Gifted education: How are children selected and is it uniform across Georgia school districts?

I think the gifted kids are labelled too early. Kids who were last tested in middle school are labelled gifted in high school. Yet the high school kids often make failing grades for the first time in 9th grade. But these kids are gifted! Are they truly gifted, or are they suddenly not applying themselves or is the work no longer easy?

• Link
• Report this comment

At my daughter’s elementary school the “gifted” children were labeled as such in kindergarten and that group was set throughout the k-5 grade. The one thing all of the kids had in common was that their mothers were very active in the PTA. Many of these “gifted” kids did not fare well in middle school and are no longer in the gifted program or even in honors classes in high school. Meanwhile, many of the kids who were not in the gifted program in elementary school excelled in middle and high school and are mainly taking honors and AP classes.

This leads me to believe the gifted program is a joke and the selection process is very biased.

• Link
• Report this comment

Gifted education requirement are not only different from county to county but also from state to state. Both of my children have tested into the gifted program in my county however, I know that at least one of my children would not be considered “gifted” if we were to move to the next county. I think that the state is doing a real disservice to the gifted community. There has to be uniform requirements across the state for one and across the country for another. If a student is really gifted, should they be “punished” for moving across counties or across the country. It just doesn’t make sense.

• Link
• Report this comment

I’ve been teaching gifted ed. for 15 years. In an effort to be more inclusive to minority students and post bigger numbers, the ability for students to “qualify” as gifted has become easier. Subsequently, the program has been watered down. There are some schools in my system in which more than 20% of the student population is labeled gifted. Statistically, the number should be closer to 10%. Further, once a student enters the program, most schools are reluctant to remove students who are not successful. Instead, the teachers must remediate “gifted” students.

• Link
• Report this comment

In Georgia students must meet three of four criteria to be placed in the gifted program. The four criteria are creativity, motivation, mental abilities, and achievement. Creativity is often tested using the Torrance Test (score of 90% and above). Motivation is analyzed in lower grades by motivation check list and in upper grades by GPA (90% and above). Mental abilities scores must be from a nationally normed test such as the Cogat or OLSAT (96% minimum). Achievement scores must be from a nationally normed test such as the ITBS or (90 % or above on total battery OR 90 % Reading or Math).
In Georgia gifted placement IS reciprocal between counties (it is not for out of state students). If a child is gifted in Cobb, they are gifted in Hall.There may have been other factors, such as probationary status, which led to the a fore mentioned student not being placed in the gifted program. Georgia does have statewide criteria for testing and placement, but individual LEAs have autonomy in the continuation policy for a student to REMAIN in the program. These policies often deal with attendance and grades of those in the gifted program.

• Link
• Report this comment

I am a product of Cobb’s “Target” and later “Advanced Learning Program (ALP). From first grade through high school graduation I was continuously enrolled in the gifted program. When I was little I remember being taken to a small room at school and given a test but I could not tell you what it was about. My parents later told me it had something to do with IQ and thinking ability, not grades. This made more sense to me in high school as many of us in ALP were not in the top GPA ranks. Many of us were frankly bored with school. It was not uncommon for several of us to have near 100% test averages in our normal classes while carrying single digit homework averages. I was pretty much a B-student who never had to study, which drove my other teachers nuts.

I credit Target and later ALP with my success in life. I was taught to think, a rare thing in today’s schools. Intelligence cannot be judged by grades alone. I often wondered if my non-gifted program classmates could have benefited from the education I was receiving only a few classrooms away. There was great responsibility given to us at an early age to take charge of our learning potential. We were encouraged, challenged, and reinforced in ways I did not see in my normal classes.

I do not think that the gifted program is for everyone, but maybe if we can apply some its of the teaching principles to our children’s normal studies all students can reap the benefits.

I do believe they should continue to keep the program separate for those children who can benefit the most from it. In some ways having the gifted class was a safe place for us, as we were mainly the outcasts of the school, the geeks and social “losers” who found solace in a good intellectual conversation.

• Link
• Report this comment

One thing we should all keep in mind is that there is not much of a future in America for the average student, let along the below average student. Parents and teachers try to tip the scales in favor of their own or related children, but in the end only IQ matters. Motivation and hard work will only carry a child (or adult) so far, then the brick wall. If you have a high IQ, then motivation and hard work will push you toward you limits, otherwise you will not succeed. Put another way, a high IQ is a necessary but not sufficient component of academic, economic, and scientific success. Being in a gifted program will not significantly raise one’s IQ. I prefer a system where any student can waive their way into more difficult and advanced classes, but where they must perform at the level of that class or fall back. That removes the biased influence of influence by either the parent or the teacher. The gifted or advanced class should not be slowed down for anyone, no remedial help, full speed ahead.

• Link
• Report this comment

…where I teach, if a child is not doing his work, trying hard, failing, or acting out, the parents say “it’s because he’s/she’s bored. He/she is gifted, and your are stifling that.”

• Link
• Report this comment

At the school in which I teach, and…I suspect…in MOST schools, the “creativity” and “motivation” scores are the ones that are most often used to create the right “diversity” mix in gifted classes. Both these tests are highly subjective in their scoring, and that gives a school the most flexibility to meet government standards.

• Link
• Report this comment

I was tested in first grade and started the gifted program in the 2nd grade. My sister also started in 2nd grade, when we moved from Cobb to Glynn county. My brother, who tested into the Cobb gifted program at Westside Elementary did not meet the requirements for the Glynn county program at St. Simons Elementary. My guess would be that at some point in the intervening decades, they may have started accepting students that qualified in another county. I know that for me, it was a great program that helped me immensely. I moved out of the state in the middle of my 7th grade year and there was no gifted program at the school in NY that I went to. I think the lack of that extra stimulation and motivation definitely had an impact on my decisions in high school about honors and AP programs. The comment quoted in the article about parents providing private tutors or pressuring their kids to excel didn’t apply to us. We were extremely poor, and our parents encouraged us, but did not pressure us. I don’t know anyone with kids in the program today, but it would be interesting to see the difference.

