Creating Parent Anger: The Miasma of Gifted Education

In the first year of Children First a regional superintendent in Brooklyn mentioned she was considering ending gifted-choice programs in the District 22 middle schools. Within a week a meeting was organized, a standing room only auditorium full of parents and all the local elected officials excoriating the regional superintendent – who skipped out on the meeting and sent an underling.

Andy Wolf in the NYSun sees the DOE-community conflicts over gifted education programs as a “tipping” point that could result in the demise of the Children First initiative.

Traditionally gifted programs have kept middle class parents, regardless of race, in public schools.

The history of gifted education casts a long shadow. Intellectually Gifted Classes (IGC) had citywide criteria, I believe two years over grade level in reading and one year in math. In fact, deep in the recesses of Abe Levine’s files there is a circular setting forth the qualifications for teachers of IGC classes, one of which was: a “cultured” person as evidenced by attendance at operas, concerts and museums.

With the advent of decentralization the programs became district-based. Some districts created “gifted” schools, i.e., PS 31 in District 7, PS 308 in District 16. Other districts advertised “the Hunter College Program” criteria, while others were called “gifted,’ while in reality were simply the highest achieving kids on the grade. It was a hodgepodge of classes and programs.

Critics of separate gifted education classes proffer that each classroom should have a gifted component and point to Renzulli’s work at the University of Connecticut, while others vehemently argue that gifted students, to attain their full potential, must be in separate classes.

Some aver that gifted programs are simply an attempt to create separate classes by race and class.

Are the small Middle School programs in District Three (Upper West Side), that to a large extent exclude Special Ed and ELL kids, gifted programs, or public “private” schools for the children of the upper middle class? or, are they simply schools/classes serving local kids?

For the most part the new small high schools are open to all kids through the rather complex, or perhaps, Byzantine high school application process.

At my high school we used to have general, regular, honors, and advanced placement classes. The general classes were programmed for forty kids, twenty showed up, and a different twenty each day … maybe ten passed! A new principal ended the general classes, I argued against it, but a year later I was a strong proponent. Having a wide range of kids by ability in the same class made me a better teacher.

The DOE is going to utilize standard citywide criteria for entry into self-contained gifted classes in prekindergarten through the second grade: a good idea!

For a period of years District Twenty-Two had a district level steering committee made up of parents, supervisors, UFT and district staff. An endless discussion was the criteria for placement into gifted classes and an appeal process … I recommended a letter from a grandparent attesting to the”giftedness” of their grandchild …

Maybe Andrew Wolf is right! Some issues will never go away and they truly create passion among parents … and frequently the loudest and the most able parents.

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