At this point my only hope for gifted and talented education is better AI tutors. In small schools/school disctricts there is no way that our existing schools can provide tracked education for the gifted students - who do not constitute a single homogeneous body. This is true, even if the school truly wanted to support such students, which is generally not the case. Thie dispersin in student subject mastery is particularily severe in subjects that are sequential, as the students are going to progress at different rates and the dispersion in accomplishment is going to be very large. We already have 4th and 5th graders with 12th grade reading levels, and 12th graders with 3rd and 4th grade reading levels. Math is subject to great dispersion, since it is cumulative. It is not hard to have 14 and 15 year olds doing college calculus while some of their peers have issues with simple arithmetic. Teachers can not accomodate too great a variation in mastery in a class - and smarter students learn and progress faster.
Just a note - while standardized tests have their limitations, they are the best instrument we have at this point - at least for classical academic skills. Frankly, you could probably supplement the standardized tests with any of the strongly g-loaded intelligence/aptitude tests. Artistic talents require a different measure.
We should disentangle G&T from advanced coursework. They were never intended for the bright kids who are good at school and the training and prep for gifted education emphasizes that gifted kids are 5-6% of the population and they are characterized by their failure to succeed in school despite being otherwise intelligent. So your kid who has great grades and who would benefit from harder materials or a faster pace is *not* gifted. It’s the disengaged kid in the basic course scraping by one point above failure but who goes home and codes his own video game or writes poetry. They’re creative misfits who struggle socially and bristle at structured learning. That’s why so much gifted curriculum is behavioral, not academic. Indeed, it’s common for gifted kids to go more slowly but deeply on content.
If you want advanced coursework, then make advanced coursework available. Don’t shoehorn it into programming that was never meant for the top academic performers anyway.
but if we solve the problem of a lack of gifted programs prior to solving the problem of accurately identifying gifted students using test scores, we'll end up with gifted programs that don't actually have the gifted students in them
there's a certain maximum ceiling on the competence of a school system that mandates standardized tests and then doesn't actually use those scores when determining math tracking. why would we assume they'd do any better at identifying gifted students? these are largely the same problem
then again, maybe the advent of some gifted programs would mark an opportunity to solve the tracking problem. if we have these accelerated learning programs sort of "take over" the role of the current "honors" track, we might be able to slip in new tracking criteria at the same time
Research shows that universal screening works. There's also a lot of promise when it comes to automatic enrollment laws if students score at advanced levels on state tests the previous year. We need to make these priorities for lawmakers.
just so long as we stay aware that the implementation will be very very difficult to enforce
NC weaseled out of their own "anyone who scores at the top level must be admitted to 8th grade algebra" law, by eliminating the top level. that happened back in 2019 and it's still not fixed. if the school systems are so wildly desperate to avoid doing objective tracking... i suspect there are still problems to be unearthed and then solved, something which makes it not as easy as just writing the law and declaring victory
I wish CEP would talk more about which States are doing things well. Why are you treating "no Federal law" as a measure of failure? I expect G&T programs to vary wildly in approach and outcomes, and that's good if we can see that variety and learn from it.
I wonder how much "the public" actually understands the dividends that truly gifted people in the right setting bring to everyone. The geniuses who invent new drugs, develop new machines, identify more efficient and effective ways of producing things, create entirely new approaches to business--their contributions are essential to the hockey stick of human progress.
Without these heroes of production, we wouldn't have the standard of living we do today. The progress they enable lifts everyone up.
I doubt that "the public" understands this fully--and yet the poll suggests they still support gifted education, which is quite encouraging.
It is encouraging! Research shows that the best way to communicate to the public about gifted education is to communicate the benefits they will receive if we help these students reach their potential. If you have a chance, check out the IEA report I mentioned. It has a whole section on messaging.
How much of that public support is *tied to* that broader unawareness of the issue?
If it becomes a more salient political issue, I can see support getting levered the other way around -- trivial attacks on the basis of equality becoming more widespread.
I think the big risk would be having the issue be captured by one party or the other, which I am not concerned about at the moment, since I have seen both conservatives and progressives support these policies.
Good stuff. I think advanced coursework is the right way to go (open enrollment, perhaps with prerequisites but not based on standardized test scores).
The problem with gifted and talented programs is always deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.
Gifted and talented programs are mostly a joke (or certainly have been in the past). I remember reviewing the curriculum for them and realizing that it was just fancier workbooks and some fatuous language. You have to have highly intellectual teachers to teach highly intellectual students. Generally speaking, American public schools lack the former, and do what they can to pull down the latter.
How about we just have parental choice in education and allow parents to use ALL the tax dollars associated with their student and start their own small schools.