• Link
• Report this comment

My oldest daughter, 10, is in the gifted program. She had always reached academic ‘milestones’ earlier than most of her classmates but she wasn’t tested until 3rd grade. The reason she was tested wasn’t because we (her parents) or teachers thought she should be, it was because of a new testing system that my county had implemented that year. It’s called ‘MAPS’ testing and it is designed to better guage where a child is academically. If a child scores above 90% in any of the 3 areas, he or she is automatically referred to the gifted program for testing.

My youngest daughter, 8, was tested in 1st grade. Students aren’t tested using MAPS in 1st grade so the reason was teacher referral. The teacher had to provide examples of my daughter’s work in various areas. I was told I could provide examples is I wanted. She passed 2 of the 4 areas and is being retested this school year. I truly think she was too young and immature for this testing at 6 years of age but I know other children who weren’t. Now that 2 years have passed, I feel she has a better chance of meeting the criteria.

• Link
• Report this comment

Gifted is not equal in quality or application across the board in Georgia. From my experience, Gifted differs within counties from school to school. I’ve observed students just sat around talking amongst themselves, but no work every being produced, also seen schools where the teacher truly interacted with the students and impressive results from the students. That Gifted designation is very subjective.

• Link
• Report this comment

The gifted criteria and selection process are biased both culturally and socioecomically— especially at the elementary and middle school level.

What about those parents that pay thousands of dollars for a private assessment in order to have their child qualify? And the parents that pressure teachers and administrators to have their child tested?

I have many of “gifted” high school students who perform average to below average compared to those that are “non gifted”. But as long as the schools receive their funds, I doubt they really care if the students are genuinely eligible.

• Link
• Report this comment

J. Douglas’s 10:16 am comment exactly reflects my own eight years of experiences in gifted classrooms.

The intellectual differences between races documented in THE BELL CURVE naturally result in imbalances in gifted enrollment. And race-hustlers like “Bernie” above are always ready to politicize those imbalances until gifted education programs in some districts become a joke.

• Link
• Report this comment

I have identical twins born at the same birth weight which means that they have less than a 1% chance of having different IQs, yet I have one in the gifted program and one who has never even been referred for testing. I have asked every year to have him tested and have been told no every year. I know it is because of standardized testing because both boys are straight A students and are highly motivated. The one who was tested for the gifted program just happened to test at 98% in the 3rd grade in the right subject on the ITBS and the other one missed it by a few points, but scored in the 95% in a subject that is not considered for automatic testing. We were fortunate enough to have a sympathetic administrator this year who placed my non-gifted twin into 3 gifted classes(middle school) and he out scored his gifted twin in all classes but one and even on the ITBS and the writing assessment. They have both been recommended to take the same honors classes in high school. This experience with the gifted program leads me to believe that placement is HIGHLY subjective.

• Link
• Report this comment

Thank you Martina and Teaching Vet for reminding me what the 4 criteria were.

• Link
• Report this comment

And I quote (from the link above):

“Many gifted education decisions and procedures are left to the discretion of local school systems so that they may address the unique needs of their communities.”

LOL

• Link
• Report this comment

I can’t remember the exact year, but around 1996 or 1997, Georgia came up with a uniform definition of gifted, or, at least, came up with the criteria the State use to define gifted. One was, indeed, high grades. However, most gifted students do not have high grades for the reasons earlier bloggers have mentioned. The 2nd factor was scoring in the 96 percentile (I think that is the correct percentile) on a standardized test such as the CRCT. The 3rd factor was a set score (again, I forget the number) on an intelligence test such as the K-Bit. The 4th factor was creativity, usually measured by the Torrance Test of Creativity developed by Dr. Torrance from the University of Georgia. A student needed to score in the 90 percentile in creativity to meet the eligibility requirements. A student had to meet the requirements with any 3 of the 4 areas. I was the teacher of the gifted and talented during those years (notice I did not call myself the gifted teacher), and we screened every single child in the elementary school where I taught. There is only one elementary school in our county, and testing every child made sure we identified as many students as possible. It was an arduous task, and there were children who met 2 of the 4 criteria who, in my opinion, were truly gifted. As we met with each parent, I stressed that the child did not currently meet the criteria for Georgia’s definition of gifted, but that in no way suggested that the child was not gifted. Maturity often played a part in the child’s performance on the various measures we used, and many of these students later met the requirements. This is a far better system than what was originally in place. In the old system, a child had to be tested every 3-5 years. Therefore, a child could be identified as gifted in 2nd grade, but no longer be gifted in 5th or 6th grade – ludicrous! There will never be a way to account for all the variables in testing and identifying students, but Georgia, at that time, had taken a step in the right direction. The variability between the counties is due to people not wanting to test all students, and/or educators lacking proper training to administer the K-Bit or Torrance Test. And above all else, if a child did not obtain the needed score, but was within the margin of error for a particular instrument, we re-evaluated on another day. My school wanted to be as inclusive as possible; we did not nurture the “elitist mentality” that many schools have when working with gifted students. There is a difference between over-achieving students and gifted students, but I always thought there was room for both:)

• Link
• Report this comment

Gifted Education is the only way you can be challenged in APS. If a child says that they are bored in your classroom there is usually one of several things going on:
1. They can’t read at the level required or not at all.
2. They are addicted to electronic games (much like a gambler is addicted to gambling) and you don’t have your classroom set up so that they can learn in an electronic game format.
3. They’re sick of the teacher spending all of her time with the slower children, they want attention too and would rather be in a class that does not have 35 or more children learning at all levels.
4. They’re tired of teaching slower peers because your differentiation does not give them anything else to do.
IQ is important in identifying gifted children but it is too subjective. Your score improves with exposure. I got tested and the tester was angry because of my ethnicity. He wasn’t expecting me to have a 135+ score (it was 15 points higher than in elementary school.) It is all a sham to me. Place the kids by ability and let the faster ones move on.

