Advanced Learning
This thread is for any and all thoughts, concerns, gripes about Advanced Learning.
I'm doing this in hopes that people at both ends of the "spectrum" will QUIT highjacking other threads with their opinions/gripes about Advanced Learning.
And FYI, Advanced Learning is NOT the major issue in our capacity management problems. You are welcome to ask anyone at district headquarters working on capacity management that question.
(I will also ask that unless you have definite proof - an e-mail from Bob Vaughan or other district official saying that most of the kids in APP got there through private testing, then ONLY state that as your opinion. That claim is often made here and yet, where's the proof? If you don't have it, then don't say it. )
I am not personally interested in the discussion over whether some people don't like that some kids are in separate classrooms/schools.
It's not that I don't believe you are entitled to your opinion/beliefs. You are.
What I don't like is the attitude that everyone should be in one classroom....because everyone should be in one classroom. Life is full of sorting and we all know that.
I always find it interesting that we celebrate achievements in sports and arts and accept that some children - either with abilities they were born with and/or trained for - really do well. But the minute you say a child has academic abilities beyond the average, well, you are elitist and treating your kid like a hothouse flower.
Of course, all children have something to learn from other children. But that's not really the point of school. The point is to help every child learn to the best of his or her abilities.
What it comes down to is what we all want - our child's academic needs met. Not anyone getting "more" than anyone else but also not the attitude that because a child can do well easily with academics that "they'll be okay" so why should we worry about them? Everyone wants their child to get the most push and rigor and enrichment to excel. And everyone has the right to want and expect it.
Note I haven't said "treat" anyone differently. Teachers shouldn't. They should teach differently depending on the student. They should be given training and resources and support to differentiate their teaching and curriculum.
However, until that day comes where our district has a coherent Advanced Learning program that has rigor/enrichment that is accessible to EVERY child who wants it and teachers have that training/support to give that rigor/enrichment in EVERY classroom, then we need a separate program.
Swing away.
I'm doing this in hopes that people at both ends of the "spectrum" will QUIT highjacking other threads with their opinions/gripes about Advanced Learning.
And FYI, Advanced Learning is NOT the major issue in our capacity management problems. You are welcome to ask anyone at district headquarters working on capacity management that question.
(I will also ask that unless you have definite proof - an e-mail from Bob Vaughan or other district official saying that most of the kids in APP got there through private testing, then ONLY state that as your opinion. That claim is often made here and yet, where's the proof? If you don't have it, then don't say it. )
I am not personally interested in the discussion over whether some people don't like that some kids are in separate classrooms/schools.
It's not that I don't believe you are entitled to your opinion/beliefs. You are.
What I don't like is the attitude that everyone should be in one classroom....because everyone should be in one classroom. Life is full of sorting and we all know that.
I always find it interesting that we celebrate achievements in sports and arts and accept that some children - either with abilities they were born with and/or trained for - really do well. But the minute you say a child has academic abilities beyond the average, well, you are elitist and treating your kid like a hothouse flower.
Of course, all children have something to learn from other children. But that's not really the point of school. The point is to help every child learn to the best of his or her abilities.
What it comes down to is what we all want - our child's academic needs met. Not anyone getting "more" than anyone else but also not the attitude that because a child can do well easily with academics that "they'll be okay" so why should we worry about them? Everyone wants their child to get the most push and rigor and enrichment to excel. And everyone has the right to want and expect it.
Note I haven't said "treat" anyone differently. Teachers shouldn't. They should teach differently depending on the student. They should be given training and resources and support to differentiate their teaching and curriculum.
However, until that day comes where our district has a coherent Advanced Learning program that has rigor/enrichment that is accessible to EVERY child who wants it and teachers have that training/support to give that rigor/enrichment in EVERY classroom, then we need a separate program.
Swing away.
Comments
Only in rare cases should any exceptional child need to be removed from general education peers in a self-contained program for the entire school day in a separate location.
Truly exceptional children of all levels need an IEP and a range of services to meet their individual needs. Truly gifted children are exceptional and should be given services that follow a special education model.
This program has become a Frankenstein of its original intent. As Dorothy Neville and others have presented with evidence (and I have witnessed first hand), there are students in this program who are not gifted. Plenty of ways exist for entrance into APP for the savvy parents who have found the loopholes. Parents who have truly gifted children and are unaware of the loopholes should not be offended by this fact, which does not apply to you. These smart but not gifted students are, however, lowering the academic program your child needs and deserves because they are watering down the rigor.
The demographics of APP demonstrate that there is a serious problem with identifying giftedness in this district, unless you adhere to a eugenics model.
That Mr. Banda is restoring an equity component to SSD is very encouraging. An overhaul of this program is way overdue. Retesting students every two or three years for continued eligibility, in a fair and unbiased manner, would be an excellent way to begin. Truly gifted children and their parents would have nothing to fear.
--enough already
Again, whether you call it "loopholes" or not, you are claiming that there is a way into APP to beat the testing. Prove it.
I do believe that APP should be the top 1% and that yes, there are exceptional gifted students and no, Spectrum is not that and APP isn't always either.
But I note that NO APP students are in a "separate location". They are in different classrooms but in the same building with other pupils who, yes, they interact with. (Lincoln students were forced to be separate, not their choice so I don't count them.)
I wouldn't have a problem with testing in at elementary and then middle and then high school. It is too expensive to do it every two years.
Getting that stuff clear really should be the first step.
We cannot begin to discuss HOW to serve these students until we first decide that we actually want to serve these students.
There has been no real analysis done, so there's a lot of conjecture. I do recall, however, a previous program manager telling the Board that even if every Black student who scored a 4 on the WASL were admitted, Black students would still be under-represented. If that were true, then it would be a pretty grim statistic.
There have been a series of efforts to tweak the eligibility criteria. There was the addition of the introduction to the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test. There was a change in Spectrum eligibility so it was cognitive ability only (without an academic achievement requirement) in the primary grades. There was the decision one year to test every first grade student. There was the decision to locate part of the elementary program at Thurgood Marshall. All of these were intended as efforts to boost minority enrollment. None of them have worked.
The District has a long-standing practice of specifically inviting students high strong test scores to apply.
What other ideas do people have?
Of course not, because those tests are never wrong and never show false negatives.
http://westdalemiddle.ebrschools.org/eduWEB1/1000047/laylamilton/docs/minority_students_in_gt.pdf
That is absurd. And, it's easy enough to figure out. Let's just take any grade level. 7, for example. Looking at SPS report cards, we see 124 black students got 4's on the 7th grade reading MSP. If ALL of them were in APP, that would certainly be MORE than proportionate. That is, a minimum of 20% of black students in 7th grade scored at least a 4 on something and that would represent more than proportionate participation of black students in APP, where the district average is something like 5% overall.
Sounds like the previous program manager needed a little math assistance, or perhaps wasn't interested in the topic.
-reader
First -- to the extent that giftedness means that kids learn "differently," not just "faster," placing an underperforming "gifted" child in a regular classroom may be no more successful (and maybe more harmful) than leaving them in APP. APP is not a "reward;" it is (or should be) an educational placement based on a match between educational need and teaching method/content/pedagogy/etc. If my child is in a regular class, and for whatever reason (disconnect with teacher or curriculum, depression, migraines, undiagnosed ADD, etc.) fails to keep up, he is not automatically "demoted" to a self contained SPED class -- because in 99 of 100 cases, that would not be an appropriate shift. Why, then, do we suggest this for struggling but gifted kids -- again assuming APP placement is not a "reward" for good grades that should be removed (like extra recess, or a class party) if you no longer earn them?
Second -- where do you now send them, if they have been working 2 years ahead. What educational wisdom is there in sending an APP 5th grader (who presumably covered 5th grade back when he was in 3rd grade) back to a regular 5th grade class?
