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The problem will be resolved when every parent is given both the opportunity and the responsibility to educate and develop their children according to their own values and standards; and I believe that any number of philanthropic and similar institutions would be ready to fill in the gaps -- just as soon as both the NEA and the "No Child Left Behind" crowd, each with its twisted and costly agenda, are confined to the trash heap where they belong.
In PA, gifted students are under the umbrella of Special services and get IEP's, or G(gifted)IEP. Gifted Education It's the middle students that have no extra attention..
That has been our experience also.
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
As the mother of a G&T student, I'm not convinced that spending extra money on G&T programs is warranted. Now 10 years ago, I would have been pushing for it but now that my dd is 16, I think most of what was done "for her" was really a waste of effort. I don't think she's any farther ahead now than she would have been if we'd just left her in the regular classes. In fact, I think she's farther behind because of what they've done. In hindsight, I don't think G&T kids (talking the garden variety not the uber gifted who just don't fit in anywhere except with a group of kids like them) need something extra. I think they do just fine as the smartest kids in the class. I think my dd would have done better had we just left her as the smartest kid in the class instead of trying to accommodate her giftedness and push her.
As a teacher, I see very bright kids every day who had nothing special done for them growing up to become very capable young adults and that is what it's all about. While children need to be learning all the time, I don't think that everything has to be a challenge all the time. In retrospect I find myself asking questions like; "What is wrong with learning being easy for them?". "Why did I think it was an issue when she was 8?". If I had it to do again, my dd would not have been placed on the G&T track. I didn't know better back then. While I support totally separate G&T programs for kids who are uber gifted and just don't fit in, I'm thinking the garden variety gifted child should just be left to bloom brighter than the other kids where they are. We found out the hard way that emotional maturity and intellectual maturity don't necessarily track together. When dd hit high school, her lack of emotional maturity bit her on the butt.
Wait, didn't your daughter skip a grade, or two? That doesn't constitute a G&T program anywhere I've lived.
We had two sons go through G&T in 3 different states, and they thrived. They remained with their friends, and maturity level wasn't an issue. G&T really didn't offer much prior to middle school, but then it certainly became a more challenging curriculum than what our 3rd son took. That 3rd son took 5 years to complete college, the other two breezed through without issue.
The youngest is still rooming with, and has remained best friends with another boy from G&T. They were very competitive with each other, taking the SAT 3 times each to top the other's score. Meanwhile, their first attempt was enough to get them into the college they both wanted. I hate to think of how being offered the regular curriculum would have cheated these kids.
Talented and gifted has become harder busy work with no tangible value. All the funding goes to ESL and special ed. All the teacher focus these days is on problem children and those who can't/don't want to learn. Back in to old days those kids that had no interest in school worked on farms or in factories. These days we push unintelligent and lazy children through the system grade by grade. They have learned almost nothing, don't care one little bit about education, and have put forth minimum effort to pass standardized tests. Then the American government funds billions in student loans for people who have no interest in education to go to community college. The only reason they are there is because it's quasi-required in today's job market.
Our local Community Colleges have a less than 30% 4-yr transfer or completion rate, ALL OF THEM. Let that sink in.... If you aren't disgusted by that figure there is something wrong with you. We need to quite forcing education on people that don't want to learn. Let them go move sprinkler pipes in a field or pick apples or flip hamburgers, no one owes them a $20/hr job. We should fully support those who do want to learn and have a proven track record in school. We should never sacrifice those with potential for those who are detrimental. EVER! We spend an inordinate amount of time and resources for a 3% gain in graduation rate or standardized test scores at the bottom end. Some say 3% on the bottom end is worth it, but very few studies have determined what happens to the top end. The few studies we do have suggest that any gains made at the bottom hurts the top and middle performers unproportionaly. The reward is not worth the risk.
Wait, didn't your daughter skip a grade, or two? That doesn't constitute a G&T program anywhere I've lived.
We had two sons go through G&T in 3 different states, and they thrived. They remained with their friends, and maturity level wasn't an issue. G&T really didn't offer much prior to middle school, but then it certainly became a more challenging curriculum than what our 3rd son took. That 3rd son took 5 years to complete college, the other two breezed through without issue.
The youngest is still rooming with, and has remained best friends with another boy from G&T. They were very competitive with each other, taking the SAT 3 times each to top the other's score. Meanwhile, their first attempt was enough to get them into the college they both wanted. I hate to think of how being offered the regular curriculum would have cheated these kids.
The grade skip wasn't part of the G&T program. She just happened to be in a G&T program when the grade skip occurred. We moved her to a school with a G&T program that started in 2nd grade when she was in 2nd grade. The grade skip was 3rd to 5th because she was testing at 6th - 9th depending on the subject at the time. When she returned to the local district, she was way ahead of her peers (the G&T program ended in the 6th grade in her previous school) and placed on the honors track another year ahead. The only reason she's not graduating this year is that she doesn't want to. She wants to have a senior year which I agree with. I don't think she's ready for college next year anyway. 16 is a little young.