• Link
• Report this comment

Wow. The amount of misinformation here is astounding and troubling.

(1) Gifted eligibility in GA is automatically reciprocal from county to county and district to district. If a school tells you otherwise, call them on it! See http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Gifted-Education.aspx

(2) Parents can refer their children to be tested. They do not have to pressure teachers for referrals. In high school, students can refer themselves for testing. True: some tests (CogAT and Torrence) can only be administered every other year.

(3) The subjectivity of the measure depends on what assessment the district uses (this CAN vary from place to place, while the four areas assessed and the required scores cannot). In the district where I’ve taught for 20+ years, we have moved away from subjective teacher checklists (Renzulli Motivation and Creativity checklists that teachers are not adequately trained to use and often “fudge” to get parents off their backs) and are using all nationally recognized, norm-referenced, objective measures. Even the motivation scale is norm-referenced (look up Gifted Rating Scale at http://www.pearsonassessments.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=015-8130-502&Mode=summary). The creativity measure we use is the Torrence Test of Creative Thinking – developed by Dr. E. Paul Torrence – and is highly regarded and reliable. It is professionally scored out of state. http://www.ststesting.com/ngifted.html

(4) Many of the comments posted about gifted children are so sadly incorrect. If you really want to understand the gifted child, please become better informed before making such sweeping generalizations. See http://www.nagc.org/ or http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/. A child that is 3 standard deviations BELOW the middle IQ receives special services. A child 3 SD ABOVE the middle often NEEDS special services as well in order to succeed in school. The program is about NEED, not privilege.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Elemprin, what system are you in? Have worked in Georgia several systems and compared the criteria for each respective system?

• Link
• Report this comment

Ms. Downey, thank you, thank you, for your 11:06!

When I have had parents tell me their child is bored, I tell them when their child makes 100 on everything in record time, THEN we will talk about being bored.

My son, in first grade, was reading at 5th grade level. So his teachers gave him additional, more interesting things to read. He read about marine archeology (boats sunk), air disasters, extreme conditions (volcanoes, hurricanes, Death Valley). In second grade he was tutoring the other kids and reading independenty. In third grade he was in that excellent gifted program, and he was really challenged.

In fact, about a week after he was placed in that gifted program, he came home and told me he didn’t want to be in it anymore. Since I had paid for him to be tested ($250) and hand carried the papers around to see that there was no repeat of the year before, I was astonished! I asked why and he said, “BECAUSE THERE ARE OTHER KIDS WHO ARE SMARTER THAN I AM.” Bingo! And that was a most important lesson to learn!

• Link
• Report this comment

The “Gifted is Local” and the “Identifying and Nurturing the Gifted Poor” articles on have some more revealing information on this issue:

http://www.nagc.org/GiftedByState.aspx
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=656

• Link
• Report this comment

MissInformation: Thank you for the clear description. This matches what I, a parent of 2 gifted kids, have learned through the years, educating myself on how to parent them.

There is a huge difference between “advanced” and “gifted”. Advanced just means further along than peers. This may just require an updated lesson plan. Gifted requires a different style of teaching. These kids “get it” so quickly and easily, that they never learn how to work hard and deal with the frustration of learning a difficult concept. One poster noted some gifted kids first received failing grades until high school (they said this showed gifted labeling was inaccurate). This is a classic example of a gifted kid that may have never learned how to learn. When the class work finally gets a little hard for them, they are not prepared. I have one kid who never got a “B” until sophomore year in college. Alternately, I have a kid who was the classic “behavior problem” in lower grades because he was bored. The standard school environment was not suited to him. He excelled in his “break-out” gifted class once a week.

Both my kids NEEDED special teaching styles and are the better for it.

• Link
• Report this comment

Bernie, your comments are hogwash.
Here in APS, black children are given preference, not whites.
Do you ever get tired of playing the race card?

• Link
• Report this comment

I have fraternal twins who were both found eligible to be gifted. One of my girls truly is gifted, as evidenced by high CogAT and ITBS scores, the other qualified under the multiple criteria method. Her achievement is great, but her CogAT fell a little short. She did great on motivation but needed a creativity rating scale. I am not convinced she is truly gifted, but she sure does have intense interest in certain academic areas and is verbally very astute. I do think she needs more than the regular classroom provides. I am so glad that both of my girls get gifted education, but more because of how the classroom today is designed more for struggling learners than capable or advanced learners. In addition, this designation will provide insulation from unmotivated disruptive students in middle school and high school.

As a gifted certified teacher, I have mixed feelings about how students qualify (my own child included). I do think we have lots of non-gifted high achievers in our program. However, there are no alternatives for those kids. Their regular classes ignore them, and motivation does go a long way toward success. My observation at my majority-minority school is that we want more kids to qualify for the money and teacher points it brings. My kids are in a 15-16% white population environment, so most of our gifted kids are children of color. Our Latino population is only 2-3%, most of the rest are black or biracial. Clearly, as a school, we don’t need to pump up our minority numbers to make things more “fair”. I just see us stretching to get more kids qualified for the money. I know our gifted teacher has actually counseled teachers on how to use the rating scale to ensure kids qualify. It is unethical as far as I’m concerned.

Other than money, there is no way to account for the push. If we know that no more than 10% of the population are really gifted, why are we pushing for more? Ten percent of the population is left handed; why are we not training more kids to be lefties? There’s no money in that.

• Link
• Report this comment

“Other than money, there is no way to account for the push”
Of course there is, every mother wants to have a gifted child.

• Link
• Report this comment

Motivation and creativity were added as criteria about fifteen years ago to help expand the program to more diverse populations. Prior to this only mental abilities and achievement scores were used for placement. The Torrance, used to test creativity, must be scored by someone who is certified to do so. The Torrance Center at UGA completes this course a couple of times a year. The test can also be sent to Scholastic, the publisher, for scoring, this, of course, costs more money. I have seen Torrance results I disagree with, but overall the validity is good. I do have a problem with motivation check lists which are used in K-6. The subjectivity of the evaluators can be easily swayed. We have to rely on the professionalism of those who are completing the ratings scales, but they are human. Despite popular opinion, gifted students are not always the most well behaved in class. and they can easily antagonize teachers and sway opinions on the motivation scales. They are the students who walk to the beat of a different drummer, dance on top of the box, or sometimes are the silent loners in the back of the room; they are not always the “perfect” students some may think should be in a gifted program.

