Yup, it’ s right there on my screen:
Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label: Implications Concern Some Parents
You can read the accompanying story here.
I have to say, I find the tone of the article disappointing. It’s snarky and snide and overlooks the real concern at the heart of the discussion for most parents. No, it’s not about being able to say “my kid is gifted and talented.” Like a sticker on a banana. Good Lord. It’s about being able to access an appropriate education for their kid in a system that wants to insist that everyone is exactly the same. That everyone will complete algebra in 8th grade…whether you’re not ready…or were ready two years earlier. That you will work from this “GT” vocabulary workbook because it’s the book that goes with this grade…even if you already know every word in the book. That by waving a magic “high expectations” “every teacher can differentiate” wand they can make it so. Because to do otherwise would inconvenience, show favoritism, hurt someone’s feelings. It’s about parents being supremely frustrated at wrenching even small educational accommodations from a system that is hell bent on providing a one-size-fits all education–and grasping at any tool at their disposal.
But hey, okay, let me take them at their word. Let me believe that “it’s about services, not labels.” How did they plan to “service” the kid who is reading at a high school level in 5th grade? How are they going to service the child that is gifted…whoops, can’t use that term any more…”highly able” in, say the humanities? What are they going to do with the kids who need to be be taught at levels that would take them out of the building, when at the same time MPCS generally REFUSES to countenance this because, a) “that would be socially and developmentally inappropriate” and b) “What will we do with little Madison when she’s in grade X?” And yet they won’t service the child IN the building (like independent study, supervised online work, building-wide or grade-wide regrouping, etc.) because they don’t have the staffing–all those para-educators are working with the truly deserving who can’t meet the minimum standards. Too complicated. So sorry, your child just needs to be where he/she belongs, providing a “service” to the other students, namely being an exemplar of “high achievement.” At least for awhile–before he/she gets completely frustrated and fed up with school.
Yes, there are the Centers for the top 3% at grades 4 and 5. Yes, there are the three selective middle school magnets, and high school magnets. We absolutely need those. But what of the kids who for a variety of reasons just miss or choose not to attend these programs. These students are still back in “normal” school, sometimes in schools with enornmous challenges. No I don’t care if the child is designated “GT” by the school system. But I sure as heck care that this child has the opportunity to learn with intellectual peers in genuinely rigorous classes–not “GT” classes that have been watered down and expanded beyond the bounds of reason so that everyone can feel good about “aiming high.” That’s what this is about.
That article is as ignorant, snarky and horrid as anything I’ve ever encountered in our years fighting for our two gifted kids. It’s not a “star” on their bellies – it’s the REALITY that they think/process faster, differently, at a higher level – whatever you want to call it, it is a real thing and treating these kids with such obvious disdain does not change that reality. I knew there was good reason we cancelled our subscription to the Post.
I could get really sarcastic and suggest that we’re going to do away with Varsity and Junior Varsity sports teams. It makes my child feel so *bad* that she can’t be on the team. I mean, they get special jackets and banquets and booster clubs and everything. And I think she deserves intensive coaching so that she can perform to the mandated level of excellence.
I think that the Post has a British copy/headline editor, who has retained his British newspaper sense of humor. I’ve seen headlines over the years that scream British.
With this article, I think the Brit edited the first two paragraphs to jazz them up. I think that Danny DeVise wrote the rest.
Still a MCPS piece.
Sorry, over analyzing again.
Daniel’s piece simply ignored what many of us have been insisting for years. Label it or not identifying students for appropriate educational intervention necessarily involves grouping. MCPS needs to do it right AND ensure the identified students get the appropriate resources, etc.
My child, when in K was, according to the MCPS testing, reading at a 4th grade level or higher with a commensurate math performance. MCPS grouped her with one of the lowest performing students to “challenge” her. My child was forced to read about the cat-that-ate-the-rat, when she was reading far more substantial texts.
The fundamental reality is that acceleration and grade skipping has resistance even among parents–who don’t want to see their children, say 5th graders, paired with a 2nd grader who performs as well as they do. To quote the principal “it isn’t a good example,” or there is that social peers defense.
Parents and school systems need to come to grips with the fact that just like athletes there are academically high performing kids too. Give those kids their due.
So sorry for your daughter’s experience. I guess what I’m fundamentally asking for is honesty from the school system. Don’t BS me. Don’t try to fit my kid into some preconceived box because it’s easier for “the system.” Either genuinely make the effort to meet my kid’s educational need, or just look me in the eye and say, Ms. X, your child’s abilities are such that we really don’t know what to do with him/her. I would appreciate that a thousand times more than people trying to convince me, metaphorically speaking, that black is white, that they’re doing something when they’re not.
This is the kind of attitude that administrators in my district have. They think that “giftedness” just means pushy yuppie parents “hothousing” the child. And they’re embarrassed by the fact that certain demographic groups are over- or under-represented among those qualifying as gifted compared to the overall student population. So they prefer to pretend that it doesn’t exist
I agree, at this stage of the game I would just prefer the school to tell me straight out there is nothing they can do for my son’s education. They won’t do that of course, because if I take him out of school completely they don’t get the funding, and then they can’t use my sons test scores to boost their numbers…
The frustrating thing is that there are some even within the GT fold who are saying, “so what?” about losing the label, that “the weapon is the test results.”
HELLO!
Even *with* the test results you get nowhere–I think my experiences can stand in as Exhibit A for that. Nowadays MCPS will give parets the test results…but not interpret them. Maybe you dig and can say “test A indicates this level of achievement and the necessary services.” They’ll say, “well, this is only ONE measure…”
And on, and on, and on.
Let’s be clear. This is about caving to uncomfortable political pressure. This is about giving parents even less information, even less to work with. This is about “disappearing” gifted kids as a lead up to gutting services. They did the same thing with special ed.