75th percentile. Yes, that is the Raven cut-off target being used by at least two MCPS elementary schools to determine giftedness. You can read it for yourself, here, in this MCPS document titled Montgomery County Assessment Program – Testing Schedule 2008-2009.
75th percentile. Why is this significant? The 75th percentile corresponds to an IQ of about 110. That’s barely above “average” in according to the WISC headings, which are comparable to the Ravens:
- >129 Very Superior (percentiles 98th+)
- 120-129 Superior (percentiles 91st-97th)
- 110-119 High Average (percentiles 75th-90th)
- 90-109 Average (percentiles 25th-74th)
Now we’ve known for a long time that something has been rotten in the state of MCPS when we have a GT identification rate of roughly 40%. Sure we’re smart…but 40%? We know that the identification rates have varied wildly within the county, among schools in the same zip code, with the similar demographic. And we also know that the county has pretty much disregarded the State of Maryland’s definition of giftedness:
THE ANNOTATED CODE OF THE PUBLIC GENERAL LAWS OF MARYLAND
Education: Title 8. Special Programs for Exceptional Children
Subtitle 2. Gifted and Talented Students§8-201. “Gifted and talented student” defined.
In this subtitle, “gifted and talented student” means an elementary or secondary student who is identified by professionally qualified individuals as:
(1) Having outstanding talent and performing, or showing the potential for performing, at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with other students of a similar age, experience, or environment;
(2) Exhibiting high performance capability in intellectual, creative, or artistic areas;
(3) Possessing an unusual leadership capacity; or (4) Excelling in specific academic fields. [An. Code 1957, art. 77, §106F; 1978, ch. 22, §2; 1997, ch. 109; 2003, ch. 418.].
and operated under its own construction–”high levels of accomplishment”–instead. We also know that increasingly MCPS officials are speaking of “students who are ready to work above grade level.” But that’s not gifted. 75th percentile? A quick Google search on “Ravens” and “gifted” will show that most jurisdictions around the country use a cut-off of 90th percentile, 95th percentile. Now I can see if this were a two part process: 2nd grade being a “screen” where you cast the net wide, and then further testing in 3rd grade used for GT identification. But according to MCPS it’s not doing this. MCPS uses the multiple criteria garnered in 2nd grade–including the 75th percentile Ravens target–to identify students as gifted and talented.
How professionals tasked with providing appropriate educational opportunities to gifted students–a legally defined special population not unlike special ed students–can stand by this is beyond me. By totally debasing the definition of “giftedness,” by failing to address honestly and transparently the continuum of giftedness, MCPS has sown confusion and conflict in the parent community, leaving parents struggling, among other things, to explain why their child got into a Center Program or Magnet while their neighbor’s child didn’t. They’re all “gifted,” right? By equating giftedness with “ready for above grade level work”–and stating an expectation that 80% of MCPS students will reach these above grade level measures–it has robbed parents of children who don’t get into a program or choose not to apply for whatever reason of any effective means to advocate for appropriate challenge. “Well you child is getting William and Mary, no?” We’re with left one-size-fits-all.
The next question is Why are they doing this?… Why are we at this juncture?
[Note: I want to stress that I am no expert on things statistical. As always, Hoagies is a great starting point for understanding the intricacies of "norms" and "stanines" and "standard deviations" and such. Here's a page on Testing and Assessment: What Do the Tests Tell Us? to get you started. Also, check out Tests and Measurements for the Parent, Teacher, Advocate and Attorney for a good introduction to applied statistics.]
[UPDATE 2/10: There is some question as to what norms are being used by MCPS. National? Or local? Stay tuned. But in any case, MCPS should make all this public and as clear as day.]
Well, yes, that explains a lot. And it is going to be really clustered (assuming the typical “normal distribution”, normal distribution has a special meaning in statistics), so moving the cutoff by a fraction of the standard deviation will change the percentage a bunch.
PS. If you are on the Accelerated Math Pathways in MCPS, you could take AP Statistics in 10th grade (or AP Calculus). This is boggling my mind right now.
@kirsten What is mind-boggling about AP Calculus available in 10th grade? It would be mind-boggling if they had large number of students taking it, but it is easily within the capabilities of kids in the top 0.1% in math. Accelerating math to that extent is exactly the sort of cheap accommodation that parents of highly gifted kids want.
While I believe that kids in the 75th-95th percentile range would benefit from accommodations, it does a disservice to the truly gifted to be lumped in with the merely bright. It’s like forcing a pro athlete to play on the typical high school varsity team. The teammates may have above-average talent, but the pro isn’t going to get the challenge he/she needs.
Wow, excellent blog! I am not in the DC area, but these problems exist all over. I am in an area where the gifted cut is high, but the gifted services are not. The services we offer would be fantastic for those kids that are at the 75th percentile. Go figure…
I think we shot ourselves in the foot a long time ago with the assumption that all kids could learn equally and reach the same levels. Our “one-size-fits-all” education tends to fit very few. In our area, the parents of kids in that 75th-98th range are discouraged that they can’t get their kids in the gifted program, and the 98th+ parents are disappointed that their kids can’t get real gifted accommodations.
What a crazy world! We need to accept the different learning levels of all children, and meet their needs accordingly.
There are way too many in the accelerated track here in MCPS.
See: “The Math Trail of Tears” and “Just Saying No–To Accelerated Math”.
I will be revisiting this question in 9 years (well, probably in the meantime as well) because my child is in the system and currently good at math.