• Link
• Report this comment

I (unfortunately) was one of the so-called “gifted” students, and KMHSmom was right about one thing; stuff seemed so easy that once I did have to go to work in college, I was unprepared. Most who succeed in college have good study/work habits, and have been taught how to study. I never really had to, but was not “brilliant” enough (lol) to ease by once I hit the challenge. Then, I had to bust my tail! Hard line figuring “gifted” and “advanced”!

• Link
• Report this comment

Unfortunately, the gifted programs are not tailored to meet the needs of kids in the areas in which they are actually gifted. You can test in for reading and are automatically in for math, even if you’re unable to perform basic arithmetic. And visa versa is also true…there are kids in the gifted programs for 2nd grade and up that are still reading picture books. As a result, kids who are gifted in both areas don’t get pushed at all. And of course, things like history, science, writing and so forth are not accounted for at all b/c of this 2 subject approach. So again, we are good at meeting kids in the middle, but are not challenging kids in each area in which they actually excel. That’s great for kids that need a boost, but this program is really supposed to be for the gifted kids.

• Link
• Report this comment

I am one of three brothers that went through the gifted program in California during the 70’s. Between us we employee over 100 people in the IT and engineering fields. We have started over a dozen companies, and many are still in business today without us.

The point is, please understand the point of the gifted program. It is not to accelerate learning, which can be done in accelerated classes. It is instead to identify children that learn and synthesize quickly. Gifted children are both intelligent and creative, and need to know how to combine the two.

The gifted program taught me how to apply my learning and create new ideas that I had to defend. It was challenging and it taught me to work. It also taught me to question but to do it from a researched point of view. It also taught me there were others like me including many of my teachers.

Many of my classmates in the program also started companies and have contributed to our country in numerous ways. One just retired as a Rear Admr. and several are in the entertainment field. We all owe a great deal to our teachers in the gifted program.

What I don’t hear in all of these discussions is how we attract the right types of teachers to the gifted programs. Raw inputs such as gifted children and materials are important. How do we identify and retain those special teachers that can drive kids to work hard and put in the time required for truly gifted classes?

• Link
• Report this comment

My oldest daughter did not meet the gifted aka Target program, due to the creativity score in Cobb. Her teacher’s in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, were all dumb founded. The teacher’s regularly begged the Target teacher to put her in. They had her tutoring kids in the grade level below. The Target teacher would never tell me, until right before she retired what the Target creativity test was about, so that I might help my daughter study. Then she told me it was creative writing. This made no sense as my daughter’s writing in the 2nd grade was choosen for a best in School award and submitted to Cobb County for a Countywide award.

In the end, I have found that Target, doesn’t mean a thing. My daughter went to Catholic school from the middle of 3rd to 8th, she was properly put in the top of the classes there. She got A’s and B’s. She made it into the Counties IB program. Which we found after a semester, was a ridiculous waste of homework assignments and stress. She switched to AP and Honor’s classes. She has a 3.92 GPA is in the top 10% of her class. She has gotten all natural A’s and only 1 natural B on her AP classes.

On the other hand, her 4 friends from the same Cobb Elementary that did make it into Target. None have even come close to her performance. They all went to different private schools, none of them were more than a C student.. One was even asked to leave one private school and go to another one. One girls came back to public school and is currently in Summer School for Math III.

So as far as I am concerned the gifted program is completed biased, and it doesn’t mean a hill of beans.

• Link
• Report this comment

Both of my sons were in the gifted classes from elementary school thru middle school, then honors and AP classes in high school. It did afford them exceptionally good educations. As a PTA officer and substitute teacher, I spent many hours in classrooms. One of the saddest things I ever encountered was an entire class of students with behavior problems and slower learning ability. Some of the students in one of my classes explained to me why they couldn’t learn the material I had just taught another class. The reason – the class before them was gifted and they were the “dumb” class. These children could learn. Maybe they needed more time or a different way of learning, but they could learn. I cried and told them not to let anyone tell them they were dumb. One timid child raised her hand and asked, “Not even your parents.” Oh, the things I wanted to tell her parents. We do need to have “gifted” education, as well as remedial education, but we need to EXPLAIN to all the students (gifted included) what that means. It simply means “gifted” students learn easily in the school environment. We need to teach all students they have something special to offer, it just may not be academic. If everyone could know how it feels to have elementary school children talk so badly about themselves, some things would change.

• Link
• Report this comment

I think many people here are missing the original issue: little to non existant participation of minority students in Gifted classes.

It’s like there is a big white elephant in the room that many choose to ignore on this blog and in our schools.

• Link
• Report this comment

NTLB – Send the minorities to the khanacademy, they can learn at their own pace, and Sal Khan is himself a minority, as is his physician wife!

• Link
• Report this comment

Maureen: You are asserting that academic performance of blacks is below average because it was illegal to teach blacks to read in 1848? That’s 8+ generations ago. How long will that explanation last? Many immigrants come unable to read or speak english and become outstanding students in a matter of a few years. Motivation of individuals, parenting and cultural influences are stronger determinants of academic success, or lack of it.

• Link
• Report this comment

I agree with OLDTIMER. In my experience, the truely gifted kids are almost never bored. They’re quite capable of entertaining themselves. Einstein’s famous “thought experiments” are the ultimate example. It was also my experience during 31 years in the classroom that the kids who most complained of “boredom” almost never said anything remotely interesting themselves.

• Link
• Report this comment

…what Old Timer and William Casey said!

