NOVA brag - ALL Fairfax Cty. High Schools make Newsweek's List of Top HS in US (Orange: transfer to, wedding)
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What do you mean you were in the "top 2% of the kids in the city". Were you specifically tested once and put in gifted school for an unlimited tenure? Did everyone take the test or was it only offered to some kids? How do you know they weren't the top 2% of a one off test and actually weren't "Gifted" but just took a good test that day?
"Gifted programs" are designed to keep middle to upper white affluent kids in public schools so they don't go into the private school sector. Unions need to keep their teachers employed (without pay for performance I might add) so they need to keep kids in school, esp. affluent white kids whose parents pay taxes and won't complain about vouchering their taxes once the kids start flighting to private school. (The voucher program in DC was a phenomenal success and the AA community is very angry with Obama for bending to the Teachers Union and killing it but I digress). Having so called "Gifted Programs", where there is little accountability, is a boutique within a school system to cater to those kids who would otherwise be put into private school.
Should my son be labeled as "gifted" (Which I doubt will happen as he is Hispanic), I don't want him in such an isolated program.
Your parents let you be bused 3 hours a day for school?! I would never let my son be bused a half hour, to get to a supposedly better school, that has no independent accountability.
BTW, nice job quoting me in bits. You seem uncomfortable addressing many of my points. In retrospect, I would love to see you type how your "Gifted Program" specifically helped your learning process over the years. I know for a fact I would have done just as well without mine as my intelligence and ability to analyze was not due to some magic hoo-haa a "special gifted teachers class" taught me.
Wow! 3 hours for a "Gifted" program??? And I have people on here telling me I shouldn't work hard to find a stellar school for my sons. Please! I would rather them be in a GREAT school that doesn't need to bus them away to other GREAT schools to help meet their intelligence than to have my sons miss out on lesson time and be isolated from their peers.
I CAN NOT imagine putting my sons on a bus for 3 hours. First, they are losing valuable lesson time. Second, I barely trust the bus to get my son to school now and his school is less than 2 minutes from our house. After seeing all those stories about bus drivers talking on cell phones and texting while driving, I worry immensely about my son riding the school bus. Let alone for 3 hours. We have opted to drive him to school.
Even before the cellphone/talking/texting issue, I used to see daycare vans and buses driving pretty fast around curves while I was out and about around town. I rarely allow other people to drive my sons anywhere and 3 hours is just too long to be doing each day. I am not particularly sure if it was a few times a week, etc. I didn't see that in the post. But geez...
FYI: I was considered a "Gifted" student as well but I lead a pretty normal life.
You should tell that to the asian kids that dominate most of the gifted programs in Fairfax County. Thomas Jefferson H.S. is almost 50% asian.
Korean or Vietnamese or Indian or Japanese? Each group has a different economic class in this area.
None of you seem to be interested in hearing that "gifted programs" are false programs simply created for my previously stated reasons. Again, I believe a tutor working one on one with the "gifted kid" once a week is better than isolating the rich kids in one part of the school.
I'm guessing you all feel threatened that if gifted programs are eliminated from FFX County, your kids will be mixed into the general populations of your neighborhood school. Thus your kids will be sitting at lunch with the ESL/Free lunch kid.
I heard a report on Channel 9 about a new McMansion neighborhood in FFX County (don't remember where) where the kids school boundaries (white kids, houses were half a mil plus) were suddenly changed and the parents were up in arms over the fact that their kids were now going to be bused 1/2 hour away to a school populated with "mostly free lunch kids".
If I was looking to move in this area and solely relied on what was written in these forums, I would think DC is a very racist place.
BTW, "My "Gifted Kid" has been teased, bullied, and tormented for her "uniqueness" for the last two school years. " is not a valid reason for sending your kid to a "gifted program" OrangeFish. What she needs is a parent who can teach her ways of dealing with bullies in her life, because those bullies will be there when she is an adult too.
Interestingly, the Nat'l Association of Gifted students admits that minorities are underrepresented in Gifted Programs nationwide by anywhere from 30-70%.
[url=http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=156]NAGC - ED Underachievement Among Gifted Minority Students: Problems and Promises[/url]
BTW, "My "Gifted Kid" has been teased, bullied, and tormented for her "uniqueness" for the last two school years. " is not a valid reason for sending your kid to a "gifted program" OrangeFish. What she needs is a parent who can teach her ways of dealing with bullies in her life, because those bullies will be there when she is an adult too.
Since you apparently want "reasons":
1. Her WISV-IV GAI = 154.
2. She's 2e.
3. Her base school LL4 would have had 3 GTC-eligible kids.
4. We did a year of therapy with a CSW to work through the bully issues.
5. She's 8. She's a kid. She's hardly akin to a high school student.
"BTW, "My "Gifted Kid" has been teased, bullied, and tormented for her "uniqueness" for the last two school years. " is not a valid reason for sending your kid to a "gifted program" OrangeFish."
