Should I Participate in a Testing Set-Up I Believe Is Unethical?

[Tsuga]

Somewhat off topic, but the last comment sparked a thought.  What, if anything, does your daughter think of being in the gifted program?

 

 

You know, this is a good point.

 

I haven't talked to her about it in hopes of shielding her from this dichotomy which is so much more loaded to me, than it is to her.

 

We will have to talk about the test.

 

I really don't want her to go in and feel that she "didn't make it". I guess I can present it more as being the right fit, more as a special-needs thing, that she can excel doing enrichment at home whereas these kids need more enrichment at school, which is true--ultimately accelerated learning is put in place for that very reason.

 

Tips on presentation?

[SKL]

I probably would NOT tell a first-grader that she's about to take a test to find out if she is gifted.  When my eldest went through testing in 1st grade (for another reason) I didn't even tell her anything about it.  I didn't want her performance to be affected by expectations or worries.

 

When my eldest was 4, she was accelerated into KG and her younger sister was not.  The reason was the age cut-off.  However, I told my youngest (who was far advanced beyond any KG child in that school) that she didn't have to go to KG because kids learn to read in KG and she already knew how to read.  ;)  Later she was accepted into KG and I told her that now that the other kids knew how to read, it was time for her to join KG.  ;)  Whatever works, right?  (I had decided that I'd get her accelerated come h@ll or high water, but I didn't know when that would officially happen.)

 

For my youngest, who will be 7 in January, this year I will be straight with her.  If she doesn't get into the gifted program, it's going to be because she didn't do her best.  Her older sister doesn't qualify, but she already figured out that she doesn't have a high IQ, just by watching her younger sister soar ahead of her.  She's OK with it.  We all have different talents.  I would rather accept that my kid isn't the smartest than put her into a program where the competition is really too tough for her.

 

There's a book called "First Grade Takes a Test" which you might look at if your daughter takes the test and does not get in.  I do not recommend reading it in advance of the test, though.  I think it prejudiced my daughter against testing because it talks about a kid being pulled out and missing her friends etc.

[songsparrow]

Thanks so much to everyone who has replied and shared your own personal stories. It has really helped me get some perspective. I will not bring it up to her teacher and if her teacher doesn't specifically mention her achievement during the conference, we won't test this year. If her teacher does mention it or mention that she's way ahead or something, then we will test.

 

 

I see that your later post said that her teacher did recommend her for testing.  I was going to reply and urge you not to rely on the teacher to recognize your daughter's need for acceleration.  Perhaps it's different in your school district, since it sounds like it has an exceptional gifted program - perhaps the teachers have been trained for what to look for in their students.  But most teachers are not, and do not know how to recognize gifted children (especially those who are very asynchronous and are struggling in some areas).  If you think that your child would benefit from a program, I would request testing.  

[kubiac]

l read somewhere that you're supposed to tell them that they'll be playing a game where the goal is to show the adult how smart a X-year-old can be. Take that advice with a grain of salt but I thought that was a fairly appropriate way of framing it.

[Tsuga]

 If she doesn't get into the gifted program, it's going to be because she didn't do her best. 

 

Well, I suppose that's a realistic thing to tell a child if you know she's profoundly gifted.

 

With a normal distribution, you are going to have many more kids in the gray area where they could fall above or below the cutoff, than kids like your daughter who are so far away from the norm that she's only competing with a handful of children for the top spot. Let's say they'll take kids 2.5 standard deviations above the mean. One in 20 is probably being tested (let's just pretend they selected based on some normalized score and not recommendations). Of those, about 1 in 81 will get in.

 

If your child is 3.5 standard deviations from the mean, then a mere hypothetical .5 children out of 1,000 are "competing" with her for that spot (so, one year she has a competitor, the next year,  not), and of course the other children also trying to get in are, on average, are a full standard deviation below her in terms of typical performance.

 

You can also see here that any public school program aimed at enriching the top 2% is going to have almost as wide of a distribution of intelligences as a regular classroom, because even though the regular classroom meets the needs of most kids, their intelligences are more clumped up near the mean. (Well, that is, if the normalization is not too far off from the actual distribution--but it might be quite a different shape. Point is for a lot of kids being tested, even rightfully tested, they have a good reason to think that they might not get in.)

