Parent Advocates
Search All  
 
NYC Department of Education G&T Policies Are Unfair and Discriminatory
New York City's far left "wokeness" rams a dagger straight into the heart of parents of children who are Gifted and Talented, Twice Exceptional ("2e), or in need of special resources. The New York City Department of Education likes it when all children can be labelled "Level 2,3" rather than Levels 1 or 4, even if the child cannot function or be educationally supported by middle-of-the-road curricula. That's just "too bad", the Department VIPs say.
          
   Betsy Combier   
From Betsy Combier, Editor:

New York City's far left "wokeness" rams a dagger straight into the heart of parents of children who are Gifted and Talented, Twice Exceptional ("2e), or in need of special resources.

The Department is against gifted and talented programs because the underlying belief is that only white rich kids can get study help and get high scores on G&T Standardized tests. NYC's "woke" majority hate white rich kids.

When Carmen Farina was Principal of PS 6, she destroyed the G&T program because she thought that G&T led to favoritism. She wanted all kids to learn in the classroom, so the kids that scored 1 or 2 on tests should be brought to a high 2 or even a three, and kids that scored a 3, or 4 could be brought to a low 3 or high 2, and then the young teachers without tenure who were hired to replace the tenured teachers with high salaries could succeed in teaching the Whole Language and TERC math curricula.....often cited in articles and websites as part of the "dumbing down of America".

New York City to Expand Gifted and Talented Program but Scrap Test
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/nyregion/nyc-gifted-talented.html

See NYC Rubber Room Reporter
LINK: https://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2020/05/nyc-department-of-education-wins-who.html
LINK: https://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/search?q=G%26T

2014:

City agrees to grandfather District 26 gifted and talented students into middle school
PARENTS OF THE G&T STUDENTS IN NORTHEAST QUEENS HAD RAISED AN OUTCRY AFTER THE CITY ATTEMPTED TO BASE MIDDLE SCHOOL ADMISSIONS ON ELA AND MATH TEST SCORES


BY CLARE TRAPASSO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The city backed off a hotly contested plan on Tuesday to force elementary students in the gifted and talented program in District 26 to reapply for the coveted middle school seats. The stunning reversal came after parents raised the war cry.
The Department of Education — under new Chancellor Carmen Fariña, agreed to grandfather current gifted students into the middle school program. Incoming kids will have to reapply based on their fourth grade ELA and math scores.
District 26 — and 30, in northwest Queens — are the only two in the city that guarantee students the highly-sought seats. Once admitted to the elementary school program — based on performance on a pair of aptitude tests administered before kindergarten — students may stay through middle school.

NYC Department of Education Wins the "Who Are You Kidding Award" After Losing Gifted and Talented Entry Exams
LINK: https://nypost.com/2020/05/21/nyc-parents-frantic-after-doe-loses-gifted-and-talented-entry-exams/

NYC parents frantic after DOE loses Gifted and Talented program entry exams

City parents are livid after the Department of Education lost the entry tests of 61 kids applying to advanced academic programs and schools.
A total of 12,834 4 and 5-year-olds kids took the Gifted and Talented exam in January to vie for admission to coveted district and citywide programs.
But dozens of applicants who took the exam at PS 89 Liberty School in Tribeca didn’t get their scores last month when the DOE released results. After weeks of evasion, the DOE finally admitted that they had lost the crucial tests in a May 15 email to parents.

NYC Parents Rage: With No G&T Qualifying Test, Selection Process Is Chaos
LINK: https://www.the74million.org/article/nyc-parents-rage-with-no-gt-qualifying-test-selection-process-is-chaos/

Adams: Why were some kids 'eligible' 2 years ago but aren't now? Why were different report cards weighted differently? And why weren't families told?

By Alina Adams August 8, 2022

New York City Mayor Eric Adams assumed office promising he’d listen to what parents wanted. One of the things he heard was demand for more public school gifted-and-talented classes. So Adams reversed his predecessor’s decision to get rid of all such programming and, instead, expanded it.

What he did not reinstate was the qualifying test. Instead, all public school pre-K students would be screened by their classroom teachers, private school pre-K students who requested it would be evaluated by the city Department of Education, and children entering grades 1 through 3 would be evaluated via report cards — though parents were given no indication of how exactly those report cards would be used. Qualified students at every grade level would then be entered into a lottery, as there are always many more applicants than there are seats.

“The least DOE could have done was provide clarity,” mom Maleeha Metla raged. “They randomly picked students? Lottery system? Tell parents how you got to the pool of kids getting the G&T offer!”

Once placement results were announced Aug. 3, parents who assumed their children at least had a shot at being entered into the first-through-third-grade lottery for any available G&T seats were stunned to receive letters that the student had been declared “ineligible.”

A mom who asked to only be identified as Jen said, “A number of my friends are telling me that their kids were deemed ineligible but they don’t know why. Some of their kids had all 4s” — the top grade on the student report card.

Dad Daniel McDermon couldn’t understand it, either, writing, “My youngest was deemed not eligible, and I am rather shocked. My son scored 100% on the final math assessment, began the year reading at the end-of-year level and had 4s in reading and math on his final report card. He was deemed eligible for G&T programs two years ago by the DOE’s own test.”

