<p>Oldmom, it’s not his positions that are in question, it’s his statement that the privilege is denied by its holders.</p>
<p>And kids generally do not suddenly bust out at the top of the academic heap when they get to middle school. Generally, the talent has always been there and the student placed accordingly. However, the DOE does plan for that possibility because every kid who places in the top 1% in the state on the ELA exam in the seventh grade has a supplemental high school admission round where they have special privileges for admission to top (not specialized) programs that are higly coveted and successful.</p>
<p>Despite many posts, including attempts at humor or more direct statements, you continue to rely on hearsay. Honestly, people would pay closer attention to your posts if they started with a “I think” or “I believe” based on your own experience or research. Even when you are correct, I find it harder to agree with a bunch of people you talked to or heard talking. On many occasions, I simply called them imaginary friends or cousins as the coincidence of having such a large group of friends debating CC-centric issues appears … hard to believe.</p>
<p>You are a smart person and have shown to be able to present cogent arguments on many issues. You REALLY do not need to bring up “numbers” to support your POV or opinions, The question is why you keep bringing up personal anecdotes of strangers to this site and fail to see it dilutes your posts almost instantly.</p>
<p>This site is a lot more interesting when people disagree about what THEY think or feel! </p>
<p>My post might be viewed as condescending, but rest assured that it is not the intent. Qui bene amat, bene castigat as one my cousins once said! </p>
<p>I share cobrat’s concerns that students in the NYC system are at risk for being prematurely denied educational advantages if they are locked into a track based on performance on IQ tests at a young age. Some of the private schools in our area that select for academic ability even exclude students with ADHD or an ASD who perform well on IQ and academic achievement tests, or students who are lopsided in abilities.</p>
<p>Although it might seem to be unusual for students to make dramatic gains after age 12 or so, enough students in our own suburban district DO in fact “bust out at the top of the academic heap” in middle school and even later, sometimes in one subject and sometimes in several, that I am glad that here is a continuum of placements in least restrictive envrionment (often right down the hallway) as mandated by Special Education law.</p>
<p>That preference was for placement at a very limited number of high schools, for the top 3 percent scorers on the English standardized test for seventh grade. By seventh grade, the damage is done.</p>
<p>Moreover, that automatic placement was removed for the upcoming round of high school admissions.</p>
Why is this an issue? They are private schools, they can select students who are best fit for their schools. Most private schools are not equipped (funded) to help students with LD.</p>
<p>So there aren’t any possibility of kids developing at different rates with the possibility of leapfrogging intellectually over students deemed “geniuses” via an IQ test taken in pre-K or worse, students mis-assigned to lower tracks due to parental ignorance of the educational bureaucracy or teacher/admin mistake or worse…personal prejudices?</p>
<p>I don’t know, but that way of thinking is a bit too rigid and obsolete in light of recent insights from educators, social scientists, parents, and my own observations/experiences. </p>
<p>By that estimation, several HS classmates who were judged mediocre or worse students in K-8 by teachers who disliked the fact they marched to the beat of their own drum, were undiagnosed with what turned out to be high functioning autism, or were just naturally rebellious and not people pleasers shouldn’t have been admitted to my HS…much less excelled there and gone on to some of the most respectable/elite colleges in our country and respectable careers. </p>
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<p>Interesting. I tend to be more suspicious of folks who just use “I think” or “I believe” without providing supporting evidence from their own experiences or those of people they’ve known. It reminds me too much of how highly passionate, but overly emotional political activists I’ve known/encountered tended to make their points. </p>
<p>Test prep is happening for kindergarten tests - and no, I don’t think the average preschooler in Harlem is preparing for them. Or even knows or can afford the places that prep kids for these tests - it’s not really an even playing field even if theoretically there’s another round of looking for the bright kids when they reach middle school age.</p>
The thing is, Cobrat, that no one believes that you have all these cousins/acquaintances or have had the conversations you report, so if you said “I think” without the fantastic details, people wouldn’t automatically discount what you say as not being true. It’s always the excess details that cause others to question one’s veracity. When you discuss history, you allow the facts to stand for themselves, which causes people to read and consider your words without the automatic disqualification of the cousins.</p>
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A child’s education progresses from one year to the next and placements are often fluid, so the gate doesn’t need to be and isn’t kept only in pre-K and 7th grade.</p>
<p>We are all here giving our opinion, except when we can show a link to a specific study or report to support our position. By telling people you heard it from a group of people whom we have never met or even think exist, doesn’t substantiate your view. You are not giving supporting evidence by telling us you heard it from people we don’t know. I think it is called hearsay</p>