 

 

 

 

There's a book called "First Grade Takes a Test" which you might look at if your daughter takes the test and does not get in.  I do not recommend reading it in advance of the test, though.  I think it prejudiced my daughter against testing because it talks about a kid being pulled out and missing her friends etc.

 

I don't believe that will be the case in my daughter's class, though. Her elementary school hosts the accelerated program, first of all, and they all play together of course, and on top of that she has quite bright friends.

 

I see that your later post said that her teacher did recommend her for testing.  I was going to reply and urge you not to rely on the teacher to recognize your daughter's need for acceleration.  Perhaps it's different in your school district, since it sounds like it has an exceptional gifted program - perhaps the teachers have been trained for what to look for in their students.  But most teachers are not, and do not know how to recognize gifted children (especially those who are very asynchronous and are struggling in some areas).  If you think that your child would benefit from a program, I would request testing.  

 

Thank you for your thoughts. I believe that in this school and district they are very deliberate and thoughtful about selection for testing. About 15% of children are tested annually. They do cast a wide net. So it's more likely that a child who will not get in, is recommended, than vice-versa. Part of my angst!

 

l read somewhere that you're supposed to tell them that they'll be playing a game where the goal is to show the adult how smart a X-year-old can be. Take that advice with a grain of salt but I thought that was a fairly appropriate way of framing it.

 

Interesting idea. My daughter tends to get really stressed out under pressure. I can see how with some children it would work, though. If anyone else has ideas of how to present this as a non-stressful choice for her I'd really appreciate it. Everything helps because maybe I can combine some of them. 

[SKL]

Well, I suppose that's a realistic thing to tell a child if you know she's profoundly gifted.

 

With a normal distribution, you are going to have many more kids in the gray area where they could fall above or below the cutoff, than kids like your daughter who are so far away from the norm that she's only competing with a handful of children for the top spot. Let's say they'll take kids 2.5 standard deviations above the mean. One in 20 is probably being tested (let's just pretend they selected based on some normalized score and not recommendations). Of those, about 1 in 81 will get in.

 

If your child is 3.5 standard deviations from the mean, then a mere hypothetical .5 children out of 1,000 are "competing" with her for that spot (so, one year she has a competitor, the next year,  not), and of course the other children also trying to get in are, on average, are a full standard deviation below her in terms of typical performance.

 

You can also see here that any public school program aimed at enriching the top 2% is going to have almost as wide of a distribution of intelligences as a regular classroom, because even though the regular classroom meets the needs of most kids, their intelligences are more clumped up near the mean. (Well, that is, if the normalization is not too far off from the actual distribution--but it might be quite a different shape. Point is for a lot of kids being tested, even rightfully tested, they have a good reason to think that they might not get in.)

 

In my kids' Lutheran school there is only one 2nd grade with only 24 students.  So there is not a lot of competition.  Of course it is possible one or two kids in her class have higher IQs, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure they have room for more than 1 or 2 third-graders in the gifted program.

 

I know my kid and I know she is intentionally choosing not to meet certain challenges, in favor of having fun.  Fine.  Thankfully, in our state, it doesn't matter that much.  You don't have to be in a gifted program in primary school in order to have a bright future.

 

I would also note that Miss E is very strong-willed and she will sabotage my effort if I try to get her in and she doesn't want it.  She's been known to practically fast all day in protest of what I served her for breakfast.  I have no desire to beat my head against the wall.

[Tsuga]

I spoke with the teacher personally today (it was our conference day). She said that the teachers found the testing schema as bewildering and odd as many of the parents. She said this year all children testing even .7 years above grade level were tested, and that last year, when all kids one year ahead were tested, which was about half the class, still only about 1:20 of those tested got in. She said she had no recommendations as she'd hate to say no, don't test, but she also thought that it was an extremely wide category and that a lot of kids were bound to take the test and not get in. Moreover, she pointed out that there had been pupils coming back and telling other kids that they took the test. For heaven's sake.

 

I think what we'll do, based on this, is tell her it's practice for the state tests. She has the opportunity to get some testing experience and do something a lot of kids in her class will be doing. It's a priviledge. Then they'll let us know how she did. There is no doubt that she'll do above average, even if she doesn't get it, so at the end there will be good news anyway. ("You're normal! Woot!")