• Link
• Report this comment

I’m not sure if it’s that mom wants little Johnny to be gifted vs. gifted education in our schools provides some of the only opportunities to do learning activities that require thought. My daughter is in Gifted. I think she’s really bright. I’m not qualified to determine if she’s gifted, although she easily met the criteria used by our county. Her program is pull-out, like the old days, but it’s in Discovery that she gets her most interesting projects that she enjoys researching and preparing for. Certainly more than the routine worksheets she brings home from her regular classroom.

• Link
• Report this comment

For those of you interested in reading more about elements of gifted identification and their implications, you might investigation Dr. Scott Hunsaker’s book Identification: The Theory and Practice of Identifying Students for Gifted and Talented Services.

http://www.creativelearningpress.com/identificationthetheoryandpracticeofidentifyingstudentsforgiftedandtalentededucationservices.aspx

• Link
• Report this comment

Our daughters have really benefitted from the Gifted Program in APS so far. For what it is worth, I know of a bunch of white, middleclass parents whose children did not get in. Many were surprised. I was too. Definitely thought a bunch of these kids would qualify. Maybe they were too young to be tested. Maybe they will get in later. Think it’s interesting that all of the kids who did not get in are the type of kids who have great, educated parents. Their parents do so many of the ‘right things’ like take them to museums and travel with them. They do enriching activities like sports and scouting, etc. They get great attention. They went to pre-school. They get great nutrition. Their parents are involved at the school. All that great stuff and they still did not get in. So for people who claim bias, which I think is fair to wonder about and that we SHOULD wonder about it, I thought it was interesting that so many who you would think would be prime candidates for the easy way in, did not actually get in. What does that all mean? Is the testing not finding the people it should? Are we trying to get the kids in too early? Are the tests kind of working the way they should? Don’t know. Wasn’t surprised that our kids got in because my husband and I were both in it and are high-achieving people. But many of the parents about whom I am speaking were in the program when they were little too and are also successful people, etc.

• Link
• Report this comment

Two oldies, but goodies, which succinctly explain

1) How we treat our athletically gifted differently from our academically gifted in “What Would Happen if We Ran Our Football Teams As We Do Our Classrooms” (and vice versa) http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/what_would.htm

2) How a gifted child is different in “Is it a Cheetah?” by Stephanie Tolan http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm

As you read these, consider this quote: “As a society we must be able to admire ability, to support ability, to celebrate ability and to nurture ability. It must be as socially acceptable to support genius that is intellectual as it is to support genius that is athletic.” – Michael Clay Thompson

• Link
• Report this comment

Argh. Truly gifted kids are quite frequently bored in our schools. Just because they test into a gifted class doesn’t mean the gifted teacher has a CLUE what “gifted” means. Gifted doesn’t mean more; it is truly a different way of thinking, and it has nothing to do with color or culture. GA Tech has a little helmet you can plop on your head to measure brain activity, and the brains of gifted people make connections faster and with less stops along the way (that’s the simplistic explanation, but you get the picture). The question of who gets identified as gifted is as simple as looking in a classroom: upper SES students, regardless of color but generally white or Asian. This is from both experience and research. It is simply a fact.

Gifted DOES NOT EQUAL MOTIVATED. They are not the same thing. This is why you have gifted kids who fail. Please click here for more myths about the gifted: http://nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx

NTLB @12:15, no, not every mother wants a gifted child. Gifted kids often come with hypersensitivity, and an inordinate number of them have undiagnosed AD(H)D (see info and stats here: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-add.html). They are often defiant and utterly unmotivated by tasks they find useless or repetitive (which is much of public school these days). Profoundly gifted kids, those with a tested IQ of over 145, are a whole other ball of wax. They have a greater capacity for thinking much earlier than the adults in their lives. Our public school systems, and most private schools, are utterly incapable of properly educating these kids. What do you do with a ten-year-old who is writing and publishing papers at the doctoral level (Gabriel See in Seattle)?

NTLB @12:15, ID criteria are set as law across the state, but if you have teachers who are not trained in identifying gifted kids, they will not recommend for testing, especially those kids who are twice-exceptional (or thrice; I had a profoundly gifted kid with Asperger’s and Tourette’s, plus a seizure disorder. I have taught several highly gifted kids with Asperger’s and a solid 40% of my gifted classes had ADD/ADHD (most undiagnosed). When I taught the gifted endorsement, it was astonishing at the level of ignorance of teachers who would not know a gifted kid if they ran over one.

Gifted programs are underfunded and seen as superfluous. Teachers are untrained and lack the time (interest? wherewithal?) to get trained. Most teacher training programs spend an hour or two of gifted kids and move on.

“Gifted” programs are watered down in GA so they receive more funding. Simplistically, a regular kid is worth 1 block of funding, but a student in a “gifted” class recieves 1.5 blocks of funding, and even more if they are ELL or also in SpEd. It behooves the school to put more kids in gifted programs (although there are rules about who counts, and not all schools are strictly aboveboard in their accounting). “Gifted” programs are thus moving towards the middle as well, and gifted kids are once again being given short shrift.

I could go on. Gifted kids are my specialty. There is a lot of misinformation on this blog (not to be confused with MissInformation @12:10, who explained very well) and in the world on who they are and what they need. It has nothing to do with color, culture, language or age. To say otherwise displays ignorance which can be remedied with a little research.

• Link
• Report this comment

In our county, the gifted teacher took three months during the year to test…August, January and May. She also had every Friday without classes plus planning periods and free time during recess every day too. No one ever questioned the lack of time spent with these children.

