Talented And Gifted » New York

In New York, 2 + 2 = 5

Troy — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:20:43 +0000

When does 2 + 2 = 5?

When you’re taking the state math test.

Despite promises that the exams — which determine whether students advance to the next grade — would not be dumbed down this year, students got “partial credit” for wrong answers after failing to correctly add, subtract, multiply and divide. Some got credit for no answer at all.

via nypost.com

For this reason alone (and there are many more presented in the article), local schools need to maintain control over which students advance to the next grade level. As this “partial-credit” mentality gets more prevalent, it’s only a matter of time before our gifted students start getting credit for unacceptable work.

In the real world, you don’t get partial credit. The outcome is either right or wrong- there’s no middle ground.

Manhattan Borough President On Problems with Gifted and Talented Policy

Troy — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:04:12 +0000

NYC Public School Parents: Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer On Problems with Gifted and Talented Policy

As with any changes to education policy (or just about any public policy, for that matter), one segment of the population will always be upset with those changes. As the famous saying goes:

“You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you canâ€™t please all of the people all of the time.”
– Attributed to the poet John Lydgate

The president of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City voted against the changes. He outlined his reasons for voting against the policy changes in a letter to his constituents. He cites lack of preparednes, testing requirements, and general lack of public input into these changes. While I think all of these things are important, it’s better to have some progress with a few issues, than to have no progress and maintain the status quo. The current system is broken, and needs to be fixed. Some progress is better than nothing, and New York City won’t know what issues may arise from these changes, without actually implementing those changes.

I don’t live in New York, so I don’t have any input, but I’d encourage all parties involved to be patient and understand that progress takes time.

New York City Overhauling Gifted Programs

Troy — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:36:07 +0000

Following Florida’s lead, New York City has proposed plans to change eligibility guidelines for Gifted programs in the city’s schools. Right now, standards vary among schools. But the chancellor of schools, Joel Klein, has proposed a standard to be by all schools in evaluating Gifted students. All students who qualify would be guaranteed a spot in their school’s Gifted program. However, the qualifications would be substantially higher. The proposal would only admit those students who scored in the 95th percentile or higher on two national tests into Gifted programs.

The proposal is getting mixed reviews. Some parents are happy, as they feel it brings more credibility to the programs. Others worry that students who are now benefitting from being in Gifted programs, may fail to qualify under the new standards. Personally, I’m undecided about this. I can see it both ways. Obviously, a Gifted program must be more difficult than a regular program, otherwise the term “Gifted” becomes watered-down and loses meaning. On the other hand, how do we say that a student who scores in the 90-95% percentiles can’t benefit from participation in a Gifted program? Especially now that normal school curriculum is so focused on NCLB requirements, borderline students are at risk of being lost in the shuffle, and that’s not good for anyone.

The best approach might be to use percentile scores as the objective part of the evaluation, and introduction a subjective part as well. The subjective part could include recommendations from teachers, administrators, parents, etc. Before my daughter could enter the Gifted program in 2nd grade, she was required to complete a project of her choosing and it was evaluated by the Gifted facilitator of the district. There’s more to being Gifted than just scoring high on tests.