Federal rules leave gifted kids behind

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/65330407.html

by tokenadult • 17 years ago

18 22 17 years ago

onoj3• 17 years ago

Leaving aside whatever "gifted" means, why bring additional challenges to people who are ahead of the curriculum? It frees them up to explore being people. Having the freedom to create your own challenges is much more important than some misguided attempt by control freaks to monopolize your time.

blahedo• 17 years ago

Because these students may be learning qualitatively differently, meaning that leaving them in middle-road classes will not teach them as effectively.

And more importantly, because leaving gifted kids in unchallenging classes often causes them to burn out and get turned off on school and learning entirely. I've seen it happen, and it's so sad.

gommm• 17 years ago

I would agree with you if the children who were ahead of the curriculum could spend the time in class reading or doing other useful activities. As it is, most of the time, they just have to sit and pretend to be interested while following a lesson about things that they already know...

jlees• 17 years ago

At my middle school I would help the teacher out by working with the slower students on their spelling or maths. I could vaguely imagine this working on more complicated topics - teaching stuff is a great way to cement your knowledge - but only to a limited extent.

techiferous2• 17 years ago

The ideal situation is to be faced with a challenge that is slightly harder than your current skill level. Not only is this great for learning, it is a very enjoyable experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

Kadin• 17 years ago

> It frees them up to explore being people.

This was not my experience. Granted, it was a while ago, and I'm not sure I'd call myself "gifted," but being ahead of the rest of the class certainly didn't get you any time to do interesting things -- it got you a pile of busywork and angry glances from the teacher for being such a pain in the ass.

I doubt things have changed much; if anything, due to increased student:teacher ratios, I suspect they've gotten worse. I don't have any kids but if I did, I'd be far more concerned about a particularly bright one being wrecked by public school than I would a special-needs one who lagged the rest of the class.

onoj3• 17 years ago

I guess my point was more along the lines that "gifted" is a very undefined quantity and in my experience people who excel at class work are average in life. Also that given our education system, the best and brightest do not become teachers, thus any sort of "gifted" program is going to be for muppets by muppets. Given it is pretty much that already the news article has nothing to offer.

CWuestefeld3• 17 years ago

due to increased student:teacher ratios, I suspect they've gotten worse

Class size seems to be the single biggest concern related to education quality. However, it's not entirely clear that smaller classes help; especially not that they help "normal" students (as opposed to those who are "at-risk").

It seems that other things being equal, this is can be a big help to those that need extra help, especially when they're not getting much support educationally at home. But it doesn't seem to have the same effect on kids that are doing OK anyway.

Also, having smaller classes means having more teachers. And that means either offering much higher salaries or settling for less-good teachers. The latter is probably not helpful, and higher salaries may cost money that could deliver greater results when invested in other ways.

Simply assuming that your kids will do better if the classes are smaller is erroneous. Read a bit more here: http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/class-size/

InclinedPlane• 17 years ago

That's not how things work out in practice. More common is that gifted students get annoyed at having to do unchallenging busywork and become annoyed at the whole system. When school no longer becomes worthwhile or engaging (at either the top or the bottom of the spectrum) then it becomes little more than a prison.

Being ahead of the curve in public schools doesn't mean that you get to skip out on classes, you have no greater free time than any of the kids struggling with the material (except perhaps it takes you less time to do homework).

Best case scenario is that unchallenged gifted students take advantage of the most advanced classes available and learn on their own at home. Worst case scenario is that they become jaded and disenchanted with school and learning, stop doing school work because it's beneath their capability, and act out in worse ways.

Lucky for me, some time around the 8th grade or so I turned from the second type of student (falling behind, increasingly disengaged) to the first type (being recognized as one of a handful of top students in my senior class). I was lucky enough to attend an excellent public high-school with good teachers and lots of advanced classes, if those classes and teachers would not have been available to me I don't know for sure what I would have done.

techiferous2• 17 years ago

Excellent article. This is a very real problem.

I taught for a while in a private school, so I had more control over my curriculum and methods. Even so, one of my regrets is that I didn't work with my gifted students enough. My lesson plans were aimed at the middle--and also were exceptionally well-suited for those with learning disabilities. However, my gifted students were left unchallenged. (The irony is that I was a gifted student in school.)

In my case, the cause was not enough time. I've never worked so hard in my entire life as when I was a teacher (it doesn't even come close to programming). There was never enough time to get everything done, so some things slipped through the cracks. What would've helped me is fewer preps and sticking around longer (I left teaching after three years).

pmorici• 17 years ago

Is it? Most education money comes from state and local governments [ http://www.nsea.org/CORE/SchoolFunding.htm http://www.mnbusiness.com/mng/front.html ] This article is discussing federal standards of which it claims determines 60% of a school's federal funding which is less than 5% of a school's total funding. Not only that but in the schools I went to as a kid they always took the "gift" kids out of regular class a couple times each week to challenge them above and beyond.