<p>Well, at least I tried one last time. This is a discussion forum where people exchange ideas and opinions. As it is written somewhere in the TOS, this is not a debating society nor a contest. Opinions by default are individual expressions, People are pretty good at identifying what happens to be based on personal knowledge or on common sense. In addition, some of us like to read studies and research, and obviously reserve the right to dismiss them when the methodology is questionable or does not jive with our arrested opinions. That is all part of the discussions here. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, bringing up the opinions of others is hardly “supporting evidence” in the eyes of many. I am afraid that you think it helps you to “quote” the hysterical laugh of your friends when hearing our collective silliness. </p>
<p>Lastly, I find your last sentence telling. It’s again about how “others” provided you with your “supporting evidence.” </p>
<p>Private schools can do whatever they want to screen or track students.</p>
<p>I though cobrat and zoosermom were referring to public school admissions policies that also track students, sometimes even more harshly than private schools, and that seem unqiue to NYC.</p>
<p>Mathmom, it’s absolutely, emphatically not a level playing field. Not at all. Not one bit. No way. The question is what can be done about that. In a strange way, the hellacious high school application process recognizes the inequality and tries, albeit painfully, to offer as many choices with as many criteria as possible to find the best place for each kid to thrive based on his or her own talents and weaknesses. But for cobrat to imply that most educators don’t care is unfair and untrue. Having done the NYC PS recently and having a daughter who teaches in one, I can say that there is a lot more caring and effort than one with a bias might think.</p>
<p>One of the reasons why there’s so much controversy over NYC’s G & T programs as implemented is precisely because unless one’s assigned in the early elementary school stage, one’s practically shut out and consigned to academic tracks which will not only mean one’s ill-prepared for NYC SHS exam, but worse…end up like the large proportion of NYC public HS graduates who cannot meet even the low academic bar* necessary to avoid being placed in CUNY’s remedial programs if one opts for a CUNY school. </p>
<p>Parents who send their kids to afterschool/weekend prep schools are effectively making up for what the non G & T public schools aren’t teaching effectively/at all. </p>
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<li>And that’s after CUNY has raised its academic standards across the board compared to how it was from the '70s till the late '90s. </li>
</ul>
<p>Cobrat, based on my personal experience as a parent of one gifted child and one not who were in public schools very recently, I disagree with you. There is a vast gulf between G&T and remedial programs. </p>
<p>“By that estimation, several HS classmates who were judged mediocre or worse students in K-8 by teachers who disliked the fact they marched to the beat of their own drum”</p>
<p>Cobrat, what do you make of the fact that virtually no other adult on CC brings up anecdotes about hs classmates, but you do all the time?</p>
<p>Xiggi is being polite. It makes you look odd when you constantly refer to hs classmates, and moreover when you seem to think your hs classmates are people whose stories are more important than anyone else’s. </p>
<p>The problem is in many underserved communities in the NYC area, if one doesn’t get into G & T in early elementary school, the only other alternatives are being consigned to the lower academic tracks which gives them a mediocre at best education or to send their kids off to good parochial/private schools if they can afford it. </p>
<p>Considering the average income of most such families, the latter isn’t an option available for most. </p>
<p>Granted, this is not likely to be as much of an issue in your part of Staten Island or my current area. However, it is a reality in underserved areas like say…East New York, Washington Heights, or the South Bronx. </p>
<p>How about backing up your opinions with research (even if it’s pretty slim stuff like the NYT article I linked)?</p>
<p>Zooser, glad we agree! Our school system only tested kids for giftedness in 3rd grade and only had a program (no acceleration allowed!) in 4th and 5th. It was fine for my youngest, but grossly inadequate for my oldest. We ended up doing math acceleration after school for him, because he wanted more than they could give him. The good thing about my oldest was that he was so precocious all his teachers bent over backwards to try to give more than the official curriculum offered. He actually had more of his intellectual needs met in public elementary school than my nephew who went to an extremely well regarded private school. (At the high school level nephew’s school almost certainly was better.)</p>
<p>I am the parent of a child who was in a gifted-and-talented class in an elementary school in a poor neighborhood (Chinatown) in Manhattan. Admission was via a different system than the current centrally-administered standardized tests that are used now. Several kids were moved out of the G&T class with other kids moved in during years K-4, since it is very difficult to predict the intellect of a 4-year-old. It was done at the discretion of the teachers and principal, with consultation with the parents of the child. This is no longer possible, with virtually no kids moved out of G&T classes and, therefore, a tiny number of seats available after Kindergarten, all administered by the central Department of Education. I can say with some certainty that there was no great gulf between the G&T classes in my daughter’s school and the “regular” classes. The G&T classes covered the same curriculum with a little more depth, but when kids moved to or from the gifted class, there was no big disruption.</p>
<p>“The problem is in many underserved communities in the NYC area, if one doesn’t get into G & T in early elementary school, the only other alternatives are being consigned to the lower academic tracks which gives them a mediocre at best educatio”
I disagree with you and I don’t think you can back that up.</p>