[Arcadia]

. She said this year all children testing even .7 years above grade level were tested, and that last year, when all kids one year ahead were tested, which was about half the class, still only about 1:20 of those tested got in..........

. Moreover, she pointed out that there had been pupils coming back and telling other kids that they took the test.

Kids are gossipy in a funny way.  I'm not surprise they gossip about the test.

Since that many are tested, I'll just tell your daughter to go and have fun.   What I told my boys when they were tested for subject acceleration was that the teacher need to know where to place them so if they do to the best of their abilities on the tests, they would be placed almost correctly.  So I kind of word it like testing for accommodations.

[kiwik]

I told ds6 she was a doctor who was interested in how people's brains work and she would ask a lit of questions and play games (some easy, some hard, some silly). He quite enjoyed it.

[acurtis75]

l read somewhere that you're supposed to tell them that they'll be playing a game where the goal is to show the adult how smart a X-year-old can be. Take that advice with a grain of salt but I thought that was a fairly appropriate way of framing it.

I've never read that but that is how we've approached most tests. I tell her it is like a game where she gets to show what she knows.

 

When we did the SCAT and as we are preparing for Explore in a few weeks I did review with her the idea that there were specifically problems on the test designed to be too hard for her and not to stress. She expects to get everything right so I didn't want her to freak out if she saw unfamiliar concepts.

 

In general she doesn't seem to feel much pressure about tests or contests. She is very happy go-lucky and seems to think its all fun. She is a perfectionist about things around the house and is even starting to have what I would consider OCD type thought processes about things like making her bed right, brushing her teeth properly or making sure she cleans her room just right. So far, I haven't really seem those issues in school work.

[Little Nyssa]

Here's what I would do. Let her take the test and see if she tests into the program. Then you will be part of the community of parents of gifted children. You can bet that if the program is as good as you describe, there is a powerful group of gifted parents advocating for it! Then you can bring up your concerns and perhaps get things changed if enough of the parents agree.

I think that the parents in our area did this last year-- the procedure for getting in was changed from nomination by parent or teacher to qualifying based on a test that everyone took.

[Melodiya99]

From a changing things perspective, it might help if your daughter ends up in the gifted program. At least if you make a sort of fuss, people won't be thinking that's it's because your daughter couldn't make it and you're discontent. It could just makes things clearer in the end.

[Tsuga]

So. We did the test around the holidays. Test results went out today. I told her it was a practice test and she has no idea that there were any possible results. I have floated the idea of her being challenged in school and she said, "Uh, that's okay. I like being smart." we will continue challenging her at home regardless. Anyway, now I'm the nervous one be ause it's a NUMBER and I don't know if I need that in my head. I like seeing her in a qualitative way. I might have an objective person look at it and just tell me if I have to do anything and then tear it up.

 

pardon the typos. This was written on a phone.

[sunnyday]

Funny enough, I thought of this thread yesterday. I was in my son's classroom and a little girl approached me. She's the second strongest reader in the class and does all the reading enrichment activities my son does, but she doesn't do his math enrichment. And it makes sense, because she doesn't have the advantage of the outside stuff I do with DS, so she doesn't have the background to be able to skip the basics. She approached me and said, "Can I come to your house? Because me and [DS] both know second grade math." DS says that she is "working up to" being able to do "special math" like he does.

 

There's not a highly capable program in place at our elementary yet, but I'm thinking of advocating for them to start one and to get DS into it. So I was definitely thinking about the ethics of someone like DS with a parent advocate getting these opportunities while someone like the little girl probably gets overlooked. (I know I shouldn't judge based on appearances but I've seen her outside of school as well and she and her sister just give off the impression of there being a little bit of benign neglect in her family.)

 

Anyway, keep us posted about the results and next steps for your DD. And definitely your DD doesn't need to know the actual numbers. Just be sure to remind yourself that the numbers don't tell you who she is or will be -- they're just one piece of the puzzle, you know? (I have no idea what my IQ score was when I tested into the first grade gifted program, but I do know my parents always treated me as "the smart one" in the family regardless of my achievement. It was kind of awkward and also affected my little brother I think.)

