The "More" Child

Kudos to Kumar Singman of the Parents Coalition for submitting a Freedom of  Information Act request and obtaining a copy of the draft revised Policy IOA for Accelerated and Enriched Instruction, which I’ve embedded below.  This is the same draft policy revision that the Accelerated and Enriched Advisory Committee has been laboring over and wrangling over for months.  Representatives were told that the draft and all meeting materials were confidential.  Now they no longer are.

Glancing over the draft, I still can’t get much beyond the title.

As previously and repeatedly pointed out on this blog and by the GTA representatives to the AEI Advisory Committee, the current Policy IOA is Policy IOA Gifted and Talented Education.  Throughout the current policy you’ll find sprinkled the terms “gifted and talented” and “gifted and talented students.” The reason is that these students are considered a “special population” and Policy IOA is under the “IO” section of MPCS Policy, namely “Special Instructional Programs and Accommodations.”  “Gifted and Talented” is a term–distasteful though it may be to some–that is internationally recognized as having a distinct meaning. Oh, and it’s in our state education law.

Not so the proposed draft Policy.  Over and over (and over) the document speaks of “all students.”  One can see MCPS practically twisting itself into knots not to acknowledge in any way there might be a group of students with distinct needs.  The only nod to this possible reality is mention of “students whose needs cannot easily be met in local schools.”

I read this draft policy and just imagine–if approved–the enormous institutional pressures and biases it will create against identifying and fostering giftedness.  It’s a codification of “all our children are gifted.”   (For more on that, see Michael Clay Thompson’s essay in my sidebar.)

I’m on vacation out West at the moment, so I’m not inclined to do a line by line analysis of AEI’s draft policy  And frankly a lot of the points I would make have already been made in past blog posts and by the GTA representatives.   However I find some of the language in Section 1 b) particularly interesting:  “Because children entering the school system in their early years arrive with varied strengths, reflecting previous experience…”    Huh? So any expression of “strengths” is solely due to, say, breastfeeding, trips to the library and Baby Einstein.  In other words: “privilege.”  I’m sorry, but I will go to my grave believing that some kids just come into this world wired differently, that they are objectively, qualitatively “gifted,” “cognitively advanced,” call it what you will.

So what’s next?  I urge MCPS parents to show up Thursday, 4/16, 7:15 pm at Carver Auditorium, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, MD for the next meeting of the the AEI Advisory Committee.  Members of the Board of Education Policy Committee and Committee on Special Populations will be in attendance.  If you are so inclined, send the BOE an e-mail in advance (boe@mcpsmd.org), addressing any of the four main topics of the evening:

• Is this policy just for gifted students or for all students?;
• Identification/Gifted label for students;
• Curriculum/Programs;
• Consistency of Implementation/Accountability.