Oh, yeah it is. Unless you have a child like this, you haven't a clue how a GT Center can almost literally be a lifesaver. Though it is true that there are many problems with the the GT concept, and even more problems with its execution, the fact remains that there are some kids who simply cannot have their educational needs met in a regular classroom setting. When they are in high school and college, they will have options for greater intellectual challenges, and when they are adults, they can choose a profession (medicine, law, academics, research etc.) that fits their gifts. But when they are 8 or 10 years old, they are at the mercy of the classroom teacher and the other kids, many of whom will behave like the immature children they are when confronted with a classmate who is learning at such an advanced level.
I don't know about the high schools in Fairfax but in Pr. Wm., there seems to be two tracks within the high schools. If your child is in the IB/AP track, they will get a great education. The students on these tracks are going to college. An example of this would be Gar-field HS, it is truly a school within a school (although their admin would not admit to this). The IB students are taking all the IB courses together -- they even have PE together as well as lunch (due to the scheduling of the classes). These IB kids are expected to work hard and do well. They are expected to go onto college and I bet if you looked at the top 25 ranked kids -- they are all in the IB program.
Thats EXACTLY how my high school was. All of the IB kids were together. We had lunch and gym together for the most part, as well as the languages (French, Spanish, Latin) and pretty much all of our other classes as well. We were completely segregated from the general student population for all intents and purposes. The top 20 students were definitely all IB kids. I was fortunate to be one of the IB kids but you could definitely notice the disparity between how we were engaged in class vs the rest of the students. Sometimes administrators (yes...actual administrators) half-joked that we were "the reason the school maintained accreditation" so the emphasis was always placed on our welfare vs. the 'regular' students as they were called. It was a really messed up system...and, unfortunately, a fairly common one.
When they are in high school and college, they will have options for greater intellectual challenges, and when they are adults, they can choose a profession (medicine, law, academics, research etc.) that fits their gifts. But when they are 8 or 10 years old, they are at the mercy of the classroom teacher and the other kids, many of whom will behave like the immature children they are when confronted with a classmate who is learning at such an advanced level.
Thank you. You stated this so well.
Telling an 8 year-old, "Don't worry, you'll find others that are like you in high school" is not the right solution for all kids. (Maybe it works for some, but not all.)
Thats EXACTLY how my high school was. All of the IB kids were together. We had lunch and gym together for the most part, as well as the languages (French, Spanish, Latin) and pretty much all of our other classes as well. We were completely segregated from the general student population for all intents and purposes. The top 20 students were definitely all IB kids. I was fortunate to be one of the IB kids but you could definitely notice the disparity between how we were engaged in class vs the rest of the students. Sometimes administrators (yes...actual administrators) half-joked that we were "the reason the school maintained accreditation" so the emphasis was always placed on our welfare vs. the 'regular' students as they were called. It was a really messed up system...and, unfortunately, a fairly common one.
It is the only way to keep these students at the high school. Parents/students have options when they reach high school. It is pretty easy to transfer to another high school if you don't like your base school. On the other hand, you are usually stuck with your zoned school for elementary and middle as transfers are much harder to come by. Middle schools are pretty dismal even with the "gifted" program. I was thrilled when my youngest entered high school and so was he
Thats EXACTLY how my high school was. All of the IB kids were together. We had lunch and gym together for the most part, as well as the languages (French, Spanish, Latin) and pretty much all of our other classes as well. We were completely segregated from the general student population for all intents and purposes. The top 20 students were definitely all IB kids. I was fortunate to be one of the IB kids but you could definitely notice the disparity between how we were engaged in class vs the rest of the students. Sometimes administrators (yes...actual administrators) half-joked that we were "the reason the school maintained accreditation" so the emphasis was always placed on our welfare vs. the 'regular' students as they were called. It was a really messed up system...and, unfortunately, a fairly common one.
How did the "regular" students feel at your school? Especially if they knew they were saying things like that to the "gifted" students? And children are quite smart and often estimated. My kids pick up on all kinds of things that I don't think they are paying attention to and they are 3 and 5. Any older and who knows what they are comprehending.
I can't imagine what that did for their self-esteem and learning experience. Wow. I hope my kids don't have to encounter a school environment like that. All children should be created equal. My son's elementary school keeps them motivated. You can't imagine how pleased I was when my 5 year-old came home on his second day of Kindergarten and he told me, "Mommy, I can learn!" It made me feel SO good that his school's administration cared about him and his learnng experience as much as I do.
They had told him this at his school's beginning of the year speech and his teacher reiterates this every day and I can see the motivation in him to learn new things. He used to get so upset when he didn't know something and now he tries harder and he learns more because of it and because he believes in himself, thanks to his parents and school administration.
After hearing some of these stories, I feel lucky that my son is in a great school where they make ALL children feel special, whether they are "gifted" or not.
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Whoa!