Finally, I haven't read as much in this field lately as I did a decade or so ago, when I had an APP kid, but I don't know of any experts in the field who recommend periodic testing to see if gifted kids are still gifted. On the other hand, I DO know of a small handful of cases where teachers (usually after a year or two, or more, of working with kids) have suggested different placements to parents. Generally, these have involved "borderline" kids -- on the lower end of the APP scale -- who are also battling other issues (anxiety, perfectionism, social issues, etc.) and it was genuinely believed that a different pedagogy, or a less challenging pace, might alleviate concerns.
I can't fault the parents for pushing there kids into these programs, for tbe ultimate goal is to compete with other kids for choice college seats. Most well educated parents fear the general education classes in Seattle because they contain disruptive kids with lower academic
ambition. Choosing Spectrum or APP also guarantees that your child will be surrounded with high achieving kids who have motivated parents. This is not just a Seattle thing, where we have a statistically improbable number of gifted kids. It is happening in NYC and many other urban areas filled with highly educated parents.
sps parent
It seems to me that kids fall into these general tiers:
1. Gifted kids who clearly and obviously are properly placed. Why are we wasting time (theirs) and money (ours) periodically retesting these kids? (Also, when one of them ends up with a fluky bad test result, everyone -- everyone -- will still have no doubt whatsoever that they are gifted and properly placed -- so what then? Doing well on the test doesn't make you gifted. It is evidence of giftedness used in placement. When kids are obviously well placed and doing well, what is the point of a retest?
2. Gifted kids who, for whatever reason, are struggling with grades/turning in homework/etc. But -- they are still gifted. I contend that just as "regular" classes have kids who get discouraged or depressed, have family issues that distract them, need to learn organizational skills, struggle with perfectionism, etc. -- that is no reason to deny these kids access to the educational opportunity that best matches their brains (and that doesn't have them "redoing" work they did two years ago). I do agree that they need to have their issues addressed -- but teachers have these issues in regular classrooms all the time. Why are APP classes exempt?
3. Kids who are just struggling and may not be well placed. How many of these are there, really -- and why isn't teacher identification and teacher/parent discussion the appropriate way to deal with these circumstances? Or if, for these kids, there is some reasonable basis in the research on intelligence to think they have lost IQ, why don't you just retest THEM?
It seems to me that mass retesting is useless, expensive, a waste of time, and potentially harmful, unless (and I have never heard this) the entire APP testing/identification model has been tinkered with to the point where it is now so broken that the unqualified comprise a majority of the kids in the program. If that is the case, then I think we need to redo the entrance criteria and get it right -- and then re-screen everybody ONCE under the "fixed" system.
Killing alternative schools and programs won't do anything to improve funding or test scores in Seattle Public Schools. Much more likely is that it would make funding and test scores much worse.
It's not a fixed pot of money. If you kick people out of public schools, the money shrinks and support drops. If you attract people to public schools, the money grows and we all benefit.
Rather than fighting with others who are in our public schools, we should be fighting together to get public schools more funding and get more families engaged in public education. This crazy fighting over scraps has to end.
Teachers aren't sadists. They don't want to permanently damage kids by force-feeding them work they can't handle. And no good parent wants their child to suffer in a class they can't handle. There are exceptions, I'm sure, but this reality should be self-evident. WSDWG
What I found interesting is the author said this about cognitive abilities:
"The Cognitive Abilities Test measures developed abilities, not innate abilities. The
development of these abilities begins at birth and continues through early adulthood.
It is influenced by both in-school and out-of-school experiences."
He also discusses importance of not using the test result alone as the predictor of success, but combination of cognitive and CURRENT academic achievement (so maybe that's the 1st step to see if a re-evaluation is needed if a teacher, parent, or the student his/herself identify academic problems).
The other thing about brain research is new finding about developing teenage brain and how it affects their perfomance (and not just the academic, but social and emotional). You probably know all of this already.
The only thing I will add that by middle school, open up advanced coursework to those who can by ability do the work and keep up. Don't keep kids out because they don't have AL designation.
another reader
As an APP parent, if I ever made a statement like that, I'd be crucified in a New York minute.
WSDWG
@another parent: Now there's a statement I totally agree with, and why I dislike the "gifted" or "highly capable" labels. We should add "now" or "at this time" to each, to be fair and accurate. WSDWG
@ sps parent:
Of course this is anecdotal - It's always anecdotal. I've never heard anyone tell me or post here that they paid a business to test prep their kindergartener for entrance to APP. Clearly there is an underground business opportunity that I am missing out on.
pressure to get their child into the program for first grade, since [...] and space is still available. - space is always available for eligible students in the APP program (though there may not be space to put the program itself)
I can't fault the parents for pushing there kids into these programs, for tbe ultimate goal is to compete with other kids for choice college seats. - BS; the ultimate goal for most of these parents is to find an appropriate education that doesn't bore their kids to tears with repetitive busy work beneath their ability before they give up on school altogether.
Choosing APP doesn't guarantee anything, but most parents hope that their kids will find like-minded peers and not always be the odd bird, that maybe the curriculum will be a little more engaging even if it's only two years ahead, and that maybe the teachers and staff will have some small amount of interest and experience with gifted learners. No guarantees, though.
-more said
Helen Schinske
There are online test prep materials. Check out testingmom.com and criticalthinking.com. An example of a cogat prep company is brightkidsnyc.com, and there are countless businesses serving the NYC area. In Seattle, we have Brainchild. I know there are others when I considered this for my K a few years ago (I ultimately did not take this route, but felt a lot of pressure from other K parents and felt like choosing to not prep would put my kid behind).
SPS parent
Are you offering the fact that a parent shared the name of an educational psychologist as proof that people are buying their way in? The district offers group testing. Plenty of little kids clam up in a group of strangers and benefit from a one-on-one test. When my kid was tested she reported that there was a boy there who was completely disruptive and loud, blurting answers and that the AL tester refused to repeat the questions. My kid was completely demoralized. So how is that a valid test situation?
not enough
Right now the third grade class remains together - no "clustering", and several new students were added to the class this year. It is going well for my daughter, she is being challenged academically, and most importantly for us, she does not feel ostracized because of her interests. I am less connected this year to the other families, due to a new job that I started in August.
We have absolutely no idea how next year will look, nor do we have much of an idea as to where she should go as she gets older. There still seems to be some division and a whole lot of reluctance to talk openly about the Spectrum program at the school. We live silently and day-to-day within the program, and no one engages parents, no one sends notices or handouts about future directions, no one talks between grades or even between classrooms. It remains the giant elephant in the room.
Though I think my daughter would be better served in APP if we had started her there, she also needs stability, as do most elementary-aged children. At this point, we value that more than optimizing her learning environment. We did briefly consider a move to Jane Addams for her and her entering-middle-school sister, on the theory that she could be there through 8th grade, but ruled it out for both due to instabilities at that school.
I do not have any confidence that a district-wide, comprehensive, advanced learning program will ever be developed in Seattle during her academic lifetime. The Advanced Learning Taskforce that was put together last year was highly constrained in its duties, then its limited results were completely ignored by administration, which telegraphed very clearly what they think of AL. The only group that seems to be (barely) holding the line to obtain the bare minimum needed for this population of students are the APP families.
We have strongly considered moving out of the district, so our children can have a sense of stability and at least a reasonable academic fit. Family and job constraints make it impossible for me to advocate heavily for a stable program, though I keep up on the news. Right now we are a "mixed" family - both public and private - and we would vastly, vastly prefer to be a Seattle public-school-only one. Who knows what we'll end up doing. I have all my fingers and toes and arms and legs and everything else crossed that some semblance of stability will emerge soon (I know, I know..), and that a clear-cut and strong AL program will rise from the ashes. No breath is being held on my part.
In the meantime, we just evaluate the situation, and our kids' needs, pretty much on a quarterly basis, and take it day by day. And supplement like crazy.
