and elementary early intervention program from 1.7982 – 2.0150).

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Below is the Eligibility for the Gifted Program per the State of Georgia. Perhaps, this will help everyone who has an arguement.

Eligibility Chart

Evaluation Chart – See Georgia Gifted Education Resource Manual for additional information
A student may qualify for gifted education services by meeting the two criteria in Option A or three of the four criteria in Option B. Information shall be gathered in each of the four data categories. At least one of the criteria must be met by a score on a nationally normed standardized test. Any data used in one category to establish a student’s eligibility may not be used in any other category. Grade point averages are based on mathematics, language arts, science, social studies and full year foreign language classes. Assessment data must be current within two years.

Option A Mental Ability Achievement
Kdg – 2nd: 99th percentile on composite or full scale score of a standardized test of mental ability

3rd – 12th: 96th percentile (or higher) on composite or full scale score of a standardized test of mental ability Kdg – 12th: 90th percentile (or higher), by age or grade, on total reading, total math or total battery score of a standardized achievement test

-OR-

A superior rating (numerical score of 90 or better on scale of 1-100) on a student generated product or performance as evaluated by a panel of three or more qualified evaluators

Option B Mental Ability Achievement Creativity Motivation
96th percentile (or higher) by age on a composite or full scale score or appropriate component score of a standardized test of mental ability 90th percentile on total reading, total math or total battery score of a standardized achievement test

-OR-

A superior rating (numerical score of 90 or better on scale of 1-100) on a student generated product or performance as evaluated by a panel of three or more qualified evaluators 90th percentile (or higher) on the total battery of a standardized test of creativity

-OR-

90th percentile (or higher) on a standardized creativity characteristics rating scale

-OR-

superior rating (numerical score of at least 90 on a scale of 1-100) on a structured observation/ evaluation of creative products and/or performance as evaluated by a panel of three or more qualified evaluators 90th percentile (or higher) on a standardized characteristics rating scale (motivational)

-OR-

superior rating (numerical score of at least 90 on scale of 1-100) on a structured observation/ evaluation of student generated products and/or performances as evaluated by a panel of three or more qualified evaluators

-OR-

Grade point average of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, using an average of core grades over the previous two school years
Identification of gifted students shall be nondiscriminatory with respect to race, religion, national origin, sex, disabilities or economic background.

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As ElemPal notes, the eligibility criteria are standard throughout the state. Identification methods and delivery models may vary by school system, but eligibility is uniform. This even means that students who were in gifted programs in another state are required to meet Georgia’s criteria to qualify for gifted services in a Georgia public school. http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_iap_gifted.aspx?PageReq=EligibilityChart

My mother was a teacher of gifted when her system went through an investigation by OCR of their gifted program. If your system fudges, they could be subject to the same. (Her program was vindicated, but retesting MANY students was not a pleasant experience, even though they knew they were legit.)

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Hate to say this, but the strongest criticisms I have gotten over my long career have been from parents of gifted kids when I challenged them at their level. While a few parents thank me, many griped and complained about the work being “too hard”, or it was “not fair” that their kids were not getting the 100 they would get in regular classes. I am a firm believer in challenging kids at all times. I choose to relish those gifted kids that rise to the challenge and really extend themselves. I ignore the students and parents that feel they are entitled to 99’s because they are gifted.

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The Option A in the above post is better known as Procedure 2 and it’s the old standard that is still on the books. Not all schools or districts are forthcoming in acknowledging there is a standard beyond the multiple criteria rule.

Procedure 2/Option A can be especially useful for very strong kids who are transferring from private school or from out of state as it eliminates the it will take time to get all the criteria problem that can have really bright kids wondering if they should offer to teach the course.

One more option for a nationally normed mental ability test could be the SSAT if parents are trying to decide public vs private. It would be particularly hard to get to the 96th percentile but if you can get there it’s nationally normed and “aptitude” is considered anonymous with mental ability as long as it’s a composite score and not just one area.

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My oldest daughter who scored in the above 92% on the ITBS never made into the Cobb Target program, because of the Creativy criterion they used at the school. Yet they would not tell us. The teachers she had could never figure it out and begged the gifted teacher to take her. Finally, right before I pulled her out for Catholic school, the Target teacher told me it was a Creative writing piece and my daughter didn’t write enough. My daughter told me they didn’t explain that is what it was, she answered the questioned and that was it. This is the same child, whose story was submitted by the school as the winner for a Cobb writting contest submittal for the school.

Ironically her friends that made it into Target once they transfered into the elite private schools of Atlanta could only muster C’s or D’s, While my Daughter was a A -B student in Private School in 5-8th grade.