• Link
• Report this comment

A few comments: 1. I’m going to disagree on the reliability of the Torrence test as administered by APS at least. The test is considered an extremely reliable measure of creativity IF administered properly. Proper administration, however, includes giving the test multiple times, a minimum of twice, and then evaluating all of the results as a group. APS relies on a single testing, so if your child is sick or having a bad day, the results may be skewed. 2. There is a problem with a system that does not test all students at some point in time. While teachers and administrators are trained to avoid subjectivity, people are subject to bias. A child who appears to be a “problem” in the classroom could be very bright but unchallenged. A quiet child may be smart but may not appear to be “motivated” to a teacher. While it is helpful that parents can nominate children for testing, not every child has a parent who will request testing when a teacher does not recommend the child for evaluation. The most fair system would test all children at some point in time. 3. There is currently no appeal process, so if your child is borderline on the admission criteria but not admitted to the gifted program, there is no process for retesting, challenging the results, or requesting an alternative assessment. Plus, your child has to wait two years to be retested.

• Link
• Report this comment

“I agree with OLDTIMER. In my experience, the truely gifted kids are almost never bored.”

This is such a silly, strange, and self-serving thing to say. The National Association for Gifted Children disagrees (e.g., http://nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx) … if you think they know anything about “truely” gifted kids.

I mean, just think about it. If you’re reading and doing math on the college level, and yet you’re sitting in a 6th grade class with kids being taught at a 6th grade (or lower!) level and being required to do 6th grade level worksheets 6 hours a day, day after day after day, year after year after year, you’re not possibly going to be bored?

My kids are rarely bored when they are allowed to do what they want. Within a short period of time, they’ll make projects even with very limited physical resources. But kids are for the most part not allowed such freedom in schools; they’re usually not even allowed to just read their own books when they long since mastered the content being covered.

Some kids are imaginative enough, and cognitively and emotionally capable enough of tuning out their surroundings that they are able to avoid severe boredom in schools (at least if no output, like worksheets, is required), but that comes at a cost too.

• Link
• Report this comment

Two of the most gifted students that I have taught were both ESL. One of the students spoke Mandarin Chinese at home and the other spoke Spanish(Mexican immigrant). None of the parents spoke English. Both came from “disadvantaged” homes. Both were identified in a Cobb County school and continue to thrive.

• Link
• Report this comment

@ abacus2. My experience is similar to yours. When I attended the GA Tech parent orientation, the Dean of Engineering pronounced most of the students “average”. We were told to EXPECT grades (low ones) that we had never seen before. This should have been the expectation from kindergarten forward. I have often wondered what kind of result schools would get if teachers taught to the highest ability in the class.

• Link
• Report this comment

My experience is that the Torrence is not necessarily always reliable and its own author never intended that it be used for inclusion or exclusion into gifted programs. Like these other tests, if the people administrating the tests don’t know what they are doing, the children are not likely to understand the purpose. Mr. Torrence states very clearly that the test taker must understand the purpose and objective of the Torrence to perform well. APS just started using this test this year and during the session one of the administrators walked in while the kids were testing and said to the other, “that is not the way you are supposed to do it.” That didn’t make me too confident in the results. Also, my understanding is that APS wide, the kids had low scores on the Torrence. My son, who is not a teacher-pleaser but is a highly creative type (he did win the most creative award for his class but scored low on the Torrence), will most likely never get a teacher to rate him highly on a rating scale and may never get into the APS gifted program. He is, however, what is considered profoundly gifted in terms of his IQ and has standardized reading and math Scores off the charts. He does meet the State of Georgia’s ‘Option A’ criteria but may never get into the APS program. He really does need the services but I have come to realize that the process is flawed and don’t give the school’s test much weight. In fact, I think at my son’s school, they are trying to limit the number of kids since the gifted classes are so overcrowded. One APS gifted teacher told me that she didn’t have a single child qualify at her entire school last year.

Parents know their children and should trust their instincts. It turns out that there is a very high correlation between parents suspecting giftedness in their children and actual giftedness. I know that my son is creative and if the school doesn’t want to look beyond one flawed test or teacher’s rating, I say it’s their loss. I will do what is best for him in the end.

I do believe in the value of a gifted program that is working. Both my son’s father and I were in gifted programs growing up. For me, it was instrumental in my education. On the other hand, getting into the program was not complicated and certainly didn’t involve test after test. Unfortunately, like the rest of education, bureaucracy has gotten in the way of gifted programs. The kids who may need the program the most are likely not to be the ones getting in.

• Link
• Report this comment

Thank you for this topic, Maureen. I have often said that it seems Cobb County just takes the kids who perform well and put them in gifted programs. I know that is not entirely true but I have seen many average kids from functional families in poorer performing schools labeled “gifted” just because they out perform the latio or other lower socioeconimic kids around. Doing better in school does not mean “gifted”.
Funny Catlady mentioned Tallahassee because I have a friend whose kids were raised in the early 80’s and one was labeled gifted in kindergarten in Florida. She said he was chosen by a teacher and it had little to do with grades. He was then sent for an IQ test and an interview with a psychologist and entered the “gifted” program. They moved to Cherokee county a few years later and she said she noticed that the “gifted” kids seemed to be the kids who just made better grades.
I hear that there is more to the selection than grades and test scores but I’ve never personally seen it. I have known a lot of kids who don’t “make the grade” but who’s minds are so creative and they think so far outside the box it is obvious they are gifted. I think these are the little Einsteins that are getting left behind. Some of them never even graduate. Sad.
My other concern is that all these kids higher functioning kids from poorer performing schools are in for a huge adjustment when their schools feed into “better” middle and high schools and they will quickly learn they are not all that smart. It’s all relative. So, if you want your kid to be labeled “gifted” just move to South Cobb County.

• Link
• Report this comment

Can someone tell me the difference between “gifted” and “high-achiever?”