[Tsuga]

Thanks! That's sad about your brother and yet another reason I'm not sure I need to know a number. Both my kids are bright in their own ways. I'd hate to be biased towards one even subconsciously...

[Tsuga]

I never kept you all posted. :)

 

My daughter passed the math portion (99th %, 135 - 145 IQ in math) but for the verbal portion did well on the subject matter (also 99th%) but below average verbal IQ. So she did not get in.

 

She got recommended for testing again this year, but doesn't want to spend two Saturdays doing it. I don't know whether I should ask her or not.

 

I will say that I wrote letters to the school board about my issues with IQ test prep (which had been advertised by after-school program) and the idea of self-recommendations, and they actually changed it for K and 1st and now test 100% of pupils in-school.

 

I know that sounds crazy to take away from instructional time but for such a high-stakes program, I'm glad that nobody had time to prep. I feel good about making my voice heard. I don't think I was the only one. It changed the program to be more egalitarian.

 

This year I think her math score will go down as she's been in public school for a year, so I don't know if it's worth it. It is a lot of work for a 2nd grader who has a very slim chance. I'm almost ready to say, don't take the test, instead you will do another gifted program that does enrichment outside of school, and just do a few special classes with her. Make her feel special and give her the work to get her into the advanced track in high school.

[SKL]

Thanks for the update.

 

My gifted kid also missed the cutoff last year because she found the test tedious and blew it off.  I am now considering whether or not to pursue other options, as my kid now wishes she had gotten into the program like her reading buddies did.  I don't want to be "that mom" but ....

 

I had my average kid do some test prep at home, to make sure she would understand the questions.  She got a great score in reading (for her - well above average), and a decent score in math.  But on the IQ portion, she still scored average.  I found it interesting that they could do a written group test that could differentiate between knowledge and IQ (assuming the kid is serious about the test).

[Tsuga]

I would not worry about less prepped or nonprimary English speaking classmates...the nonverbal testing will pick them right up. I know, my kid didn't accelerate too much in comparison to his potential, but acing the cogat nonverbal got him an honors placement. There were plenty of garden variety gifted kids that were picked before him as they have wealthy gob parents and are prepped well for acheivement tests. He got the last laugh as they flunked 8th Regents Algebra and struggled in Regent's Earth Science...eventually dropping out before taking Regent's Physics or PreCalc.  Regent's Physics is the class where all the smart kids are...and you know, half of them aren't in honors. They are all students with nonteacher pleasing behaviors, but gifted. Put your child where she can thrive. If that is not the top track, don't worry. Don't drink the Kool-aid about all the kids in the top classes being there because of parental enrichment. They aren't. I've seen lots of people try, and fail because they think they can buy brains and music talent.  There will be highly gifted kids whose parents have done zero enrichment who will set the curve in these classes. I know. I have one and I've seen it done many times.  I am too poor to prep relative to the wealhty in my district. My kid is the only advanced child in math in his grade.  The last kid that went as far as he did had very wealthy parents and put about a thousand more hours into math than mine did, not only talent search courses, but math circles and program in Manhattan colleges....nice kid, but garden variety gifted and all the talent search courses in the world didn't change that. He got a solid education, which he wouldn't have been able to do on his own as the highly gifted poor kids do.

 

They offer IQ test prep in the district, but it is banned.I actually saw one family--white, native English speakers--coaching their child on specific questions before the test. I thought that was pretty brazen! (I only mention race because I talked before of certain sub-cultures having different attitudes towards test prep so I wanted to let you all know that I do see that it happens everywhere!)

 

The program is only one grade level ahead. So that is, to me, not in any way a program driven by the needs of highly gifted children. In fact it's much more driven by the needs of children like my own child, ironically...

 

Anyway, your many points are valuable. I contacted the principal to talk about mindset and self-talk in a highly segregated school in a way that keeps a child positive towards 100% of the student body no matter what their advantages or disadvantages are, and I am looking forward to hearing back from her.

 

 

My gifted kid also missed the cutoff last year because she found the test tedious and blew it off.  I am now considering whether or not to pursue other options, as my kid now wishes she had gotten into the program like her reading buddies did.  I don't want to be "that mom" but ....