That is good that they are giving more bright students opportunities to excel, but it is not a great solution if they do not plan to expand services for students at higher percentiles. Speaking as a student who self-taught calculus much before 10th grade (while bored in school, despite some “gifted” services provided grudgingly after my mother took on the school board), what works for the “bright” student in a given class does not usually work well for a student at a much higher level of intelligence (such as a token grade skip in math).
Also, second grade? Hasn’t enough damage been done by second grade for some of those 99%+ kids…? The whole idea of nomination for good behavior sounds a bit absurd, as well. A very bored seven-year-old may not show “good” behavior…
Wow. Just wow.
The Ravens is a non-verbal IQ test, and is supposed to be less culturally biased. My guess is that the district is giving it the much wider statistical leeway to add more minority students into the gifted mix.
The Raven’s is also supposed to be one of the most prone to the Flynn effect — in fact, if I remember rightly, that’s the test that the Flynn effect was first noticed on. That tells me that, despite supposedly not having formal cultural biases, it’s biased toward those who have been in the group most exposed to that kind of problem. And, duh, that’s probably going to be folks higher up on the socioeconomic scale.
Here’s an interesting take on the Flynn effect, specifically mentioning the Raven’s test: http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/200809/are-you-smarter-aristotle-on-the-flynn-effect-and-the-aristotle-paradox
Wow, perusing this blog reminds me of why this is such a lousy place to grow up.
Ginger Baran is right. What a bunch of child haters you MCPS G/T parents can be!
No wonder so many kids labeled “gifted” turn into insufferable arrogating Type A jerks and/or suicides!
You people give your kids a license to torment their less “gifted” peers. I remember this because I lived it for years. Why don’t you take your precious über-genius children and start a special school for them at your own expense instead of sending them to mainstream public high schools where they can p— on all the troubled and not-gifted-enough kids? So many of you can afford it; I can’t tell you how many doctors’ and lawyers’ kids I went to school with.
I know this because I was once a run-of-the-mill “gifted” MCPS student. This blog explains a lot about the fifth circle of hell that is MCPS.
It figures that many of you would be Murray & Herrnstein acolytes. I just wonder how many of you I went to school with.
p— was supposed to read p***, as in the word that rhymes with hiss.
As in, feel free to boo and hiss at me for my dyspeptic comment.
Pee just doesn’t cut it when your p***ing mad.
Thank you for approving my comment as it was made in a moment of rage and inner-child retreat.
I am actually much more sympathetic to the plight of “gifted” and otherwise “special” children than my first comment might lead you to believe. I just think that the county has spread many of these program resources out too thinly at this point. And the terms “gifted” and “talented” are applied entirely too promiscuously around here.
Also, I happen to agree with the words of educational radical John Taylor Gatto that, “Genius is as common as dirt.” Now I don’t mean that there are no genuine prodigies. However, many of the “geniuses” I grew up with had engaged, hyperaware (“switched on”?) parents who actively cultivated any strains of genius they detected in their offspring. Without the influence of “genius” parents, I feel that many of these children might have faltered or failed. (Some still did, in spite of everybody’s best intentions.)
I will now let you return to your regularly scheduled MCPS-G/T-mom-and-dad broadcast. I will disclose that I have no children, and hence, I will cede the floor to the current generation of MoCo parents. It is clear that you deeply love and care for your kids; I hope they will eventually realize, however, that life is not the meritocracy that many middle-class, educated parents make it out to be. Sometimes you have to work with and suffer those who are “merely bright,” for instance.
Oh, how embarrassing. I have misspelled “you’re” as “your.” More evidence that I was never a 95th percentile G/T student.
[...] know if the norms for the tests used in the 2nd grade GT identification process (confirmed 75th percentile cut-off for the Raven in 2008-2009) are national or county norms, that we STILL don’t know what most of the [...]
[...] have a right to know how those tests are normed. I have a right to know my child’s scores as both raw scores and percentiles. I have a right [...]
Interesting blog. Thank goodness for the internet. Growing up in a very small town as a g/t was awful. All they knew to do was give me extra work. I am sad for XGT, as he/she sounds like a bitter person who didn’t do well. On another note, I have noticed that primarily the cut-off for g/t is 95% on the RIT or NWEA, nationwide. They do start ‘casting the net’ in 2nd grade, which is when I was ‘reigned in’. How do you tell a 7 year old she has a genius IQ? Answer: you don’t. It only makes her feel more out of place. She already knows she is different, that she sees things her peers don’t, that they point at her and laugh and make fun of her. Telling her one more part that will make her feel out of place isn’t going to help.
So when my daughter also tested into the genius level in 2nd grade, I didn’t tell her. Yes, she knows her NWEA scores, but she doesn’t know her IQ and I don’t think she needs to. She has just turned 12 and we homeschool. The public school, even with their gifted program, wasn’t supplying her with the instruction that she required. She is currently doing college-level intermediate algebra. So in response to a previous question, no, I don’t think AP Calc. is out of the question in 10th grade.
Also, our one-size-fits-all education system does not fit our gifted students. When the focus was shifted from the gifted to the special needs children, the gifted got lost in the shuffle. I am not advocating against the special needs children. I am merely pointing out that our gifted children need as much instruction as our special needs children. They are the leaders of the future and to short-change them is to our own demise. Short of our schools making radical changes-which I don’t forsee happening-homeschooling is the best option for our gifted children.
XGT, I’m passionate about gifted issues. I have an EG/PG 2e child.
Yet I wasn’t offended by your comments. I found them refreshing! Over the years, I’ve bumped into plenty insufferable parents myself. Thanks for venting.