All I could see was lots of heart break and not a real determinate of who was smarter or had more potential.

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I guess I must be blessed. As a 19 year teacher, I have been teaching gifted students for the past five years at a wonderful school in the Gwinnett County school System. My students are truly gifted and almost exclusively push themselves and most frequently go farther than I could ever expect in what I have assigned to them. They are truly a difficult group to teach, not because of their behavior, but because of their intellect and drive. I learn from “them” every day. I feel quite fortunate to be in a county that stands strongly behind the gifted education program. These students are the ones who will be the movers and shakers of the next generation to lead this country. We cannot ignore their need for special attention. We also, as a state, must realize that students in the “middle” should not be ignored while we work on opposite ends of educational ability. All our students deserve more than a system that is totally focused on the bottom.

On another note, I have found gifted students’ parents to be totally supportive of the innovative approach to education I incorporate into my classroom. They know their children are a challenge and appreciate anyone who goes out of their way to ensure individualized encouragement and stretching of their children.

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Michael, I am sure your students (and their parents) are very happy to have you as their teacher. You exemplify what a gifted teacher should be, striving to find ways to challenge students to stretch their minds and maximize their abilities. Fortunately, most of the teachers of gifted I’ve dealt with have had similar characteristics, to some degree.

However, be aware that some teachers (and I’ll bet you know a few of these) decide to get gifted certification because, to some degree, they believe that the gifted students are easier to teach. Such teachers are a source of much unnecessary stress to gifted students, as they tend to: a) think that the students should be able to “get it on their own” (including reading the teacher’s mind to see what s/he wants in an assignment); b) think that giving gifted students “more work” constitutes challenging them, and/or c: failing to assess/deal with the behavior issues that arise when you give these students more busy work and little or no direction. Fortunately, they usually realize that teaching gifted is actually harder, in many ways, and go back to what they were doign. (Hopefully, they retain some of their strategies to use in the regular classroom, anyway.)

Please continue to do the hard work “doing gifted right” entails. As you noted, you are encouraging a bright future for these students by teaching them what they need to know – how to think critically, to problem solve, and to create. Teachers like you will move our kids beyond the CRCT and we thank you!

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Many of these helicopter parents have no clue of what it is to be a “gifted/magnet/high achiever” child. Even at the high school level, they still believe whatever their children tell them. They have no clue whatsoever mindset of a teenager. Because s/he is “bored”, they believe their child is “gifted” and not being challenged. That’s where the problem lies, crazy helicopter parents with blinders on. Additionally, gifted programs are great, but who’s looking at the numbers. A good portion of the gifted students, especially boys, fail out of the program by middle school and early high school. My children graduated from Dekalb’s gifted program, academic sholarships to top tier colleges. We reside in the south side, but our children started about ten years ago in the north side and finished up the program. The Magnet/Gifted students moved like a cohort through the system. My children would often speak of these same gifted students who were on probation, and/or who failed out. Many were boys. It’s also a numbers game,in order for the school to keep the students, they would simply assigned the students to accelerated or regular classes. What are the parent to say now? Still gifted? They will fight for their child to be pladed in elementary magnet, but as soon as reality and puberty sets in about middle school, it’s a different story, these same parents start to fade. Many barely made it to graduation. Again, these parents, especially in elementary, do not understand the educational process. Their children tell them how “bored” they are, and they believe their child is not being challenged. Many of these “gifted” students cannot sit to read/work/write independently. Reminder, that is expected for the SAT and for college level work. My children would also tell me of the cheating. Many Magnet/Gifted students cheat, sharing answers, using the textbooks, and teachers are powerless. They let them cheat, because a disciplinary write up is pointless. Well, the results will show in college. Gifted/Magnet/High Achiever Programis great, but it only serves a small portion of high schoolers who manage to keep above probation and failure.

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Prepared: Fulton County has had a system to address this, although not comprehensively (or even consistently among schools) for years – it was called continuous achievement when my children were in elementary school. The system had teachers (or parents) refer students for testing, usually an end-of-unit test for a semester, then the students would be placed at their level of challenge.

This is where reality and theory would often conflict, because some schools only tested one semester ahead, others two semesters, others one to two years. (Apparently, this policy was set at a principal’s discretion – one of those local school control issues.)

Some children did eventually get up to three years ahead, typically in math or language arts. This avoided the social-emotional conflict of skipping a grade by placing the student in a specific subject at their academic level. Fulton even provided transportation, if necessary, to a school at the next level when the student exceeded the capability of the school to teach the subject. (Middle schooler going to high school for math.)

