John’s Take – That would be Fairfax County, Virginia, home of one of the largest school districts in the country. (Several years ago it was the tenth largest; not sure what it is now.) A recent article in the Washington Post noted with awe that “Minorities Swell Pool of Gifted in Fairfax: Success on Diversity Strains Elite Program.”
Curious about what success “on” diversity might mean, and especially because Jessie attended the Fairfax Gifted and Talented program (giving her mother and me, not just Jessie, quite a bit of experience with it), I read this article with a great deal of interest. I suggest that you read it as well, because I might be overreacting. Keep that caveat in mind as I tell you why I found it troubling, and in some instances virtually incoherent.
The article reports that, as a result of revisions in the tests and other admission requirements, enrollment in the selective program went up 37% (519 students) for next fall. Nevertheless, “educators are adamant that the program is as selective as ever.”
I spent my first year of graduate school at Yale immediately before it went coed, and I am reminded now of comment on the Yale campus then. It was said (and a measure of Yale in those days is that one could never be sure if this was in jest) that Yale would LOVE to go coed, but the administration had been stumped by a seemingly intractable problem: they were determined to come up with a plan for going coed that would a) not increase the size of the student body or b) reduce the number of men who would have been admitted in the absence of co-education.
Dramatically increasing the size of the Fairfax County GT program in one year without reducing the selectivity of the program would seem to be just as difficult. How exactly was it done? According to the Post,
Superintendent Daniel A. Domenech and other school administrators changed the process in multiple ways to identify more qualified minority students and non-English speakers….
This year, students were given an ability test that focused on problem-solving, patterns and relationships in hopes of identifying gifted children who do not speak English and poorer students who don’t traditionally score as high on an IQ test.
“Non-English speakers”? In a selective gifted program? Perhaps the Post meant to say students from families where English was not spoken at home? Perhaps, but the phrase “non-English speakers” was used more than once.
In addition to the new test given to identify gifted students missed by the traditional IQ test, “Administrators allowed students to be considered if they were referred by their parents, even if their test scores didn’t qualify them.”
So, in addition to supplementing the IQ test with a new test given to identify “gifted children who do not speak English and poorer students who don’t traditionally score as high on an IQ test,” students nominated by their parents could also be considered “even if their test scores didn’t qualify them.”
Despite these changes, which led to just under 40% more students being accepted (from 1394 students in 2001 to 1913 in 2002), the educators are “adamant” that the program is as selective as ever.
About half the semifinalists were offered admission — the same as last year, [Nancy] Sprague [assistant superintendent for instruction] said. The IQ test cutoff score remained the same to ensure that standards would not be lowered, and a similarly high cutoff score was established for the problem-solving test.
I don’t understand. If the “IQ test cutoff score” really was a cutoff score, and if it remained the same as last year, what was the point of the additional test to identify students who didn’t do well on IQ tests? Of the recommendations from parents of poorer students who don’t test well? In short, on the evidence presented the claim that the GT program remains as selective as ever simply makes no sense.
One result of the new standards is that the number of minorities increased dramatically: 41% more blacks, 168% more Hispanics, 53% more Asians, 31% more “Others,” resulting in an overall increase in minorities from 32% in 2001 to 36% in 2002. Yet Nancy Sprague, the assistant superintendent, is quoted as saying “We’re still not there yet” in terms of meeting the district’s minority goals.
Where is “there,” and how will the district know when it has arrived?
Jessie’s Take – Well, I suppose Rosenberg Elder has made most of the relevant points about the article itself. I might suggest that the selection committee believes that it is unearthing hordes of talented (or “differently talented”?) children who wouldn’t have been uncovered using those discriminatory IQ tests. (No pattern-based test for mental retardation, though!) However, even if somehow the students are just as good, the program cannot be, since the article clearly states that there are too many students for the gifted program to handle.
Even while I was in it, the program was subject to degrading outside influence. In fifth grade, my school principal wanted to combine the gifted and traditional science classes. Science, of all things! Combining any of the classes would defeat the purpose, but science, with its emphasis on intelligent inquiry and curiosity (both of which the gifted students had in abundance), would be an especially bad class to compromise on. Since there are only four academic subjects — science, social studies, math, and “language arts” — ending gifted science would have eliminated 25% of the gifted program in our school. Fortunately, after much parental involvement, proving that the change would violate the county’s own guidelines outlining its obligation to provide a gifted program, the science classes remained separate.
Some of the problems were simply due to bad management, and tenure (or whatever the equivalent is for middle school teachers). I think tenure is an incredibly bad idea, by the way, but I