• Link
• Report this comment

In Georgia we use multiple measures to determine gifted eligibility. These measures are Ability, Creativity, Motivation, and Achievement. If a student scores at 90% or above on the ability test (usually the Cognitive Ability Test) or at the 90 percentile on each of the other three, then that student is recommended for placement into the program. We used to use the Renzulli checklists for Creativity, a gpa of 3.5 for motivation, and a score in the 90th percentile or above in either math or reading on the ITBS for achievement. In order to be referred to the program, the student has to demonstrate a number of characteristics that may or may not have anything to do with grades or classroom performance (in terms of the amount of work completed). That’s where things tend to get sticky. Many teachers have no clue what to look for when assessing gifted characteristics. They want to focus on little Suzie Sit Still and Finish all of My Work. Suzie might be a high achiever and a teacher pleaser but that does not mean she is gifted! Tenquarious the Terror who seldom turns in homework, is generally not paying attention, cracks jokes all of the time (and has a bitingly insightful sense of humor), can give you the entire history and all of the facts about his latest obsession (dinosaurs, space exploration, cars, insects, music theory, architecture, geography, ancient civilizations,you name it), and maintains a high B average despite the fact that his homework grades are zeros and his classwork grades not too far above that is much more likely to be gifted. Most of my colleagues don’t know that, and will resist accepting it.
Another problem we have with students not being identified is that the teachers don’t refer them for fear of losing that student. The teachers hide the kids until the end of the year so that they (the teachers) can keep the student all school year.
Whether we want to accept it or not, a student who is gifted is more intelligent than 90% of the population, and may be more intelligent than the teacher. That doesn’t mean that the child knows more than the teacher, because the teacher has been educated and the child has not yet been educated. that’s why they are still in elementary school, middle school, or high school. But the child has a greater ability to learn, and to learn at a faster rate requiring fewer repetitions of the material. Many people want to say that “everyone is gifted”. Yeah, uh huh, most of us are gifted at something. Some sing, some run and throw and catch, some dance. Some are more intelligent. I am certified to recognize and teach gifted students in grades 4-8, and I am pretty good at it. Every child I identify does not get placed into the program though. Several years ago I had a 7th grade student who was easily one of the most brilliant students I’ve ever had the pleasure to teach. He was also one of the most difficult. He’d been staffed out of a behavior disorder class a couple of years prior and he still had some serious behavior issues. He was oppositional. He did not accept correction very well. He had a tendency to use a lot of profanity. He liked to fight, and did so frequently. I couldn’t get him tested for the gifted program because his grades were so poor, even my classes because he didn’t do work that was “boring” or “stupid”. So he did no homework and very little classwork. His papers and projects were phenomenal, though, as were his class discussions. If I’d thought that he had help at home on his papers and projects, his class discussion contributions cleared up that confusion. Whenever we had a discussion in class about something we’d read (he read on a 10th grade level in the 7th grade) in class, all I had to do was wait until Joseph (not his real name) raised his hand and was ready to speak. His answers were always 150% correct, and his contributions were often so profound that I’d have to spend some more time getting him to explain his insights to his classmates. He traveled with the gifted class while he was in middle school, but we were never able to even get him tested.

At our school we’ve identified, tested, and placed a number of Latino children. Several of these students did not start speaking English until they came to this country or until they started school in this country and we get them the year they test out of ESOL. One young man scored 140 on the IQ test. That was in 6th grade. By the time he hit seventh grade and my class he’d gone into puberty and did just enough classwork to get a B.

Many people are confused about giftedness is and is not.

• Link
• Report this comment

Dear MOK, if your child has IQ scores that place him in the profoundly gifted category he should need nothing else. My son just graduated from high school, is very (extremely) gifted, but has scored low to low average on IQ tests both times he was tested. The first time he was three. He hadn’t spoken in sentences for 18 months and when he started speaking again no one could understand anything he said (I did better than most, but then I was his mother). We were living in Dekalb county at the time and I was teaching in Fulton so I knew that I could him evaluated for speech services for free. I took him to be evaluated for speech in DeKalb. After administering an IQ test, I was informed that my child had an IQ of 75. Really???? At 38 months old he could read, add, subtract, multiply, and divide on a second grade level, but he had an IQ of 75??. That placed him firmly in the below average/borderline category, but he had the school readiness skills of a second grader? Something was wrong with that analysis. He also knew all of the streets and roads we travelled on frequently and identified them by the exit numbers on the signs. He could identify any number you gave him between 1-999. Nobody taught him all of this. He picked it up on his own.

During the test when he was shown drawings of various sized circles and told to pick the largest ball he didn’t answer the question because he knew that those were circles and balls were spherical. When shown various size rectangles and told to choose the smallest stick, again he did not answer the question because he wasn’t looking at sticks, he was looking at rectangles. I mentioned to the examiner during the test that he could answer the question if she used the name of the shape, and she told me that she could not deviate from the script. Ha! Baloney!

He was tested again in the second grade when he entered APS schools. He scored at 113, which is slightly above average. He would not have been placed if Georgia did not use multiple measures, and anyone who talks with him can easily see that he is undeniably gifted. The projects that he gave himself to do at home showed that, although those he’s done at school haven’t always been high in the type of creativity many teachers like to see. He completed the IB program at North Atlanta with honors, is a member of the National Honor Society, and will be off to an Ivy League university come autumn.

If you have test scores for your child, take them to the school and push. Here is a great resource and a cute and informative video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDJst-y_ptI&feature=related

http://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu/

• Link
• Report this comment

For those who teach gifted children in APS: On Infinite Campus, why is a separate gradebook created to cater to the gifted students in the same class. This creates double work for the teachers setting up the assignments. It does nothing for the gifted kids and makes my gradebook look like a mess. For example, my 6 sections last year were split up into 12 sections. Please someone justify this to me because I think it is a way to protect APS liability(to show outsiders we acknowledge the gifted). APS loves to pretend and document that they are doing wonders for the gifted but very little happens at the high school level. Gifted needs to be funded with just the truly gifted in smaller classes.

• Link
• Report this comment

At my child’s middle school every student is required to do a project for the science fair. I learned that gifted students get automatic acceptance in the fair no matter how good or bad their project is. The rest of the students get acceptance if their work is selected by their teachers. I asked why this is the case and I was told that one year a non-gifted student won the science fair and the gifted teachers got angry about it. So they changed the rules to ensure that one of their students would win each year. Crazy!
I too am frustrated as to what constitutes “gifted.” In the 80’s, I was selected for a gifted program based on my IQ. After a year I asked to be taken out of the program. Although I was a good student, I would not describe myself as gifted and I didn’t like being treated differently than my peers. Having worked with today’s gifted students I have found that the only thing that seems inflated is their egos. Educators are doing them a disservice by giving them more privileges and telling them that they are special. Every child is special.