 

That is too bad! Does she get another chance next year?

 

Verbal IQ tests are a bit screwy, in my opinion. I always did poorly until I figured out the trick, and then I aced it, getting a really superb, out of this world score as an adult. So the intelligence was always there, I just didn't understand what they were asking for. I know that sounds strange, but honestly, I think English majors speak a different dialect of English.

[SKL]

That is too bad! Does she get another chance next year?

 

Verbal IQ tests are a bit screwy, in my opinion. I always did poorly until I figured out the trick, and then I aced it, getting a really superb, out of this world score as an adult. So the intelligence was always there, I just didn't understand what they were asking for. I know that sounds strange, but honestly, I think English majors speak a different dialect of English.

 

They don't do the cognitive testing every year.  However, I told her that if she does really well on other testing and school work, she may be able to make a case for a second chance.  I have not yet decided whether to ask for an individual IQ test (either within or outside of the school).

 

My kid is already accelerated a grade and in a fairly high-standards school, so that helps somewhat.  She is a very advanced reader, but that doesn't seem to bother her as she has some classmates who are also advanced readers.  In math, she does well but is not really "mathy" and doesn't seem eager for harder work.  So it's not really an emergency to get her into the gifted program ASAP.

[TranquilMind]

Background:

 

My kid works about two grade levels ahead in math (but it's still first grade so that's simple operations), and about .7 - 1 grade levels ahead in reading. I don't believe she's "highly gifted" but she is highly motivated and very intelligent. If I had to ballpark it, I'd give her an IQ of about 145 (mine and ex-husbands IQs, plus ten for the Flynn effect). Smart but not like, eerily intelligent. We were both in the 97-99th percentiles as children.

 

My school district begins gifted education in the second grade. The testing for that is parent and teacher motivated, i.e. there is no standardized test by which to nominate a child for gifted testing. The testing is advertised to 100% of parents through online newsletters and flyers. Later in the child's education, the child will go through standardized tests and might be nominated in that way. The school district has one of the top gifted education programs in the nation. It is very hard to be kicked out of the gifted program.

 

My belief about gifted education is that it should be "democratic", i.e. it should be extremely hard to increase your child's chances of entering the program through preparation, and it should also not begin until all children have had a good year or two of free public education to prepare, since we know kids even out by about third grade from the advantages of early training. I believe the way our school district has set it up, they increase the possibility of children getting in through a type I error (i.e. a child who takes the test every year in elementary school is more likely to get an accidental high score, than a child who never takes it; they might have the same scores on standardized tests). This type I error will favor involved parents who advocate for their children, and the limited number of places means that repeated test taking could edge out the bright but less prepared students, particularly in the younger grades.

 

My belief about parenting is that we shouldn't always ask our children to be martyrs for our beliefs. I believe in school uniforms but I don't send my daughter to public school in khakis, black shoes and a white polo shirt to make a point. I don't like sugar in her lunch but she still gets a little treat to eat when all the other kids are getting a little treat (even if it's a granola bar or a tiny piece of chocolate). But we should also set a good example, so I have made it clear to her that if she takes a punch in the nose and gets back up to face the bully and doesn't run away, I'll be more proud of her than if she hits the bully back. Brave and peaceful resistance and all that. Basically, we choose our battles.

 

Question

 

I'm agonizing over this. I really think the school district's set-up is unfair and will get a kid like mine in (possibly, on a good day) but not a kid who might be smarter, but with less prep. But at the same time, my opting out will not get that other child in. Instead, another child with prep, who is the same intelligence or slightly less intelligent than my child will get in. Maria Gonzales' parents are not going to send her in for testing and anyway she hasn't gotten English down that well yet. But she might be smarter. I went to school with such kids. I went to school with a boy whose father wouldn't let him take the test in third grade because they were undocumented and he didn't want to come to the attention of the testers (dad was a landscaper for a huge company in the 80s before things were as strict). :~( That boy was so smart, he actually was in the 99th percentile in his first six months of learning English. At the age of eight. No programs for him. I still remember his name and the injustice of it all (I am also Hispanic, but my family was on the other side of the border when the Mexican-American war ended so I really identified with that boy).

