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Maybe I'm reading you wrong but it doesn't sound like the skip had anything to do with the G&T program.
The G&T program made the skip possible. Without the program pushing her forward, I don't think she ever would have gotten that far ahead. Had she been left in a regular classroom the skip never would have happened. In hindsight all the G&T program did was push her up to her level of incompetence and then she didn't know how to handle the situation because she'd never had to work at things before. She was fine as long as she was in the program. It was entering high school early because of the program that caused the issues. When she came out of this program in 7th grade, she was testing out of high school classes. This resulted in her being pushed into AP classes early but she didn't have the study skills to deal with them. She'd never had to study before. So all that happened is she went into AP classes two years younger than the other kids and fell on her face. She needed time to grow up somewhere in here and it wasn't there.
I really do wish I could have a do over and just not put her in the G&T program.
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?
In many states this is definitely the case. There are a few states that require the GT student to be classified under Special Education laws, and they are provided with IEP's or plans to outline where/how they will be given supplemental or more challenging coursework. "Extra work" within the confines of a regular classroom does not meet the requirement. In many states there are no provisions for GT, in some states there are pull out programs or events that they are encouraged to participate in, but they are voluntary in nature (Forensics team, debate team, quiz bowls, science fairs etc). The student who is gifted or talented in a creative or performing art or athletics is often overlooked in the education environment, unless they are fortunate enough to be able to enroll in programs that enhance and promote these talents, along with their normal education.
Before I retired in PA, I was coordinator of the GT program in a high school setting. The IEP's for these students were often 15-19 pages long, and included their test scores, (extrapolated for their strengths and weaknesses), their interests and aptitudes, their classroom work ethic etc. The gathering of the information was a collective effort from teachers, parents and the student. The IEP would be written based on their course selection (with emphasis in each AP or accelerated subject) specifically to their expected outcomes for the year. There would be a meeting of all of their teachers for the upcoming year to talk about the IEP. There would be a quarterly monitoring or checking of the progress.
Many parent's are not aware of the laws in their own states with regards to gifted education, and many states don't recognize the GT student as a "special or exceptional" entity. Budget cuts, national standards, common core, reduction in teaching force, school lunch programs, etc seem to make the headlines, but not the lack of educational services for the best and brightest.
In many states this is definitely the case. There are a few states that require the GT student to be classified under Special Education laws, and they are provided with IEP's or plans to outline where/how they will be given supplemental or more challenging coursework. "Extra work" within the confines of a regular classroom does not meet the requirement. In many states there are no provisions for GT, in some states there are pull out programs or events that they are encouraged to participate in, but they are voluntary in nature (Forensics team, debate team, quiz bowls, science fairs etc). The student who is gifted or talented in a creative or performing art or athletics is often overlooked in the education environment, unless they are fortunate enough to be able to enroll in programs that enhance and promote these talents, along with their normal education.
By the time they are freshman in high school, the GT students have sat in regular classrooms for eight solid years. If high schools didn't provide something challenging to engage GT students --AP classes, debate teams...-- many would simply refuse to go to school any longer. Enough is enough.
Students skipping grades is not the answer. Pulling students out for a once a week is not a good solution either. Providing challenging curriculum every day would be a more effective approach. This would involve dividing the kids up into learning groups based on what they are capable of. Elementary teachers do this with reading groups all the time. Math sometimes. Not so much with other subjects.
There have been studies that when teachers are told that a student is capable of a certain level of work, this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Opponents of tracking use these studies to justify their position. Students from home environments that are chaotic or lack books and encouragement are at a disadvantage compared to students from an enriched home environment.
So in order to give the slower students a chance to catch up, we waste years of potentially incredible intellectual development of the GT students. What few pitiful GT programs there are seem to be disappearing with each budget cut.
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.
I agree with this wholeheartedly! And I have several gifted kids.
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?
A lot of the posts here miss the point.
In a perfect world there would be adequate resources to educate all the children to the best of their ability. In the imperfect world in which we live, resources for education are finite.
School districts have to make decisions about how to best use the limited resources they have. Politics is a factor that cannot be neglected either. The first priority of any school district is and should be to have an excellent educational program for average students. I would define this as the middle 80% of students. Since these students make up the bulk of pupils and their parents constitute 80% of the electorate, a school district with a popularly elected school board must cater to this group. The second priority is to do what can be for those children with learning disabilities and handicaps. The consequences for society of not being able to educate these children may be profound. They may literally be unable to hold any job or earn even the most marginal living in a society that has become increasingly technologically dependent. Federal law also mandates expenditures to educate these children as best possible. A school district for both legal and moral reasons cannot neglect this group. Educating the gifted and talented is a third priority. My position would be after the needs of the average kids and the learning disabled kids are met if there is anything left over than that money can be spent on the gifted and talented.
Finally, consider the taxpayers are reluctant to do much in the way of increasing taxes to fund public education. Perhaps, they should, but this opens another can of worms. Those taxpayers who are single or married without children see limits on what they should be forced to pay to fund schools. Property taxes fall the hardest on taxpayers without children and the easiest on those with large families. Until an alternative way is found to fund public education, there is bound to be considerable resistance to tax increases among a large segment of the public.
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.
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.
I really think the grade skip was the far bigger problem than the GT programs, very few kids are emotionally equipped for that. I started college at 16 - not something I would recommend to anyone. The bigger issue - and the point of many of the posts in this thread - is that there wasn't a program for her after 6th grade.
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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?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear
Current education reforms are meant to close the gaps between the highest and lowest achieving students. One way to close the gap is to bring the top down. It makes no sense as a nation to neglect the education of our brightest citizens who are the most likely to be our innovators and generate wealth. However, as long as the goal remains to close the gap, rather than to raise achievement overall that is what we will get.
One recent report I read said something in the order of $10 million is geared towards G&T by Federal government. Closing the gap programs amount to billions.
One recent report I read said something in the order of $10 million is geared towards G&T by Federal government. Closing the gap programs amount to billions.
Wow. I had no idea the funding gap was that large.
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The problems with education today started when tracking ended. When I was in school we had all of the kids tested and in classes based on their ability levels, so they all learned at the same or very similar pace. In order to avoid stigmatizing the slower classes they would use something like 7A-7I where maybe D was the best and B was the slowest class (though we all knew). With the popularity of political correctness, trying to treat all kids equally and have the gifted together with the slowest in the same class teachers have to teach to the common denominator. The gifted are bored and the slower kids are lost. Gifted and talented programs sprang up in an attempt to rescue the best students but funding and a threat to the self-esteem of those not making it into the G & T classes have reduced or eliminated them in many districts. Well educated and caring parents can help overcome this by doing their own supplemental teaching or paying for private advanced programs or schools, but the biggest result today is that parents move to areas with the best schools, and drive up the home prices. Eventually the best schools end up in the affluent areas, where most of the kids are at the same learning level and have the same parental concern and participation. The difference between them and the schools in the poorer areas widens every year as people with kids that can afford it move away.
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