20/20 hind sight I don't think the G&T program did her any good. Sure it allowed her to move ahead academically but all that happened in the end is she ended up in high school before she was emotionally ready to be there. I honestly think she would have been better of if we'd never put her into the G&T program that made that grade skip possible. If we'd left her in the local school, she would have just waited for her peers to catch up to her and been the smartest kid in the class. She probably would have ended up in the honors track but it would have been with her same age peers instead of kids two years older than her. I don't know why we thought she had to be challenged back then but we did. I don't think she'd be any less smart if she hadn't gone into the G&T program but she might have been more emotionally ready for the challenges of high school if we'd let her grow up at the same pace as her peers.
The grade skip didn't matter until high school and then it mattered a lot and it was too late to fix it. It seemed like a good thing at the time. It wasn't. Hence I don't think the G&T program that allowed the skip was a good thing either. It was the G&T program that allowed her to work ahead and get as far ahead as she was.
In PA, gifted students are under the umbrella of Special services and get IEP's, or G(gifted)IEP. Gifted Education It's the middle students that have no extra attention..
They don't have IEPs here, but it's the same deal. Top students are sent off to separate "centers" and the middle students are left behind and pretty much ignored.
The grade skip wasn't part of the G&T program. She just happened to be in a G&T program when the grade skip occurred. We moved her to a school with a G&T program that started in 2nd grade when she was in 2nd grade. The grade skip was 3rd to 5th because she was testing at 6th - 9th depending on the subject at the time. When she returned to the local district, she was way ahead of her peers (the G&T program ended in the 6th grade in her previous school) and placed on the honors track another year ahead. The only reason she's not graduating this year is that she doesn't want to. She wants to have a senior year which I agree with. I don't think she's ready for college next year anyway. 16 is a little young.
20/20 hind sight I don't think the G&T program did her any good. Sure it allowed her to move ahead academically but all that happened in the end is she ended up in high school before she was emotionally ready to be there. I honestly think she would have been better of if we'd never put her into the G&T program that made that grade skip possible. If we'd left her in the local school, she would have just waited for her peers to catch up to her and been the smartest kid in the class. She probably would have ended up in the honors track but it would have been with her same age peers instead of kids two years older than her. I don't know why we thought she had to be challenged back then but we did. I don't think she'd be any less smart if she hadn't gone into the G&T program but she might have been more emotionally ready for the challenges of high school if we'd let her grow up at the same pace as her peers.
The grade skip didn't matter until high school and then it mattered a lot and it was too late to fix it. It seemed like a good thing at the time. It wasn't. Hence I don't think the G&T program that allowed the skip was a good thing either. It was the G&T program that allowed her to work ahead and get as far ahead as she was.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong but it doesn't sound like the skip had anything to do with the G&T program.
In the school district I grew up in, our GT&T program was pretty amazing. The students were pulled out once a week from 1st - 8th grade and focused largely on problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, etc. The kids all remained with their same aged peers in gen-ed, except for the once/week extra class for a couple hours.
Moving to a new state as a middle schooler, the program in a much bigger district with lots more funding was terrible. It was just busy work, with no real purpose except to maybe keep the kids from being bored? IDK. I did not participate and decided to up my reading schedule, which essentially filled the need.
As far as I know, in my current school district, there is no GT&T program period. This saddens me, as I had such a good experience with mine as a kid. But if they're going the way of busy work, no big loss. That's the last thing kids need.
If anything, it seems like the kids in the middle are being neglected. Around here, g&t students are pulled out of regular classes, have special extracurriculars, and sometimes, even have their own schools. Of course, the kids at the bottom with learning issues have their own programs...and the kids in the middle are left with the watered down curriculum.
Yes, yes, yes. Believe it or not, we used to sort them out and put the smart kids all in one class to do harder work. The average kids were able to excel at average stuff and go in vocational directions while the smart kids went on to higher learning. That eliminated a lot of frustration on many levels. What we have now is BS.
Under recent reform policies that heavily emphasize closing achievement gaps, are America's gifted and talented students being neglected by program and budget cuts? Have you seen anything firsthand in your district that is consistent with this phenomenon? Additionally, what are the implications for policies that take money away from gifted and talented programs to fund other initiatives?
The few G&T programs I've heard about have largely disappeared. The focus continues to be on mainstreaming, educating students in the least restrictive environment. Sometimes as many as a third of a class are on IEPs.
Our kids were bored out of their gourds in elementary and middle schools. By high school, the notion that all students, regardless of abilities, should be in the same classroom has largely waned. They don't call it tracking but that's what it is. Students who sign up for Honors English or AP Math are generally in the same cohort trooping through various accelerated classes.
But prior to that, they sat and waited while their teachers dealt with students who regularly had meltdowns, had to have even the most simple concept explained to them dozens of time, etc. Capable students are partnered up with less capable ones to help haul them along. Can see the benefit to the teachers and the less capable students.
We are wasting valuable years here and valuable brain power. Go to any science graduate program and ask professors how American students do in comparison to students from other countries.
In international comparisons, even our top students are regularly outperformed by students from more than a dozen other nations. We pat ourselves on the back about what a bunch of great creative, problems solvers we are educating, but I don't know if that is anything but wishful thinking.
Many have abandoned public schools altogether and either homeschool or put their kids in private schools.
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