At this point my only hope for gifted and talented education is better AI tutors. In small schools/school disctricts there is no way that our existing schools can provide tracked education for the gifted students - who do not constitute a single homogeneous body. This is true, even if the school truly wanted to support such students, which is generally not the case. Thie dispersin in student subject mastery is particularily severe in subjects that are sequential, as the students are going to progress at different rates and the dispersion in accomplishment is going to be very large. We already have 4th and 5th graders with 12th grade reading levels, and 12th graders with 3rd and 4th grade reading levels. Math is subject to great dispersion, since it is cumulative. It is not hard to have 14 and 15 year olds doing college calculus while some of their peers have issues with simple arithmetic. Teachers can not accomodate too great a variation in mastery in a class - and smarter students learn and progress faster.
Just a note - while standardized tests have their limitations, they are the best instrument we have at this point - at least for classical academic skills. Frankly, you could probably supplement the standardized tests with any of the strongly g-loaded intelligence/aptitude tests. Artistic talents require a different measure.
We should disentangle G&T from advanced coursework. They were never intended for the bright kids who are good at school and the training and prep for gifted education emphasizes that gifted kids are 5-6% of the population and they are characterized by their failure to succeed in school despite being otherwise intelligent. So your kid who has great grades and who would benefit from harder materials or a faster pace is *not* gifted. It’s the disengaged kid in the basic course scraping by one point above failure but who goes home and codes his own video game or writes poetry. They’re creative misfits who struggle socially and bristle at structured learning. That’s why so much gifted curriculum is behavioral, not academic. Indeed, it’s common for gifted kids to go more slowly but deeply on content.
If you want advanced coursework, then make advanced coursework available. Don’t shoehorn it into programming that was never meant for the top academic performers anyway.
I agree with this take.
i hate to beat my one-trick dead pony some more
but if we solve the problem of a lack of gifted programs prior to solving the problem of accurately identifying gifted students using test scores, we'll end up with gifted programs that don't actually have the gifted students in them
there's a certain maximum ceiling on the competence of a school system that mandates standardized tests and then doesn't actually use those scores when determining math tracking. why would we assume they'd do any better at identifying gifted students? these are largely the same problem
then again, maybe the advent of some gifted programs would mark an opportunity to solve the tracking problem. if we have these accelerated learning programs sort of "take over" the role of the current "honors" track, we might be able to slip in new tracking criteria at the same time
Research shows that universal screening works. There's also a lot of promise when it comes to automatic enrollment laws if students score at advanced levels on state tests the previous year. We need to make these priorities for lawmakers.
i mean yeah, if the laws actually get implemented
just so long as we stay aware that the implementation will be very very difficult to enforce
NC weaseled out of their own "anyone who scores at the top level must be admitted to 8th grade algebra" law, by eliminating the top level. that happened back in 2019 and it's still not fixed. if the school systems are so wildly desperate to avoid doing objective tracking... i suspect there are still problems to be unearthed and then solved, something which makes it not as easy as just writing the law and declaring victory
I wish CEP would talk more about which States are doing things well. Why are you treating "no Federal law" as a measure of failure? I expect G&T programs to vary wildly in approach and outcomes, and that's good if we can see that variety and learn from it.
I get that. Most education policy is made at the state and local level. CEP is working on that I hear!
I wonder how much "the public" actually understands the dividends that truly gifted people in the right setting bring to everyone. The geniuses who invent new drugs, develop new machines, identify more efficient and effective ways of producing things, create entirely new approaches to business--their contributions are essential to the hockey stick of human progress.
Without these heroes of production, we wouldn't have the standard of living we do today. The progress they enable lifts everyone up.
I doubt that "the public" understands this fully--and yet the poll suggests they still support gifted education, which is quite encouraging.
It is encouraging! Research shows that the best way to communicate to the public about gifted education is to communicate the benefits they will receive if we help these students reach their potential. If you have a chance, check out the IEA report I mentioned. It has a whole section on messaging.
I think there's a dangerous game here.
How much of that public support is *tied to* that broader unawareness of the issue?
If it becomes a more salient political issue, I can see support getting levered the other way around -- trivial attacks on the basis of equality becoming more widespread.
I think the big risk would be having the issue be captured by one party or the other, which I am not concerned about at the moment, since I have seen both conservatives and progressives support these policies.
Good stuff. I think advanced coursework is the right way to go (open enrollment, perhaps with prerequisites but not based on standardized test scores).
The problem with gifted and talented programs is always deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.
I agree with you on the advanced coursework front. Gifted and talented programs can be hit or miss.
Gifted and talented programs are mostly a joke (or certainly have been in the past). I remember reviewing the curriculum for them and realizing that it was just fancier workbooks and some fatuous language. You have to have highly intellectual teachers to teach highly intellectual students. Generally speaking, American public schools lack the former, and do what they can to pull down the latter.
How about we just have parental choice in education and allow parents to use ALL the tax dollars associated with their student and start their own small schools.