• Link
• Report this comment

Students with ‘gifted’ intellects are different in important ways from those with ‘ordinary’ intellects, and they are as deserving of programs tailored to meet their educational needs every bit as much as special education students are deserving of programs tailored to meet THEIR needs. The requirements for qualifying for the gifted program are uniform in the state of Georgia – the same for all public schools. Those requirements (meeting 3 out of 4 criteria) can be found on the Georgia DOE website along with other information about gifted programs. People who oppose funding for gifted education need to remember that gifted individuals drive our economy, our culture, and our destiny. It’s best not to be penny wise and pound foolish.

The nurture and care we give to gifted students

• Link
• Report this comment

ps — the pshych. who tested said middle child when he was 6 and “uncovered” his IQ for us told us that she would feel really guilty putting him in public school…. at the time we really loved our elementary school and could not fully appreciate what she was trying to tell us. Now that we’ve experienced a few yeas of private school, we “get” it — I still really love our elementary school but I do get it.

• Link
• Report this comment

@another aps teacher Thanks for the advice. I spent a year ‘pushing’ at my local APS elementary school. I took my son’s WISC scores and Stanford scores and they still wouldn’t put him in the program. He is already a Davidson Young Scholar and can’t even get into the APS gifted program! That certainly tells me that APS is not concerned about the needs of the truly gifted.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Leigh
Thanks for the label clarification. Here are some related reading materials:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/03/new-cdc-autism-numbers-coming-soon-rate-increase-to-over-1-in-100-expected.html

Ivy league school, with top endowment in the country, can’t keep a freezer running…..yeah, right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/health/autism-research-hindered-by-scarcity-of-brain-samples.html?_r=2&src=dayp

“This June, a freezer malfunction at a Harvard-affiliated hospital severely damaged one-third of the world’s largest collection of autism brain samples, which were owned by Autism Speaks. (1) Other brains in the collection were from patients with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or schizophrenia. Somehow, the high-tech security system designed to protect this precious collection failed in the most perfect way. Neither of the two alarms in the security system sounded as the temperature rose by nearly 90 degrees from a polar freeze to a chill you can find in your refrigerator. Meanwhile, the external thermostat checked daily by staff inaccurately reported the expected, not the actual, temperature.”
http://tacanowblog.com/2012/06/22/a-huge-loss-in-the-scientific-community-looking-into-autism/

“March 29, 2012 — One in every 88 U.S. children — and one in 54 boys — has autism, the CDC now estimates.The latest analysis, from a 2008 survey, shows autism is up 23% since 2006 and 78% since 2002. “This is a large number of children and families affected by autism,” study leader Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, MD, chief of the CDC’s developmental disabilities branch, tells WebMD.
“With nearly a doubling of prevalence since CDC started tracking in 1992, autism is officially becoming an epidemic in the U.S. We are dealing with a national emergency that is in need of a national plan,” Mark Roithmayr, president of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said at a CDC teleconference held to announce the findings.”
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20120329/autism-rates-cdc-2012

• Link
• Report this comment

1. Gifted classes are SPECIAL ED.
2. In order to qualify of SPECIAL ED a student must meet certain criteria.
3. Just as you can’t drive alone until you are 16, not 15, you cannot qualify for SPECIAL ED and the funds needed to support the program unless you have the scores. 21 to vote, grocery bill $20 but you only have 19…
4. As a teacher of gifted, I understand that your child is one point away, but a point is anpoint and
teachers have no control over the LAW for gifted placement.
5. As for “kow-towing” to parents, what if parents would stop bullying teachers about their “brilliant” children and how they should be in gifted? Non- educators have NO idea what it is like to have a parent screaming at you or crying or threatening a teacher for the satisfaction of their own ego.
6. APS had no leadership for gifted education until last year. The process has been refined as it is up to local systems to implement testing. Currently, the rigor has increased and we longer place students because of a parent threatening or trying to bribe a school for their child’s placement in gifted education.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Sisypus:
I don’t know Pierce county, so I can’t say if they are the best, or even average.
But, I can tell you that it is legal under DOE regs for them to call a teacher “highly qualified” (that’s a term from NCLB, by the way) once they have begun the gifted endorsement classes. It’s a sequence of 4 classes, which may be completed in a year.
As to policy, it really doesn’t matter, if they are following the state regs, which are hotlinked all over this discussion. There is no true need to create a new document that repeats the regs and call it a new ‘policy’. I can easily imagine your supt not knowing much about it, they usually delegate that stuff, and in a small district, one person likely wears many hats. I worked in a metro disctrict that had one person in charge of math, gifted, and esl for the county.
On the money, the same regs mentioned elsewhere also describe multiple models for providing service to gifted students. A pull-out or ‘resource’ program is only one option of many.
None of this means that Pierce County is automatically doing it right, but just to show that they aren’t necessarily breaking the rules either.

• Link
• Report this comment

I taught gifted students in Georgia under the old regs and admission standards, IQ and ITBS. My county had an Honor Roll requirement for retention, so achievement was necessary to stay in. I could live with an eligibilty based on ITBS alone, if folks think IQ tests are skewed, but, if you don’t leave an achievement component as part of eligibility, you waste the time of students who are interested in learning. The whole point of being labeled “gifted” is to give the child a more challenging learning environment. If the child is not interested in that more challenging learning environment, he is taking away from the students who are interested. I agree that extremely gifted children often have behavoral or social problems, but these are best handled by a counselor and not in a classroom setting. These same children sometimes have a gifted antisocial parent who is unable to hold down a job, or get along with others, but has plenty of time to hang out in the principal’s office to discuss how unfair life has been to him and his child, as misunderstood geniuses.

• Link
• Report this comment