-More Said
http://www.seattleschild.com/article/the-testing-advantage
how many get in APP with private appeals testing? im looking
cc
Also, in words I've used here before, and expressing something I've said many, many times: "I know plenty of kids who haven't made it in on private testing. Some didn't even qualify for Spectrum. In some cases, the achievement tests were way high but the overall IQ was too low (usually because of a whole lot of subtest scatter, mixed very high and rather low scores). Some kids had the opposite problem: very high IQ and achievement scores much lower, possibly from learning disabilities. Some have incredibly high scores in one area (often math-related) in both ability and achievement, but not so much on the other measures. Some plain didn't make the cut either way."
Helen Schinske
2. to do this they have made it easier to get in and they offer free appeals testing to FRL kids
3. people pay for appeals because rightly or not APP is thought to be better.
4. Regular northend schools are starting to offer APP level work or even higher level in the case of 6th grade Algebra 1 for qualified kids
5 Parents of kids who dont need a special environment are getting a worse education at APP now than some neighborhood schools
6 parents should just relax and put their kids back in local schools and let their kids enjoy life,if that school offers advanced classes, unless they really are special needs gifted.
7 want to know about Lawton, Wedgwood, Viewridge, etc.? read their sites and BLT minutes. Changes are happening, good changes.
I'm with whoever else said BS.
First, you have no way of knowing why parents have their kids in this program.
Second, being in APP is no guarantee anyone will get into any college. Again, where's your proof?
As far as I can tell, there are no BLT meeting notes posted anywhere for Wedgwood, no references or documents to the Spectrum program on the new website, and no all-school public meetings at all since June of 2011 (though there were a few offsite coffee meetings last winter/early spring). Spectrum is not publicly spoken about or discussed at all there.
As far as "relaxing" and letting kids "enjoy life", you have no idea what you are talking about. We moved our child into the program because she was not relaxed around her peers, and it caused her a great deal of stress. As problematic as we have found the Spectrum program to be at times, it has accomplished the primary goal for our family of giving her a small community of kids where she feels she fits in.
- I'll second what Helen said. My kids were already at a very white school with high test scores and few behavioral problems. I moved them to APP not to be challenged, but so that they would actually learn at school. Choice college seats? [snort] Whatever, dude. Again: learning AT school.
- Prepping to enter a public first grade? Hee. Really? I knew someone who called preschools to ask them which high schools and colleges their "graduates" attended. Which was INSANE. Rather than assume that ALL parents who worried about preschool selection were that nuts, I assumed that this particular parent was rather high strung. So while it's kind of hilarious and sad to hear about fretting over prepping a 5-year-old for an exam of any variety, in practice: nonsense. I feel like I can say without any research that this is not a widespread practice in Seattle. Nor are appeals a huge contributor to the overall APP population (that bit came from a chat with one of the AL administrators).
- WSDWG is right; APP is not a golden ticket. APP doesn't work for all qualified kids - like every other public school program, it has flaws and is not a happy fit for every eligible student.
Some of the kids by Middle School, probably were no longer 'way ahead'. Perhaps they had leveled out in Math and or Reading skills. I also would not like to see cohorts of friends disrupted by kids being tested out. It seems to me this should be between the parent/teacher/principal and what is best for the Students health and well-being.
Our second child scored 99% one year with the APP testing and 45% the next. So much for testing though the District!
Just as capable/creative, but more outside the box thinking that doesn't get measured appropriately.
The struggle to keep APP classes for those for who they are needed boggles my mind. This is not a matter of taking anything away from anyone else. I remember that year that all the K's were tested; more white boys qualified as a result! Surprise, surprise. These kids working way ahead have a chance amongst their peers to feel as if they 'fit' in finally. That in and of itself is priceless. I will be forever grateful.
Year and a half to go.
early learners prepare for testing. These resources are available to families, and many are using them.
Obviously there are truly gifted kids, but many families in Seattle seem to think they all live here. The truly gifted kids stand out regardless of all the testing nonsense, but it is possible to prepare a K aged kid to get into Spectrum or APP.
SPS parent
There are plenty of reasons to believe that private testing is more accurate than the district's. The COGAT is notoriously unreliable for 2E kids. We were alerted to my kid's disability precisely because of the huge disparity between her (99th%ile) MAP scores and her low-average COGAT. Subsequent private testing revealed a 40 point differential between her verbal and perceptual IQ. She is gifted--anyone who engages her knows it instantly--but the COGAT is not set up for a kid with slow processing speed . Still not sure whether we'll go with APP or not but let's not tar "private testing" with such a broad brush.
--monkeypuzzled
If you read the arguments the haters are offering, it has nothing to do with APP. They just assume APP is wealthy (it isn't) and that it gets more funding (it doesn't) and that it isn't diverse (diversity is the same as the City of Seattle).
The rage is not about APP. It is about money, class, and race, and APP is a scapegoat.
You aren't going to convince these people. They are angry at the wrong thing and their solutions are terrible. They aren't looking to improve Seattle's public schools. They're looking to kick people out of them.
I will say northend APP is a very vocal bunch in this blog. So this topic does tend to dominate and may annoy others who find issues that affect larger number of kids rarely get the same passion. But blogs are driven by participants and those who participate drive the topics. So if ELL students and their struggles (whose population more than double APP) don't get much blog time, it may appear to some there's a certain lack of awareness/ concern beyond APP--as can be seen by the thread on short term capacity.
-just saying
-reader
I know quite a few children who attend Lowell. They are unquestionably bright children. They play chess, play piano, ask a lot of interesting questions, and so forth. But "gifted"? Hmmm.
When I think of gifted, I think of the child reading at age 3. I think of kids graduating HS at age 15, getting a perfect SAT score and going to MIT (etc. etc.).
I am sure these kids exist in Seattle, and APP. However, the kids I know who go to APP are simply bright kids, who yes (I admit) could use some extra rigor in their school work. However, I expect them to graduate on time, attend a decent college, get a decent white collar job and so forth. Many parents want this for their children.
But when little Johnny takes a test in kindergarten which allows him to attend schools (through high school) with other bright kids and escape the local school, it simply feels unfair to some of the kids left behind at the neighborhood school, who may also be quite bright themselves. Perhaps the ones left behind read two years ahead, but are at grade level with math. Or they are non-native speakers and excel at math, but can't quite figure out the reading yet. And there are some who are doing grade-level work, but are bored and unmotivated with school. Don't all of these kids also deserve an extra nudge to do the best they can do?
Let me put this another way: little Johnny and family now have a choice of what school is best for him. Maybe they'll choose the local school after all, if it's a good one, and appreciate getting to go to school in the neighborhood (but with a way out in their back pocket, should things change). And maybe they'll choose APP. Why not?! It may not be a "golden ticket" but it's a chance to go to a school with other bright kids and specially trained teachers (not available at the neighborhood school).
I feel that SPS deals with the pressure from parents of bright kids not by improving all schools overall, but by skimming the top off of all schools, and then putting those bright kids in their own schools and giving them specialized attention. Some kids (the “true geniuses”) might really need it, but many others would probably have done just fine at a suitable neighborhood school.
Now the school district is like rats overcrowded in a cage, though, with parents biting and clawing each other so that their kid has a chance to succeed. It's sad. I don't begrudge people of merely bright kids from sending them to APP, or retesting their kids for that opportunity. People will do nearly anything to help their child do well in life. If your neighborhood school is not suitable for your child you have the choice to move, put your kid in a private school, or hope your kid tests into APP. If none of these three choices are available to you, you can understand why some parents are disgruntled at the perceived opportunity at APP.
Having spent quite a bit of time with APP kids, I am unable to be convinced that these are little geniuses who are simply light years beyond their peers in terms of intelligence. Most APP kids could be served in neighborhood schools if the district planned well for it and provided the extra rigor. What's the expression: “a rising tide lifts all ships”? I think the district felt it would be easier to keep the kids together and serve them (perhaps inadequately) than provide good opportunities for kids of all abilities everywhere in the city.
-Just Skeptical
Well there's the rub, isn't it? In the absence of a well-planned or stable program, what should current families do? What do you do *today* with a child who is not thriving in the local school, when there is no clear nor stable program available for him/her? Right now each individual family is making its individual choices, with very little support from our district, and absolutely no confidence that a given program will be intact even through the end of the year.