The crux of this article is the following paragraph,

"This fact is demonstrated by research recently released by the Fordham Foundation. Tracking students over seven years in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, the study revealed that low-achieving students (those in the bottom 10 percent) were progressing in reading at five times the rate of high-achieving students (those in the top 10 percent), and at three times the rate in math."

I see two problems here. One, there is nothing to compare this to other periods of history so this disparity could have been happening prior to the NCLB act and two it stands to reason that when you are particularly talented at something already improvements will come in smaller increments where as when your are at the low end large leaps of improvement are relatively easy to achieve. With sports like running this is certainly true and it strikes me as a paradigm that would also hold true for academic achievement.

NCLB may well be of suspect value but I don't think this article presents a convincing argument.

CWuestefeld3• 17 years ago

This article is discussing federal standards of which it claims determines 60% of a school's federal funding which is less than 5% of a school's total funding.

That may be true (although at least here in NJ it varies widely from school to school). But that doesn't drive the conclusion that the federal influence on the disposition of money is proportionate.

It's conceivable, and I think even probable, that state and local governments are willing to throw considerable portions of their own money in to chase those federal dollars. There's no reason to think that they won't use inefficiently a big chunk of their budget just to extend it by that additional federal chunk.

I base that on (1) the willingness of states to follow all sorts of other federal guidelines in a quest for funding (speed limits, drinking age, etc.) without questioning their importance for each individual state; and (2) my opinion that despite the lip service of the NEA the rest of "the education lobby", their primary motivation is to build and solidify their power base and individual member benefits, rather than to serve students.

(I agree with your criticism of the logic comparing achievement by low achievers vs. high achievers.)

amohr• 17 years ago

I think the big question mark here is what are we supposed to be accomplishing with our education system? Are we going for equality or maximum output?

To get more total productivity out of graduates, there's a huge crop of low-hanging fruit in the form of unchallenged gifted students.

If we're aiming for equality, then we have to rely on a cultural motivation to get the above-average students to go out of their way to challenge themselves. As a once gifted student myself, I find this to be highly unlikely.

CWuestefeld3• 17 years ago

To the extent that education is sold as "we're investing in the future of our society", then it seems to me that we'd want to concentrate just as much -- if not more -- on those that will be leaders, captains of industry, etc., as those that we're trying to just keep their heads above water.

Are we building a nation that's prepared to just muddle along, or are we building a nation that, at least at its fore, will continue to excel (while hopefully lifting all boats in the rising tide)?

electromagnetic• 17 years ago

My question has always been, why is the US dropout rate at ~30% country wide, but Canada has a figure marginally above 10%. What is the social norm that's having a huge effect on these children's ability to stay in school?

This isn't mentioning that even American institutions recognize that Canadian children are better educated. Even the sports scouts who hand out college scholarships say that while American students need an 80% to apply, Canadians only need a 60% because the educational standard in Canada is higher. How can a country consider its education system even passable, if the standard of its high school graduates with 100% is worse than any Canadian kid on the honour roll?

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

why is the US dropout rate at ~30% country wide, but Canada has a figure marginally above 10%.

Source for those figures? Are we sure that the school-leaving age is the same in both countries?

chrischen• 17 years ago

Not just gifted kids, but kids who simply learn differently, are being underserved.

I think there are so many more poor performers that they have hogged all the attention. So we've been attacking the problem of poor performers, and assuming everything else is working fine.

onoj3• 17 years ago

I agree. Though you only need one or two "difficult" children in a class for them to take 60% of a teachers time. The pigeon-holing of children in categories is also irksome. I never met an "all-round" genius, and currently schools are not set up to perform to strength. There is no rule saying that a child cannot be in grade five maths and grade two reading at the same time. University is set up with more flexibility, why not school?

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

There is no rule saying that a child cannot be in grade five maths and grade two reading at the same time.

Exactly. First dividing children into groups with age as the main consideration plays havoc with many aspects of school administration. Schools don't have to be organized with age-segregated grades, and probably shouldn't be.

http://learninfreedom.org/age_grading_bad.html

imraj• 17 years ago

To me it is baffling that while there is a revolution in many ways of life, the education system still seems to be following the long established norms for the most part. Use of laptops and presentations are just different mediums, the philosphy behind imparting knowledge needs to be looked at. I would like to live in a world where I am able to pick up knowledge on say latest advancements in the M-theory within weeks or months, but years at a university :)

patrickgzill• 17 years ago

Be interesting to segment off the "bell curve" of IQ into the small lower and higher segments, and the large middle segment, and then be able to find the amount spent per student.

My guess would be that spending on getting the lower-IQ into "middle" performance would be far higher than what is spent on helping the higher-IQ advance even further.

maarek• 17 years ago

Perhaps this is an indication that a single, all encompassing program is impossible to fit to every student. Perhaps a range of programs could be offered, and students and their parents could chose the education program that fits their needs best. A choice in education, if you will.

Federal rules leave gifted kids behind

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