McDermon reached out to the department for clarification and received the following reply: The list of eligible students was determined using the following method: Students’ highest grade in each core subject was converted to a zero- through four-point scale. These core subject grades were averaged together for each student. Students within the school and grade-level were ranked based on this core subject average. Based on this ranking, the top 10% of students in your school and grade-level were identified as eligible. Report card grades were evaluated based on the most recent marking period available in April 2022.

Parents immediately cried foul — for a variety of reasons.

“For public school kids, the DOE chose to look at non-final grades from April, not the final grades filed in late June. On the other hand, for private, parochial and charter students, parents were instructed to submit their child’s grades … by July 1,” wrote a different Jen. “If my child was in private school, I could have submitted, and her eligibility would have been determined based on, final grades (all 4s) she received in late June. Instead, because she is already in public school, her non-final grades were used, making her ineligible.”

A parent who is also a teacher fumed, “You can’t compare kids in different semesters! Everyone knows that June is your best report card because teachers/schools want to demonstrate progress and growth!”

A parent who asked to remain anonymous assumed their child was being discriminated against due to disability, writing, “My child came back as “ineligible” for G&T — he is entering second grade and got all 3s and 4s in his core subjects. He had one 2 on his report card, and it was NOT in a core subject. It was in academic and personal behaviors due to the time management and organization sections. He has ADHD and an IEP, and it seems to me that if they exclude children based on this section of the report card, it would be excluding them based on their disabilities.”

NYC Has a Gifted Education Crisis. Amid Calls to Expand and Diversify Testing, a More Shocking Stat: 78 Percent of Kids Who Qualify Are Denied Seats at Top Schools
LINK: https://www.the74million.org/article/nyc-has-a-gifted-education-crisis-amid-calls-to-expand-and-diversify-testing-a-more-shocking-stat-78-percent-of-kids-who-qualify-are-denied-seats-at-top-schools/

By Alina Adams May 8, 2019

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams made headlines last week when he asserted that the easiest way to increase diversity at New York City’s gifted and talented programs — which are primarily white and Asian, while the majority of students in the public school system are Hispanic and black — is to test all 4-year-olds prior to kindergarten admissions.

It would cost only $1 million, he said! (NYC could save even more money by getting rid of G&T testing altogether and simply letting all children proceed through all grades and subjects at their own pace. But that’s way too progressive for our proudly progressive mayor.)

Here’s the problem with Adams’s proposal, though: There aren’t enough G&T seats available for the children who currently qualify. Testing more kids without adding more spots is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

There are two kinds of G&T schools in NYC: accelerated schools, which teach the New York state course standards one year in advance, and enriched programs, which teach the New York state course standards at grade level. And … um … enrich them. There is no such thing as a G&T curriculum, so every public school teacher is creating his or her own. (Some schools have opted to bring the enriched approach to all students.)

There are dozens of enriched programs, but only five accelerated schools. To be eligible for the latter, a child must score above the 97th percentile on the G&T test. In 2019, 1,412 students, out of more than 32,000 tested, did.

Except that there are only about 300 seats combined in all five schools. This means that three-fourths of children eligible for entry into an accelerated program won’t be placed in one.

How do schools decide who gets in and who doesn’t?

They hold a lottery.

Yes, a lottery, playing Russian roulette with a child’s education. This is literally an example of how two children of equal ability (assuming you believe an IQ test administered to a 4-year-old is predictive of anything) are unequally educated, based on a roll of the dice.

Also in 2019, 5,342 NYC kindergartners qualified for district G&T programs (that number includes those who also qualified for citywide). Yet, traditionally, only about 2,500 get offers (2019 offer results will be available in June).

As in previous years, some of the “leftover” children will opt for private, religious or charter schools. But the majority stay in the system, which means they still take up seats in public schools. It’s not as if they disappear. In several neighborhoods in the city, as reported by The 74, a majority of public school students — more than 50 percent — are scoring in the top 10th percentile.

So how’s this for a solution: Instead of letting bureaucrats decide which child is worthy of an accelerated or enriched education, why not — I know it’s radical, but bear with me — provide a G&T seat for every child who qualifies?

Wacky, I know!

Why not turn a percentage of general ed seats into G&T seats for all qualified applicants? It wouldn’t cost the public schools anything extra, since no new classrooms, teachers or materials would be required.

If the city Education Department really wants more underserved children in G&T programs, in addition to universal testing, it must create more programs for them to test into. (An attempt to do so for older grades came with a new set of problems; see here.: https://web.archive.org/web/20160707162516/http://www.examiner.com/article/nyc-changes-gifted-talented-screening-process-to-make-it-even-more-complicated)

If NYC treated those in the bottom 10th percentile the way they treat those in the top, they would be in violation of federal law regarding educating children with special needs.

The solution is obvious, simple to implement and inexpensive.

So what’s the holdup?

Alina Adams is a New York Times best-selling romance and mystery writer, the author of “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting Into NYC High School,” a blogger at New York School Talk and mother of three. She believes you can’t have true school choice until all parents know all their school choices — and how to get them. Visit her website, www.NYCSchoolSecrets.com.

NYC changes gifted & talented screening process to make it even more complicated

Betsy Combier

Facebook
Twitter
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ blog
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

 
© 2003 The E-Accountability Foundation