BTW, the above statement could be written about ANY program in this district - ELL, SPED, creative approach, or any other non-cookie-cutter approach to learning.
What we need is far more than just the reworking of a single program like AL (though it needs it badly). We need strong leadership that will bring stability and predictability to its programs across the board.
(oh, and a gentle note - referring to children in a program as "little geniuses" reveals a great deal about your personal biases. First and foremost, they are children, many with very specific needs. One hopes you would not use such phrases with other populations needing specific programs.)
Just Sayin, I find that APP parents on the blog are generally NOT the ones to talk about APP (unless it's the topic). It's other people who seem to bring it up constantly.
"When I think of gifted, I think of the child reading at age 3. I think of kids graduating HS at age 15, getting a perfect SAT score and going to MIT (etc. etc.)."
Well, and that's your definition. That's not necessarily what the district's view is.
No one is "escaping" their neighborhood school. Many of us (and you see it here in some comments) tried to work with our neighborhood school. My kid DID read at 3 and the kindergarten teacher said he needed more so we asked the principal "What can be done to support him AT school while we support him at home?" Not a thing was the reply. What is a parent to do then? Leave their child where they are?
Don't all of these kids also deserve an extra nudge to do the best they can do?
I have said this, Charlie has said this - no one is disputing that ALL kids need the rigor/differentiation?
Also, those "specially trained teachers"? What? Most Spectrum teachers are not specially trained and not all APP ones are either. The district has been very spotty on this and from the teachers my children had in Spectrum, THEY had to go out and get the credits. So no, they are not getting specially trained teachers.
I'm with you - the district has to do better but it doesn't. They have a program - accessible to all - and people access it.
Skeptical you did use the right word - perceived. There's a lot of wrong perceptions out there.
http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/
Lohman is clear that the CogAT only measures aptitude in the context of the opportunity to learn. A consequence of that factor is that the CogAT under-predicts populations that have had less opportunity to learn and could, over-predict aptitude for children who have had lots of opportunity to learn (which does not have to mean that they've been prepped in the forms that people might consider "cheating."
"Lohman, D. F. (2008). Searching more successfully for academic talent: Finding the right measures and using the right norm groups. Invited presentation at the Ninth Biennial National Wallace Research Symposium on Talent Development, Iowa City, IA."
http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/pdf/Lohman_Wallace_2008_Presentation_reduced.pdf
This data has to inform decision making at the policy level, when we see such under-representation in the program.
zb
There is also mistrust of Private Testing because of a built-in conflict of interest. Parents ask each other who to take their child after someone is successful, so a psychologist who tends to "recognize giftedness" in more kids will get more business. Yes I know about codes of ethics, blah blah how psychologists could presumably lose their license if they fudge test results, but that would be almost impossible to prove so it never happens! They must recognize at least some of the kids brought to them as Gifted, or else nobody will hire them! I usually trust the results of private testing because it's arduous and screens out all but the most determined parents who appeal the district results usually out of genuine recognition of their child's abilities. Some parents go back again and again to retest, which can be very expensive (but less expensive than private school). They know the tester will approve at least some of the kids who show up, and that once their child gets into APP they will be guaranteed an excellent public education all the way through high school.
-reader
zb
-reader
-APP parent
zb
-reader
Smaller classes do not come with APP. It is the same as any school where they take the number of students in each grade and try to divvy them up within the ranges allowed for that grade level. It is partly determined by the central office and sometimes makes it necessary to have split grade classrooms. Sometimes a year has a bubble and there are a lot of classes. Other grades are smaller. It is random if there are bigger or smaller class sizes.
You appear to have much wrong information. There are no classes with 12 or 13 kids in them at LINCOLN. The classes are the same, crowded size as the rest of the city. We have no grass or playfield. Perhaps you are thinking of Lowell, the building APP was kicked out of.The music program at Garfield is indeed great, though no better than Roosevelt. And FAR greater than the program at Ingraham, where most north APP kids are now going to. Ballard and Roosevelt are far superior to Ingraham and are certainly on par for most things at Garfield. Why are they not targeted for your wrath? No doubt, there are problems at Franklin and RB - but the blame for this lies with the district, not APP. I will not ever understand the vitriol about this. Why does no one complain about Laurelhurst, Bryant, View Ridge, Eckstein, Roosevelt, Ballard when making south end comparisons? And can anyone imagine the district telling all the Bryant/View Ridge/West Woodlawn/Bagley/pick any elementary and say hey, your 5th graders have to stay in elementary another year because of our poor planning? If those parents complained, would they be accused of being elitist or wanting special treatment for their kids? I'm pretty sure ALL of those schools have crazy frills like a volunteer running a chess club or parents who volunteer in the classroom. Why don't we villify them?
-stop the hate
We were at Lowell for four years - until we got kicked out when my kid was about to start 5th grade. My child was NEVER in a class of 14.
This "class of 14" is based on a single incident of a small class. This class was placed in a room that was not a classroom. It couldn't hold more than 14 student desks and one teacher's desk. No one was happy about this situation, but it was required as a way to somehow fit all the kids into the crowded building.
Classes are the same large size in APP as they are all over the district. As a parent who has been in the program for six years, I am still waiting to see this golden palace that APP is housed in.
Yes, APP is better than the worst schools in the district (as are most schools), but it has the same issues as any of the other large schools in the district. There are big classes, some poor teachers, the terrible math and science that is district-wide, and just generally not enough space.
And reader about all that grass on the play field. I know the Lincoln parents would love for you to go there and show them where the grass is. They can't find it.
-get the facts straight
APP is funded on the same Weighted Staffing Standards as general education classrooms. The district does not provide additional classroom funding for APP students, nor should they. There seems to be an incorrect perception that APP gets more money from the district.
APP students receive transportation because Washington state districts with gifted programs receive money from the state for the transportation of gifted students. The rest of the district benefits slightly from this money, as SPS usually has non-APP kids on the bus, or has it stop at another school (that's not a complaint, it is simply information).
reader: there may be small class sizes at Lowell, but APP isn't in that building any longer.
On bright vs. "true" giftedness? I don't know. I think that's a fair question to raise. I would say that my own kids (who have both been in APP) are bright rather than exceptional/gifted, but they tested in. But if bright kids - or some other group of kids - aren't being served at their neighborhood schools, what would you suggest? And by "served," I don't mean getting all sorts of enrichment, or small class sizes or other benefits it's unreasonable to expect a cash-strapped public district to provide. I don't even mean challenged. I mean learning at school. I think it's unreasonable to say "just go back to your neighborhood school" to parents who already gave that a shot and found it didn't work.
I'm also impressed with the ability of people on this blog to magically detect giftedness in 5 year olds where experts apparently cannot. How? What is it exactly you think you are finding? And do you know that if the district sees a higher than expected number of successful appeals too many years in a row, they take the practitioner off the list of accepted appeals sources? Cheating, even fudging, would squash their business. And that the enrollment/qualification is hovers around 3% of the district, which is exactly what you would expect in a highly educated urban area on a test that is supposed to find the top 2%?
Are you sure it is not just a stereotype that you think you could identify?
Because when just teacher recommendations are used, the proportion of white boys with glasses goes up exponentially. At least the tests can identify some girls. It's not perfect (I'm not even sure it's good), but it's a heck of a lot better than you or I are going to do.
I am undecided about whether APP should be for students whose brains work differently/faster(some proportion of whom will not be motivated to work ahead in a traditional way) or for kids who work hard and get ahead(some proportion of whom will not meet cognitive standards). I do think as they get older achievement should matter more than ability in deciding who has access to higher level classes, but I don't know when that is.