Fulton, in fact, took math out of the “four-serve” model for gifted and used the mixed model for math for a number of years before the new math. Exactly as you note, students might not be identified as gifted, often missing by a couple of points, but they were obviously qualified to continue on the advanced math track. I believe there have been a few issues with the new math in acceleration, but hopefully that will shake out again.

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Forsyth-Teach………….

Flattery will get you no where with me…..
I appreciate you taking the time to research my humble political history.
Yeah, me and ol MLK had a few parties in our day and me and Hosea Williams popped a few tops together.

But reality is reality….

This country has been taken over by a heathen government that has a mission of destroying the constitution as we once new it.Stay on the bus(no pun intended) or get your arse off and stand up to socialism.
The choice is yours. I’m tired of it, SICK AND TIRED OFF IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Prepared, I live north of the river; all of our Fulton schools should offer continuous achievement. I’d suggest that you visit some schools, ask the principal to observe a classroom and then ask how many students are working above level, and how they address this. (Also, you might want to ask about homework policy; some schools/teachers think giving hours of homework is a badge of honor. More busy work does not equal more learning. Homework that is meaningful is what is important – not volume!)

(It’s generally better to have students working ahead grouped together rather than just have the second graders doing third grade math sent to a third grade on-level class. The pacing is different.)

You also probably want to assess the middle and high schools in the cluster. Although I live north of the river, there are some good elementary schools in Sandy Springs, if you live ITP now. The Riverwood cluster in particular has had dramatic improvements recently, and they have an IB program if you are interested in that. (Some of my neighbors’ kids commute for the IB program.)

Good luck!

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I have the gifted endorsement, I teach gifted/ high achiever high school students in AP. Our school uses both honors and AP to serve our gifted kids and I know they get the shaft. Because of that, I’ve made it my mission to make sure they don’t miss opportunities. My students participate in a variety of extra curricular activities that bring them in contact with students from all over the state. Since they are big fish in a little pond at my school, I want them to see they need to work harder to compete on another level. I have one student that is working on applying to Harvard her senior year. We’ve been discussing this since the beginning of last school year, when she was a sophomore. For most of these high achiever/gifted kids, the best parents can hope for is that there is at least one teacher that knows what is needed for these kids to do better than just applying to the community college around the corner. I’ve written recommendations and worked with students successfully applying to the Governor’s Honors Program and for a Gates Millennium Scholarship.

As long as NCLB focuses on the bottom, the top will be ignored. I quote Dash from “The Incredibles” If everyone is special, then no one is. Until someone wakes up and realizes that not everyone is cut out to be a scholar, we’ll keep having this argument. How come we aren’t trying to force all our kids to be professional basketball players? Why is it acceptable that we can acknowledge that everyone isn’t an athlete, but we can’t acknowledge that everyone isn’t into school?

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Gifted students need more focus… You can be gifted in something and really benefit this country. I’m sorry to say but special education is ruining this country. It takes all of our money/efforts and does VERY LITTLE good.

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Absolutely agree that if we have the funds to pour into special ed we should allocate for gifted at the same level. To see graphically how we’re funding special ed, access this document from Fulton County on the average FTE (full-time equivalent) cost of educating a special ed student in Fulton County in FY10. https://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Financial_Services/Budget_Services/Documents/02-26-10%20School%20Board%20Retreat/FCSSSpecialEdCostperFTE-InitialFY10.pdf

Of the $30,323 per FTE average per SpEd student, only $7,574 comes from the Feds, who mandate most of these SpEd services. The state covers $4,125, leaving the taxpayers of Georgia to pay $18,624, on average, per SpEd student. (In contrast, it seems a non-SpEd, non-ESOL student costs $8,704 per FTE.) https://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Financial_Services/Budget_Services/Documents/02-26-10%20School%20Board%20Retreat/FCSSPerPupilnonSPEd_ESOLFY10.pdf

So what do we do to get this message to our elected officials who’re making these decisions? (Individual communication isn’t working…)

Remember, this covers from those who need speech therapy to team-taught classes to profound MI and EBD. With some receiving fewer services, imagine how much we’re really spending on those students on the lower 0.5% and what might happen if we spent, as someone noted above 10% of that on the 0.5% (gifted) kids at the right side of the bell curve.

(I am not advocating abandoning these children, obviously, but it does seem skewed relative investments…)

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@High School Math Teacher: Sadly I have to agree about Special Education. I’ve been teaching 9 years, and have team taught 4 of those. I can count on one hand the number of special ed students who really benefited from the program. The rest either needed to be in resource due to low, low IQ/low skills, were incredibly disruptive due to ADHD/a variety of other behavior problems, or just didn’t care. I’ve worked with ONE special ed inclusion teacher who was good. The rest were terrible and class actually went better if they were not in the room. Many of them have been coaches that needed a job somewhere in the school, and viola! there they are on the first day.
I watched so many of these kids and their parents completely waste the enormous amount of resources we provided. And for what? To say we did? The vast majority of special ed kids aren’t going to college, while so many of the kids who are above-average-but-not-”gifted” have to sit in those classes, learning nothing while the two teachers in the room deal with the same 4 students. Over and over. It’s such a shame. I don’t know what the answer is, but it sure isn’t the current way.