 

But I'm gonna be honest, I want my kid in the top schools in the nation so badly. I won't lie. The gifted program here is superb. It's world-class and it's free. You can even get the international baccalaureate.

 

UGH.

 

Your thoughts? What should I do?

You opting your child out because you disagree with how politically motivated the program is does your kid a disservice.  Why can't you advocate from the inside?

[Tsuga]

 

Why can't you advocate from the inside?

 

The program is the way it is because of the extremely strong advocacy on the part of parents.

 

Warning: Long, irritating, generalization-making rant ahead. Read at your own peril. But I'm leaving it up just so if anyone asks again I can just refer them to my many, many issues with this whole thing.

 

Some cynicism ahead. I am sorry but this has just been my experience not so much on this board but on the Internet boards for gifted education and education in general. :( It is not meant to be personal.

 

Telling 300 parents that I don't think that chess club from age 3 and IQ test prep means your child is a special needs student by the state's definition is not likely to go over well.

 

Have you ever heard the quote (I think it's Margaret Atwood) "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some."

 

The people who have the most to lose with a change in the program have already demonstrated that they will fight tooth and nail to get their kids every single service they possibly can, regardless of whether any other child loses out, and regardless of whether public funds are intended to serve the interests of individual families at the expense of the state, the community, and less-priviledge children. In fact, I hear precisely that attitude on this board to some extent, though I came back here because I got a much more moral response overall than certain other boards, i.e. more on gifted forums. Get what you can for your kid--it's a dog-eat-dog world so if you can use a loophole do it ("Loophole"="exepmtion" based on a "special need", never mind that if "not gifted in every area equally" is a "special need" and so is being gifted in every area, I guess all kids have special needs... ).

 

I am pretty sure that of the parents who have commented on my thread at the gifted advocacy forums (not WTM), nearly every single one of them paid for multiple private (i.e. unregulated) tests and got exemptions to ensure that their child, whom they were uniquely qualified to evaluate as one of the truly special in this world, got public services. (You can see this in their other posts.)

 

The repeated suggestions, on four different message boards, that I try to get my kid any number of exemptions to skirt the rules, have really dampened my enthusiasm for humanity, to be honest. It's been a very sad journey for me to see just how willing people are to game the system because "after all, you're all your kid has", as if that justifies things like abuse of public funds. I mean where does that end?

 

Not to mention, it's deeply hurt my belief that the public school system is a meritocratic system, at least mostly, and for all children to succeed through hard work. I mean this has been the nail in the coffin I guess.

 

So I am just not the person to advocate from within if I don't get there honestly. I have no faith in the exemptions or that they will be used ethically. I will navigate my family in a moral way. I will comment on public policies from a position that I feel comfortable in, which is to say the position where I did not take more than I earned, more than was set out for my by the people of my state for my kids.

 

So again, I contacted the principal and asked how I can best achieve a good mindset environment for my kid and my family, one of high expectations and achievement, while at the same time respecting every child at that school, profoundly gifted, profoundly prepared, or in need of any kind of special services or what. She is very experienced and not in any way responsible for the individual choices that families have made to get into that program--she is just working to make the school work for every child. And that is what I'll advocate for. At the very least I was in a much better gifted program as a child so I have that going for me!

[raptor_dad]

Have you ever heard the quote (I think it's Margaret Atwood) "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some."

 

This cynical view of education as zero sum game with the primary goal of sorting kids into little boxes is abhorrent. This quote just encourages enmity between groups who should all be try to make the schools work.

 

Many people here turned to homeschooling reluctantly because the PS was failing their kids. For my family, HS'ing was better for us and better for the PS who couldn't deal with my 2e kid. Giftedness never entered into it. They couldn't deal with the special needs we has an IEP for. We could have stayed and demanded our free and appropriate public education, FAPE. It would have be traumatic for DS, us, and the school. Would it have changed the system and improved things for other families in the future? I sincerely doubt it. In our case better truly meant better for everyone...

 

If district had a school capable of dealing with smart ASD kids in all 8 attendance zones instead of only 1 or 2 that would be better for everyone... If they could differentiate instruction so fewer gifted kids ended up Hsing that would be better for everyone... Lots of things in education can be better for everyone...