-yet another APP parent
-reader
Why? My biggest concern is something that ZB outlined about cognitive testing and IMO, why we don't see some of the populations AL is trying so hard to recruit from. If a child's environment affects so much of what CogAT is testing for (developed abilities), then kids who are stuck in poor quality, crowded daycare, who don't get read to at early age, who has 2 parents working FT and little time to spare or just one parent or a grandparent caretaker and does not have the same level of academic/social nurturing and exposure will not test as well by these measures. The innate ability and potential for it is there, but it doesn't get developed. If academic achievement relies in part on cognitive development, then these kids are already running behind. So there are societal advantage/disadvantage being played out.
I keep this in the back of my mind when I discussed APP because for me it keeps things in perspective and humbled.
just saying
-reader
-reader
-reader
This just makes it obvious that you are making stuff up - or vastly misrepresenting a single anomaly at the very least. You mean to tell me that I'm wasting good tuition money on an overcrowded 16 kids per class private school when I could be getting even smaller class sizes for free? (tax dollars notwithstanding) Kids! pack your bags! I'm buying a new car; it's back to public school for you!
/go on, pull the other one
I strongly disagree with you. So what?
Again, these APP kids need a seat somewhere, and I think many people would be very unhappy to see these kids come back to neighborhood schools. Not only would neighborhood schools be even more crowded, a not small proportion of these kids were tested because they were acting out and disruptive in class because they were BORED. Do you want these kids in class with your kids? For many of these kids, the behavioral issues go away once they enter an APP classroom.
APP families cannot win with people like our friend, Reader. They certainly would not want these kids back in the neighborhood school increasing crowding, but they don't want them to be in another school either.
-get the facts straight
Strongly agree! We've had continual problems getting our child challenged, after being in a school that talks a LOT about differentiation. The simple answer: they don't.
I'm not trying to get my kid into Yale. I think much more important that intelligence are persistence, and self confidence. If a kid learns how to come up against a difficult problem and not panic, but to slowly deconstruct the problem, figure out what she does know, apply that, then continue to tease apart the problem, enduring frustration, she will have a skill that is far more important than the ability to do differential calculus.
But to teach a bright kid that skill, you must give them practice at it. And my kid has yet to get that consistently or even much more than occasionally in SPS.
So if we can get her into APP and get her challenged at the appropriate level, she'll get that life skill. And on top of that, she craves the challenge and is bored too often at school. Plus, she'll be around kids that get her, for the first time.
If some cranky person on the internet thinks we should just let her languish when there is an option for her, because she is not truly a genius, they are nuts. And her admission into APP won't prevent anyone else from being there; and she won't slow the class down in the least.
She was in Spectrum but even that wasn't rigorous enough. Then, they dismantled it. Yes, I am negotiating the system for the best of my kid. I wish all parents did, but I'm not going to stop and wait for them or SPS to figure out a better approach. She's growing up too quickly.
SPS mom
Where's the hate? I have not written that APP should be restricted, banned, abolished. I have not written that kids were getting into APP that don't belong there, or that they should all go back to their neighborhood schools. Nowhere did I say that APP shouldn't get transportation, shouldn't be kept together as a cohort, shouldn't get into Garfield.
What I have said as this: I know many people whose motivation to have their kids tested was to get them into APP schools because Lowell was (back when I knew people with kids that young), and Washington and Garfield still are, much better than the neighborhood schools that their kids would be assigned to. I explained why many people don't trust the testing procedures for identifying kids into APP. There is no way in hell that APP is as necessary as ESL (likely you have never seen how hard it is for recent immigrant kids to struggle learning English). And whether I have kids in APP or not has nothing to do with this topic.
-reader
just saying
south side teacher
You raise some valid concerns, but they are lost in the hyperbole of the rest of your rants. APP parents tire of being painted with the same old, tired, broad brush and are just not going to let repeated, gross generalizations go unchallenged.
If you want people to take your posts seriously and not react with venom, stop with the: 14 kids in every class, green grass on every field, volunteers in every classroom, everybody buys their way in to get away from the unwashed masses generalizations.
Either you really don't see that your exaggerations draw attention away from your reasonable questions or you are a clever troll.
I didn't hate the school I left and wanted to stay.
So sure, it's stories but my extensive experience is probably longer and more broad-based than most on this subject.
Reader, you also make some pretty broad statements about what APP kids get and I don't think all that is true (or could be).
South Side Teacher, thanks for weighing in. I think you hit the nail on the head of the problem. More rigor for all but are you able to give enough differentiated teaching to serve all?
What has been your experience with students in "honors" classes when they come into a self-selected honors class?
Do they self-select by choosing their workload?
This seems like an awesome model for high school age students. However, when my daughter was in elementary school she was ACUTELY aware if she had to do more work than other students and felt very martyred. It was easier to put her in a Spectrum or APP class where the expectations are the same for all in the class.
We did prefer an inclusive Spectrum class where any student who could do the work was welcome regardless of whether they were tested.
SST - do you think self selection would work for younger kids?
-reader
-reader
The obvious error in your posting is the class size at Lincoln. There are no class sizes as small as you said. They are typical class sizes for elementary school classes in SPS. None are "small" like you said.
That is a complete error.
-reader
My observation coupled with reports from nationally noted educational psychologists at Uw.
My concern is we havent increased seats in schools with alternative approaches to education, which can be the best chance to giving these kids a " good enough" education.
Private schools can fill this need, but the need is greater than the slots available.
Why oh why would anyone think little ole you meant any ill will by anything you said. You were just saying neutral statements after all.
Maybe it's because you say loaded things like this:
"APP kids get guaranteed transportation, smaller class sizes, incredible enrichment, excellent music programs"
Don't all kids outside of walking distance get guaranteed transportation to their assigned schools? Small class sizes? Which APP school is this in? I want to move my kids to that school. What is this incredible enrichment? Is it the free ponies and polo classes all the APP kids get? Or maybe you're thinking about the dressage lessons. Excellent music? Yes, many APP kids play instruments, but all the kids in the school can take the classes. I will point out that a non-APP school, Roosevelt, has an amazing program, too. Where's the outrage?
Then you said this nugget:
"They (psychologists) must recognize at least some of the kids brought to them as Gifted, or else nobody will hire them!" You keep asking people to prove their statements. Love to see you prove this gem.
Then there's this crazy statement:
"Have you not seen the guaranteed transportation offered to every APP student through high school, to any daycare location the parent chooses?"
I think there are a lot of Garfield and Ingraham parents would love to know how to get some of this free bussing. Metro can be a giant pain. From what I understand, there are a couple of busses run for neighborhoods with poor Metro service, but guaranteed transportion is not offered through HS.
-get the facts straight
Reader pointed out that there are in fact very small classes at Lowell CapHill. Which begs the question: why do people think we need a downtown school when Lowell (a block off Broadway) sits there mostly empty? They'd have to cross I-5? So? Not ideal, but there are kids who have to cross MLK, Rainier, Aurora and Lake City Way.
open ears
Ah, there it is.
You believe the APP schools are better.
Is that because APP gets more for their schools?
Is that because APP has a lot of (for better or worse) involved parents?
Why do people perceive schools that have APP are better? And if that is true and we have no one APP school (except Lincoln but that was by edict, not choice), don't the other kids benefit?
It sounds like you have a pretty typical situation actually. We all have a broad range of students. If the top 2-3% tested in the district attend APP as their appropriate placement, it should still leave you with plenty of strong Honors students. Serving APP kids doesn't harm gen ed kids.
open ears
Yet another Parent
When APP was at Lowell, they shared the building with a fragile group of Special Ed kids...for years. It worked out well. So much for that theory.
"The funding burden necessary to educate students with challenges also disproportionately falls on them."
Who is "them" - the school or the parents?
Special Ed kids should pay more because they were born with challenges? No wonder you won't sign your name - I wouldn't either if I made such an unfair statement. I see such comments at the Seattle Times and I shake my head but here? I'm surprised.
Garfield graduates more National Merit Scholars than any other public high school in the district and offers a wealth of AP classes that aren't available anywhere else. The music and fine arts programs at Garfield are superior to any public high school south of the ship canal. It's very popular and the only way to guarantee your child entry is to live nearby or get your kid into APP. Also APP kids are able to choose Ingraham and graduate early.