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Elem Pal picked it up but I did not make a mistake. Option A is synonymous with what Fulton and Cobb and probably others call Procedure 2.

On the Continuous Achievement in math and the Riverwood cluster, Heards Ferry has kids traveling to Ridgeview for their math and that has apparently been going on for years.

I believe that continuous achievement in math is something the Fulton School Board felt very strongly about protecting even after the state transitioned to the new math. It’s also why Fulton high schools were able historically to get more students than elsewhere beyond AP Calc in high school.

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You can thank the Urban Education Agenda for killing gifted ed.

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It’s amazing how very inconsistent Georgia’s delivery of gifted education has become. And how politicized the education system truly is. Now I appreciate how very fortunate my family is to have our children in Peachtree Charter Middle School, whose charter (recently approved) included the goal of having every teacher in the building certified in gifted education, where all four of their core academic classes are fully gifted classes – every day and all year – and where the bar is set pretty high for them in their classes so their achievements are pushed upward, not laterally. With this special certification, the expectation is that teachers will utilize the same strategies and pedagogy for the benefit of students of ALL learning abilities. In this first year of the new initiative, I can see the need for some in-house training and mixing of academic teaching teams to “share the wealth,” but for the long range benefit of middle school education in our community, this is a good thing.

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ElemPal,

You sure do spend a lot of time correcting me. With LOVE like that I will never ever be alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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The more I read these posts, the more I realize that there is no cure all for education in the city of Atlanta. The Teach for America person who took my place is lamenting because each of her AP classes has 35+ students. Welcome to my old world. There are not that many gifted students in that urban high school that has not made AYP in the last several years. Only the most serious and highly qualified students should be there and the class size should be 20 or less. I can’t advocate for you kid, sorry!

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Concerned raises an important issue. With the emphasis on taking AP classes and the US Dept of Justice threatening school systems throughout the country where the percentage of minority students in the school is disproportionate to who is taking honors and AP classes, what does this mean for the content of the courses?

Should this be a civil rights issue?

How can these courses function at the called-for high level if they are equal access and we also care about graduation results?

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Last year when I transferred out of Private into a Cobb Public school due to the economy my 4th grader was not put into “Target” the gifted program because she had missed the testing in 3rd grade. Her high 90+ % ITBS were provided from the old school. After a month, we were told she would be pulled out once a week and put with the Gifted teacher for “STARS”. But then right after Christmas break we got a letter that due to budget contraints they had to cut the “STARS” program.

This makes absolutely no sense to cut out the programs for the best and brightest. Instead she was harrassed and picked on by a threesome in the class who probably had a combined IQ of 70. Why do they pick on kids like her, because they have issues.

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bk5

September 11th, 2010
12:59 pm
jbstoner, you are highly opinionated and rude about a topic you don’t appear to be knowledgeable about! Get off this blog!

To bk5 – Everything J. B. Stoner has said is the truth……You’re just too liberal to hear it.

You rock JB – see ‘ya on 11/2

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I’m sure someone already mentioned this, but… gifted education is technically “special education.” Unfortunately, I know of no GA district that spends nearly the money on gifted education as it spends on the rest of special education. I realize that students with special needs deserve special assistance; however, gifted students are also special needs. Where are the lawsuits? Where are the activists for gifted students?

The sad fact of the matter is that most teachers are so bogged down with IEP, SST, RTI, CYA paperwork that we don’t have time to cobble together “gifted” opportunities… thank goodness most gifted kids at my school are in honors or AP classes where they can at least be offered some education approximating their needs.

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Gifted students are really shortchanged at our school. In the last couple of years when other students have gotten new books and teachers have gotten new resources, our school system bought new books for everyone except gifted students and teachers. Our gifted students are constantly shortchanged. One time when we did get some new books, the books were taken back and given to the special education students supposedly because the gifted students would do well on the test no matter what.

Being a gifted student in our school system means you get the leftovers. The entire focus of our school system is on students with disabilities.

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2+2=4 It worked then and it works now. They are all gifted. They just aren’t all the teachers kids, or property of one of the Stepford Wives.

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The Time article from three years ago – just think how much funding has declined since then (except for IDEA and Title I, anyway….):
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653653,00.htm

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