 

Personally, I am more worried about kids missing out on opportunities they should have than on a few kids who have gamed the system to get "extra" benefits. I think every kid deserves an enriched curriculum.

 

 

[Tsuga]

"Personally, I am more worried about kids missing out on opportunities they should have than on a few kids who have gamed the system to get "extra" benefits. I think every kid deserves an enriched curriculum."

 

That sounds nice in theory.

 

Education is money and money is a zero-sum game.

 

Somebody has to pay the teachers, and I think that's where a lot of this gets lost. Every single minute, every hour, that someone gets something, another person gets less.  Every aid, every blackboard, every piece of chalk, every form filled out, every Google form designed and submitted, is quantified in a school's budget, and that gets compiled into the district, the state--you know this, I'm not giving you new information.

 

So I wonder why you think kids are missing opportunities? There's no money sitting around not being used.

 

"Lots of things in education can be better for everyone..."

 

No.

 

It either costs more overall, which is worse for the person paying for it (taxpayer), or the money is taken from one bin (say, breakfasts for homeless children at school) and put into another bin (say, training and support for differentiated instruction), and that is worse for those who received the services from which the funds were taken.

 

Change means hiring or retraining. Facilities. Materials. Hours of labor. Managing change means administration to manage the funds and staff. Maybe you're already paying an administrator but I guarantee they aren't sleeping every afternoon. And educators don't work for free.

 

From my perspective, it looks like a whole lot of resources are spent on squeaky wheels, bells, and whistles, and far, far to few to address real problems.

 

I can see that from an outsider's perspective, it seems so simple. "Just" change this and that, and we all live better.

 

But there is nobody to manage these changes as administrative bodies have been gutted over the past few years. So workers will oppose change unless it benefits them directly and there's nobody to advocate. Nobody to write the grant to adjust the facilities in the extra attendance zones to accommodate these kids.

 

I know that in theory this is not new to you.

 

I'm not pretending you are not aware of funding shortages.

 

I just want to lay it out so you can see that I'm not talking about some theoretical zero-sum game in which I'm whining about someone taking some ethereal education bubble from me or the poor. I am talking about the reality of our schools all the way from universal pre-k (taken from full-day kindergarten plans) to universities (in which STEM investments are gutting the humanities).

 

You've taken an honorable route, which is to take care of your family's own needs. I do the same.

 

We have to. There are no leftover funds. I know two teachers and neither owns a car--they take the cheaper lease. The superintendent could quit and we'd still only have, let's say in the case of your suggestion, a helper in five more of those districts. And keep in mind that's with no superintendent.

 

Every kid deserves an enriched curriculum but every kid will not get it because there is not enough to go around. So who gets it?

 

Every public service IS a zero-sum game, and the tax base is getting smaller and smaller and further and further away from those who use the services.

 

There are few easy solutions, but there are no free solutions. :)

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[Tsuga]

What is preposterous?

 

That public schools are run on money and that funds are limited? This is not only not preposterous--it is common knowledge.

 

That many gifted programs around the country are de facto racially segregated? Why, this has been on the front page of the New York Times.

 

That the squeaky wheel gets the grease? I think we can all agree on that folk wisdom.

 

That teachers are paid about 60% what others with a master's degree get, but have student debt to address?

 

That school funds are set from the general fund and that they are then further allocated among programs, including special education, gifted education, support services, general education, and extras like services for needy children? If it sounds preposterous, check the budget allocation process for your local school district.

 

And if you don't think that raptor dad's suggestions amounted to a major policy change with some facilities restructuring and teacher training (not saying it's impossible, far from it, they're great ideas that I support!) than I'm guessing you haven't worked on a public project over a long period of time. There are always costs, and those costs come out in money somewhere.

 

In our district, which is fantastic, most of the costs for special enrichment programs are processed by individual families in the form of lost wages due to one educated person's spending a good 20 hours a week on the PTSA.

 

Edit: I really do not want to appear as a troll. I think that many people have a vastly different perspective on public education than I do. I am just going to leave it at this. If you have any more insights into the ethics of the decision--rather than trying to convince me that it would really be okay for me to do something that, with the knowledge I have of the system, is wrong--please send me a personal message. Thanks!

 

 

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[IsabelC]

nm