Transportation from outside the neighborhood to these schools is offered to APP students only.
(I am not blaming APP for this, it's only natural that parents notice the better school and try whatever they can to get their kids in.)
-reader
Why do you think AL programs have fewer challenges?
"There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. None so blind as those who will not see." - Mathew Henry
"Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one." - LBJ
WSDWG
An interesting but never discussed aspect of AL and other special programming is that these types of programs tend to balance a district. The NSAP has made SPS look more like Seattle. Historically SPS had more FRL than Seattle as a whole. Additionally, SPS was more diverse than Seattle as a whole. The growth under the NSAP has been disproportionate to the middle class, the north end and largely white.
I think SPS should look like Seattle. Seattle is a very educated city and it should not be surprising that there would be a large AL community.
While, I would like to give reader the benefit of the doubt, it sure seems like sour grapes.
- don't get why this is a problem.
-reader
Not to sound too much like Ronald Reagen, but there you go again.
You are conflating things to make them sound like APP gets huge benefits. You talk about Hamilton having a new building? Was this building re-built in order to house APP? No. APP was not there at the time and there were no plans to put it there. Do you say HIMS was built for APP? No, but you imply it.
Yes, HIMS has an immersion language program. Is that for APP? No. Do you say it isn't for APP? No. APP kids aren't in immersion classes because APP LA/SS or science are not taught in languages other than English.
As for regular languages at HIMS. Ask how many APP 6th graders didn't get Spanish this year because there wasn't room. AL just changed the rules for math placement over the entire district. Any child who gets 150+ on the Winter MAP test in 5th grade is supposed to get Algebra 1 in 6th grade.
You are still wrong on transportation. Unless APP kids get some extra fancy Orca pass you are just wrong.
This is getting really old. Reader needs to do more reading.
-get the facts
Not to sound too much like Ronald Reagen, but there you go again.
You are conflating things to make them sound like APP gets huge benefits. You talk about Hamilton having a new building? Was this building re-built in order to house APP? No. APP was not there at the time and there were no plans to put it there. Do you say HIMS was built for APP? No, but you imply it.
Yes, HIMS has an immersion language program. Is that for APP? No. Do you say it isn't for APP? No. APP kids aren't in immersion classes because APP LA/SS or science are not taught in languages other than English.
As for regular languages at HIMS. Ask how many APP 6th graders didn't get Spanish this year because there wasn't room. AL just changed the rules for math placement over the entire district. Any child who gets 150+ on the Winter MAP test in 5th grade is supposed to get Algebra 1 in 6th grade.
You are still wrong on transportation. Unless APP kids get some extra fancy Orca pass you are just wrong.
This is getting really old. Reader needs to do more reading.
-get the facts
Not true. Any student who enrolls at any high school is eligible for a Metro pass.
As I said previously, most of those offerings are for ALL the students at the schools. It is not possible, just as it isn't at K-8s, to offer everything to everyone. (Cleveland has its own set of offerings and a new building, for example.)
But Reader you do make it sound like these schools have more because of APP. Is that true? Why would that be if so?
Maybe "Facts" got one thing incorrect, but you ignored the rest of the post.
I see you are showing us an example of how to behave when someone disagrees with you. And you say others are sensitive.
-seattle parent
"It is clear from your example that giftedness is not hereditary!"
"Go and read it again, slowly..."
"So quit whining ok?"
"It's people like you give all APP parents a bad name."
Wow, reader. Just wow.
-Gobsmacked
Correctly:: Any child who gets 250+ on the Winter MAP test in 5th grade (or before) is supposed to get Algebra 1 in 6th grade.
- LL
First, sit my kids schools NO, you can't be in AL unless you are App or Spectrum eligible. They have lots of other caveats as well... works independently etc . It's a far cry from " inclusive".
Second, I'm really talking about Spectrum and APp. They absolutely do know they concentrate minorities and disabled kids. And, that concentration burdens them cost wise because doing that adequately is expensive, moree expensive than a less diverse group. I also have a severely disabled student. So yes, I understand that. Visit from well meaning APp students as some sort of charity effort is a bunch of bs, and pathetic as an excuse for failure to include others.
Yet another parent
rs.
Disgusted
-reader also
The negativity here is not coming from the APP community (which is not monolithic, despite your attempts at stereotype) but from anonymous commenters like yourselves.
Wouldn't you grow weary of random anonymous people accusing your family and your entire school communities of privilege, favoritism, racism, or have complete strangers deem themselves qualified or welcome to analyze the intelligence or needs of your child?
That's what's truly bizarre -- the obsession with APP by people like reader and I guess you -- not the perfectly natural response of the APP parents who call out such rubbish for what it is.
Disgusted, who has insulted anyone? I think that Reader seems quite upset and it does come off as angry. We're discussing a program and I fail to see why the anger.
And clearly, your last comment shows that. "God given?"
I'm done.
HIMSmom
@The whim of the principal
You see here on this blog very clearly what happens when people simply want their children to learn at school. There are scores of stories at schools around of parents complaining of different programs as "elitist" and "unfair." Until the district defends the needs of AL students and enforces basic standards, this is going to continue.
Walk to math marks kids as "different." It is just like "tracking."
From my experience around my kid's elementary, it's not the kids who are upset at the difference, it's the parents.
-I just want my kid to learn at school
My take is:
APP parents wants what is best, of course, but they do get obsessive and the attacks on the (their) program really hurt after a while. They feel like the second class parents and the distric treats them poorly often as well.
Now the fact is a classroom full of APP 6 th graders that I saw on the tour last year at Hamilton and the 6th and seventh graders there in APP studying Japanese hurts me to know my kid could only get that with a long bus ride and missing his pals from her K -5.
But it's really a wash. Get better classroom dynamics with room full of similar kids in a narrower range of ability or get local friends, less transport, way more intellectual diversity and avoiding the stinging looks and downright embarrassment I see on APParents faces. Oh ya, they pay for the debatable perks of APP, they pay. Ahe their kids pay too.
I want to see SPS do what other districts have done and keep self contained for the kids who are going suffer irreparable harm from attending gened schools,or classrooms. But parents with bright kids are going to have to raise hell at their local for rigor and be a little patient.
This is public school and we can find a way for everybody to share the good as well as the pain.
The vitriol helps to get the ball rolling but is not a solution.
Calming down
Malo
Anonomom
just saying
As I said a long time earlier, if you read the arguments the haters are offering, it has nothing to do with APP. They just assume APP is wealthy (it isn't) and that it gets more funding (it doesn't) and that it isn't diverse (diversity is the same as the City of Seattle).
The rage is not about APP. It is about money, class, and race. It is about who belongs in public schools. APP is only a scapegoat.
You aren't going to convince these people. They are angry at the wrong thing and their solutions are terrible. They aren't looking to improve Seattle's public schools. They're looking to kick people out of them.
Discussion is not going to soothe this crazy misplaced rage. The only way to make sure people like these don't get a chance to destroy our public schools is to outvote them.
Just someone
open ears
I am new to Seattle and my child is to go to Lswton. Please let me know what you mean before I sign her up.
New from South Dakota
Let's spell it out.
Does APP/Spectrum need to do remediation? No, that need is tested for and those students are weeded out. Students who need remediation are expensive because it is something extra that is done and typically needs to be done at a lower ratio's. Schools disproprortionately or fully APP/spectrum have a disproporitionately lower costs in these areas.
Then there's discipline. APP/Spectrum have very few minorities or students with disabilities. These are the students who receive the most discipline. Obviously, the time and expense of discipline (money required) is reduced if these students are NOT in your pool.
When you don't spend time on that expensive stuff - you can spend time and money on lots of other things.
I'm not counting the expensive "special ed" students who used to be at Lowell. Those kids got NO advantages of APP. APP families thought of them as something like zoo animals to be "cherished" and could teach their kids "compassion". They added no cost of "remediation" since they were never rediated. ANd they weren't discpilined either. Those aren't typically issues of med-fragile and severe/profound programs.
=another reader
That is incredibly offensive - intended to be so, I'm sure. It is also wrong. I had two kids in Lowell APP - and our family certainly did not think of SpecEd kids in this way. Why would you say this?
- Sad to read such inflammatory nonsense
Is the FRL population in APP the same as the district at large? I know the racial diversity is not -- hispanics and african-americans are certainly under-represented compared to the SPS general ed population. And, I find the question of money in school buildings at SPS to incredibly dense and complicated. Ultimately, people are asking whether the per/student cost (including any money that comes from non SPS sources) is higher for one program/building than another (not whether per student funding is the same). We also have the question of how to normalize for needs (including poverty and disabilities). Does the blanket statement also include the cost of testing and transportation?
zb
=ap
-reader also"
This bears repeating because it hits at a main crux of this whole issue. The misinformed posters keep getting a lot of response and rebuttal but this very critical point has been ignored.
Yes, this post is correct. I also believe that if a charter wanted to set up a school like what currently exists for APP students, they would be rightfully condemned.
The parents who are commenting on this thread obviously do not want the self contained model of APP dismantled. It is working well for them. However, except for those rare exceptionally brilliant children for whom inclusion would be detrimental, does that make it ethical or just?
--enough already
http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-is-spectrum-and-what-is-not.html
http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2011/06/wedgwood-spectrum-moving-away-from-self.html
for more: just typing what you want to search for in the search engine of this blog.
But I say for school choice, if you have it, research what's there and now. History is not always a reliable predictor of a school with all the changes that go on within SPS.
open ears
I understand what you are saying, but I don't think you are making a fair comparison. Should APP match the racial make-up of the school district, or the CITY as a whole? The APP population mirrors very closely the population make-up of the city.
Remember that Seattle has a HUGE percentage (isn't is 40%) of families who choose private school. The racial make-up of the school district does not mirror that of the city. It isn't realistic to expect APP to match the district.
Another way to look at it is some families are choosing to keep their kids in public school (the APP program) instead of syphoning more kids off to private. That keeps more money in the system and benefits all.
-APP parent
I would be happy to have AL classes which are coherent and identical and inclusive of students that can do the work at each and every school. However, the SPS has proven SPECTACULARLY inept at maintaining district-wide coherent and rigorous standards at each school. They summarily removed our elementary school's Spectrum program with month's notice. They told us if we didn't like it we could move to a new school (midway through the year). This is why the APP parents oppose breaking up the program. It hampers oversight of the program. It is not about elitism or any of the other extremely cruel and rather sickening statements on this thread.
This is all about about a lack of trust in the district administration. I would think we could all get behind that. Please do write in if you trust the district policies implicitly and feel that I have overstated this issue.
-APP parent
You ignored a major difference between charter schools and public schools. Charter schools are PRIVATE and public schools are not.
Melissa points out, correctly, that charters can go on and on talking about how they serve low income kids and miraculously end the "achievement gap," but they can still control who goes to them. That is a private school. Huge difference.
As the poster above mentioned, Seattle has a large percentage of people who go private. Where is your anger at them? It's the private school families that exacerbate this "clustering" of which you are complaining.
-still in public
open ears
Really? I haven't done this research but I thought that grade-skipping was pretty passe.
It probably just occurs in small districts now.
@whim
open ears
Red faced. Open ears.
Choose your own moniker. I’ve used this one for years. Think up your own.
For those of us who need to remain anonymous because of our positions in the district, the only credibility comes in the consistency of one clear
voice.
open ears 1.0
I am also fully opposed to MAP scores being used as proof for virtually anything except maybe that the kid is able to use a mouse.
Schools seem like they pull back from marking any differences between kids because of other parent's perceptions of "elitism."
Again, why much of AL, especially Spectrum and ALO, limited due to parents (what is it anger? jealousy? I really have no idea)? It is unbelievable to me. Again, the kids I have been around don't care about tracking, it's all the parents.
whim
For across the board AL to work at each school there would have to be consistency in standards (and when I say standards I mean material covered) coupled with flexibility in implementation. To make the coverage consistent the curriculum has to be rigorous and excellent (and preferably simple and straightforward - no fancy bells and whistles - no kooky "themes"). Simple curricula are easier to adapt to different students' learning styles. Right now that is not the case with math in the district so there are pockets of high or improved performance where schools have applied for waivers to use good curriculum. Thus there is work to do from the ground up before you could even begin to impose rigor on each school.
Finally, I think it is important for principals to serve as advocates for their schools rather than tools to impose district sanctions. This could be helped by not moving the principals around the district so much.
Ah well - one can dream.
new ears
Data doesn't support that conclusion APP parent. Garfield is getting less and less national merit scholarships awards - while Lakeside gets nearly triple their numbers. Most other SPS schools get single disits, including Ingraham. It used to be a lot more even.Some years Lakeside had more, some years Garfield, but always close. It's no longer even close, and hasn't been for a while.
Lots of private schools siphon off the gifted students. Certainly, privates siphon off a lot more gifted students than disabled ones or minorities. So. APP SHOULD reprensent minorities in a much higher degree than SPS as a whole if equity or proportionality was any concern at all. Instead you find exactly the opposite. The fact that SPS gifted programs are HIGHLY white and non-FRL, EVEN after the private schools have dwindled their numbers - is evidence of an EVEN GREATER disproportionality than it appears at a glance. (That is, using SPS percentages)
-equity rules
I could make a comment about the epistemology of it, but it would probably come off clunky.
At any rate, there are no recruiters lurking outside of our public schools trying to woo APP and Spectrum students. There are only a handful of gifted private schools and there are a limited number of spaces available. They have waiting lists. They turn qualified applicants away. There is no "siphoning" - It's more like "leaking" or "losing". SPS drives gifted kids to go private and holds on to as many gifted kids as it does because private schools can't handle the number of families that would bail if there were more options available - even at the high tuition rates, not to mention if there were alternative, cheaper, private gifted schools.
Your argument doesn't make any sense. I don't know (and neither do you) what percentage of kids who leave the district for private schools are gifted. For your argument to be true, it would have to be a very high percentage.
-whim
To help your guesstimates: There are two schools truly geared for gifted students that I know of, only one of which (a private K-8) is in Seattle, and of the 328 students there, 10-15% are from out of town. Likewise the eastside counterpart has no more than 35% from outside it's eastside/issaquah/bellevue area. Other schools can 'handle' gifted kids to various degrees of success, such as UCDS, but aren't specifically serving them. Homeschooling must catch some of these gifted formerSPS kids too, but the majority I've known as both a former gifted student and PG parent and gifted educator MOVE from Seattle to find a better situation altogether.
It'd be journalistically worthwhile to ask the PRISM programs how many 'gifted immigrants' they get over on the eastside.
-N.SeattleParent
Amused as well.
Helen Schinske
The private school classes I've observed, and the ones I took as a kid, seem very similar to Spectrum classes. Both are comprised of a motivated, above average kids.
Having spectrum and ALO available make the parents of motivated, above-average kids who can afford private school more comfortable with public school. They also provide a similar experience for motivated above-average kids who can't afford private school. Why is this bad, again?
Going back to at least one of readers point -- if the quibble is in how we identify kids, what tests we use, how accurate they may (or may not) be for some economically disadvantaged kids, etc. -- I agree that this is an issue. I don't have the expertise to suggest an answer, but would love to see someone intelligent in the District (who cares about HAVING an APP program, and finding the right size, and the right entrance protocol for it) take this question on.
I still don't think answers like "retest them every year or two
have any validity (except to those who dislike the program and want it to shrink or disappear, suspecting that large numbers of kids in it have cheated their way in and need to be removed as soon as possible).
Nor do I think the "count only the tests taken in big gyms full of kids) argument has merit. From talking to a number of professionals in the field, that form of testing (at least for the COGAT portion) diminishes the validity of the test. We do it that way because it is cheap, not because it is the right way to assess kids (and the latter is acknowledged by permitting the huge number of "false negatives" to at least try to true things up with a second test done in an environment likely to lead to a more valid result.) Is it fair (to those who cannot afford the appeal test?) No -- but that is no reason to unfairly exclude other kids who qualify that way -- it is a reason to fix the overall evaluation system. The goal should be a system that identifies every single child whose education would be enhanced by access to the acceleration and increased rigor of the program. I will say -- the education of my Spectrum-eligible child (who never was in Spectrum, due to space constraints) would NOT have been enhanced had I somehow wangled him in. He was much better off with regular paced classes than he would have been with APP classes, and because they could not fit us in Spectrum -- we just supplemented.
You better believe that Lakeside and others actively recruit bright kids of color from APP/Spectrum/Rainier Scholars!
I don't fault those families at all for choosing that opportunity, and I know several many APP kids that are very happy there, but APP sure gets whiter after fifth grade.
Someone with access to those numbers could tell us exactly what the attrition is.
open ears
Hey Melissa!!!! Delete Helen's post! She is rampantly speculating on the evil private testing that does NOT happen. Nobody should get to say ANYTHING about private tests for APP because it is soooo NOT true. They all got in the old-fashioned way, by district test.
You did say speculating about APP private testing was off limits, didn't you?
-Goose
For that reason, a number of years ago I helped fight to keep the Spectrum program at our neighborhood school Broadview Thomson, close to many immigrant communities and far away from Lowell. But the principal and some teachers saw it as "elitist" and have basically killed it.
Mom of 2
The kid is bright, incredibly so. He is in first grade and can only have a conversation with the fifth graders. The mom was distraught because she once again got a note from the teacher about how her son is not learning anything in class. Shocking! The kid is not challenged or even minimally engaged.
Advanced Learning serves a real need. Maybe a handful of kids get access that don't have a real need. I hear the same gripes about resource room support from the families that pay for tutoring because they don't qualify for the resource room.
Oh well, no program or service is perfect. But there is a real need for Advanced Learning. There isn't a real need for advanced learners to be be divided up evenly into classrooms to some how make the class less burdensome.
- north seattle mom
A number of individuals who comment on this blog seem to take issue with the active and vocal APP parent presence, seeing is as proof that we think our kids somehow deserve more than others. In reality, however, I think it's because our kids need something else--and we've realized over the years that the only way to get it is to push, push and push for it. If your kid is an outlier, the regular classrooms just won't cut it.
HIMSmom
APP parent
My plea to Banda: Improve the academics for every school.
I'm looking for specifics. What improvements exactly are called for? I'm curious to see if there is agreement on what "better" means.
Than, where will the funding be found if additional funding is needed to make it happen?
The only thing I can see that APP kids "get" is a guaranteed pathway...and we can see how well that works out--a split several years ago, a last-minute move last year, potential denial of 6th grade middle school, potential eviction from Hamilto soon, etc. Do you really think any APP parents are banking on the pathway at this point? My only message to my elementary student is that we don't have any clue what his middle school options will be in a year and a half, so not to get his mind set on anything.
HIMSmom
HIMSmom
watchful
Interesting. Or, as Ross Perot would say, inersting.
--enough already
NW kids
Ahhhh. The old "separate, but equal" claim. That's what they said in my Georgia school too, back in the 60's. Black students weren't getting something worse, just separate. Notably, the "need" for "separate gifted" programs came just when segregation was outlawed for black students. People still feel the need for it. And it's still the same group.
trembs 384
But what I find fascinating and disturbing is when people like ZB look at APP with research re: testing, it's often met with silence to address the issue. Kids who do well in CogAT do well in part because their abilities have been allowed to be developed. These kids have parents to advocate for them, who love them enough to spend the money, effort, and time since they were born to get them to where they are today. It takes work to navigate SPS' byzantine system. These kids are fortunate.
Perhaps we just need to acknowledge what people are saying. Sometimes I find people get so defensive that ears are closed and what you get is endless back and forth vitriol.
thankful parent
thankful parent
If you read the comments against APP spewed by a few over and over again here, they have nothing to do with APP. They just assume APP is wealthy (it isn't), that it gets more funding (it doesn't), that it isn't diverse (diversity is the same as the City of Seattle).
Their anger is not about APP. APP is a scapegoat. Their anger is about money, class, and race.
They are angry, but their rage is misdirected. They lash out not at the real problems (taxpayers who vote against education funding and families that don't support public education), but at what is nearby (families in our public schools).
You aren't going to convince these people. They are angry at the wrong thing and their solutions are terrible. Discussion will not soothe them. The only way to make sure people like these don't get a chance to do more damage to our public schools than they already do is to outvote them.
thankful parent
IPP was different from APP in that the point of IPP was to teach kids at whatever level they were at. So, if you read at the 4th grade level in 1st grade, they gave you a 4th grade reading book. Same for spelling or math. And they would give you the assignments at your own pace too. So if you finished all of your math problems in one day instead of one week, no worries, they'd just give you the next assignment then. If a certain concept took you longer, no worries, you just finished it at your own pace. If you were 3 grades ahead in math and 2 in reading, no problem, you could be at all different levels in all different subjects. The whole thing, top to bottom, was differentiated instruction, at least at the elementary school level. I don't remember so much differentiation in middle school, but we definitely got projects that were challenging and complex, and were reading texts like Beowulf in 6th grade.
My sister describes the kids from her years in IPP as weirdos and misfits, the kinds of kids who just could NOT do well in a regular classroom for lots of reasons. Lots of them had behavior disorders, it appeared to her. She did not keep in touch with any of them after leaving the program after 8th grade to attend her neighborhood high school because she just didn't make friends with a lot of them, they were so odd. Fast forward 6 years to when I entered the program, and it looked very different. Now it was an elite thing to be in IPP and I don't recall any kids with behavior issues. I do remember a few rich kids who we thought were dumb. In hindsight, maybe they were the ones who paid for private testing and weren't really qualified? But most of the kids I went to school with were CRAZY smart. Like, I read at age 3 and I was not the smartest kid in class, nowhere near it.
When I was in the program, there was roughly one classroom per grade level, maybe 1 1/2. We did have several split classrooms (I was in a 4/5 split class when I was in 5th grade). So, the program was significantly smaller than it is now. I believe the cutoff was top 1% rather then top 2% like it is now, but I could be wrong. In any case, we were not large enough to fill our own building, so cohousing was necessary. But I don't feel like the kids in the program got much out of being a building with a neighborhood program, since we rarely interacted with them.
When I look at APP now, I don't see anything like the program I was in. Instead, it seems like what Spectrum was back then...I am blanking on what that program's name was, but it was self-contained and gave advanced work, but nothing like the differentiation that IPP offered. To me, that was the beauty of IPP, the differentiation. That disappeared when the program made the switch to APP when I was in 8th grade.
What is the best way forward? I don't know, really. But I thought some historical perspective might help people think about ways that gifted ed might be run differently, given that it HAS been run differently in the past. Whether that other way is better or not is certainly up for debate.
-IPP Alum
How APP does matters not only because it provides kids the challenge and learning opportunity they need, but it's the canary. If our brightest kids are not doing well with the same course materials (delivered in an accelerated and compact fashion), then what does that say about our gen ed students. Some of you have been in SPS longer than my decade, so you can speak more. But I've never had a strong sense the district paid much attention to its teaching, what it's teaching, and how it's teaching. Except for the math text adoption, the district seems to get caught up in program definitions and task force, and day to day operation issues. Of course BEX, transportation, programs, teacher evals, standardized testings, capacity, school closures/openings are all important, but the actual pedagogy, how kids learn and acquire knowledge has become a subject rather than the practice.
Another thing, many kids of every abilities enjoy in depth and robust classroom discussions. Kids just like adults enjoy being listened to, to express and have their ideas/opinions acknowledge, and to learn from one another through these engagements. We are losing more and more of the quality that makes learning a worthwhile endeavor.
thankful parent
-- at that other APP school
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