Re: NCLB is Killing Gifted Ed and impacting gifted students'

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NCLB Chatboard

NCLB is Killing Gifted Ed and impacting gifted students' fut

by Mr. Ed/7th/GA

Jun 14, 2009

I am a veteran teacher with 18 years of teaching, 13 years in 6th grade regular ed, science, math and social studies and 5 years in 7th and 8th gifted math and social studies. I am now exclusively in 7th grade social studies. I have watched as NCLB has seriously impacted the gifted program at my school. All the emphasis in NCLB is on the bottom of the pile. All the smaller classes are focused on the bottom of the pile. The middle learners, the majority of the students we teach are packed into the largest classes, receive much less intervention and extension in the classroom and suffer under NCLB. The quality of middle learner education has seriously eroded as the time goes by with us strapped by NCLB.

At the top of the pile sre the gifted students, the students with the most potential and the students who have the best chance of being our movers and shakers in this upcoming generation. All research shows that gifted students need smaller classes where they receive continual m...See MoreI am a veteran teacher with 18 years of teaching, 13 years in 6th grade regular ed, science, math and social studies and 5 years in 7th and 8th gifted math and social studies. I am now exclusively in 7th grade social studies. I have watched as NCLB has seriously impacted the gifted program at my school. All the emphasis in NCLB is on the bottom of the pile. All the smaller classes are focused on the bottom of the pile. The middle learners, the majority of the students we teach are packed into the largest classes, receive much less intervention and extension in the classroom and suffer under NCLB. The quality of middle learner education has seriously eroded as the time goes by with us strapped by NCLB.

At the top of the pile sre the gifted students, the students with the most potential and the students who have the best chance of being our movers and shakers in this upcoming generation. All research shows that gifted students need smaller classes where they receive continual motivation, encouragement, correction, refocusing, and original thinking time. In my state, Georgia, the class limit for gifted used to be 21 students. In practice this worked very well, giving the teacher the flexibility to work individually with students in an environment conducive to the learning potential of the students. Georgia, due to the financial crisis we all face, increased the minimum class size for gifted students to 23. My school district took an even more dramatic approach. They eliminated the minimum size for gifted classes. Some schools have chosen to follow this standard, some have chosen 28 as a minimum, and my school has decided upon 25 students. All of the situations seriously impact gifted education and, in the process, have reduced the level of service to gifted students by their teachers. There is less time and potential for individual extensions and remediation to enhance the learning of highly intelligent students who will potentially be our future business and political leaders, our engineers, our scientists, our doctors and nurses, and our artists. Why? All because of the emphasis NCLB places on the bottom of the pile. One school in my district has even eliminated gifted science completely, while the current administration's priority in teaching is science and math. How can that be justified by this school?

Gifted education is in serious peril as long as NCLB exists, and regular ed students suffer even more as all the emphasis is on testing, testing, and more testing. In addition, the lock-step policies of schools to ensure that specific information is taught at a specific time to match the timing of the abhorent tests takes away all teacher flexibility and innovation. NCLB must be eliminated and the education community needs to come to its senses.

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sped On 6/14/09, Mr. Ed/7th/GA wrote: I have > watched as NCLB has seriously impacted the gifted program > at my school.

You're lucky that it's just "seriously impacted" the gifted program. In Illinois, most of those programs are long gone. You can still find some sputtering gifted programs in the wealthiest districts that chose to fund t...See MoreOn 6/14/09, Mr. Ed/7th/GA wrote: I have > watched as NCLB has seriously impacted the gifted program > at my school.

You're lucky that it's just "seriously impacted" the gifted program. In Illinois, most of those programs are long gone. You can still find some sputtering gifted programs in the wealthiest districts that chose to fund them on their own, but state funding went away for those programs several years ago.

All the emphasis in NCLB is on the bottom of > the pile. All the smaller classes are focused on the > bottom of the pile.

It depends on where you are. I'm a Special Ed administrator. While state and federal law requires a certain level of service. However, most of my kids are written off by High School because they are not going to pass the ACT/PSAE, which is our state AYP test. It's a college acceptance test and we're giving to to kids who read at the 4th grade level. Yeah, more than 90% of our kids with IEPs don't meet standards every year.

> The middle learners, the majority of > the students we teach are packed into the largest classes, > receive much less intervention and extension in the > classroom and suffer under NCLB.

Now my experience has been that any discretionary spending has been spent on them. The lower end students, both sped and non-sped have been written off. The higher end students are going to meet or exceed state standards anyway, so they don't get much, but the middle kids are the ones you can impact. So, it's drill-baby-drill to do well on the test... and not much else. It doesn't matter if the kids don't know there was a World War II, as long as they have the vocab and reading skills to pass the test.

In any event, I think we can agree that NCLB is terrible. It's an attempt by non-education people to quantify something unquantifiable like education. The Bush Administration was very business minded. They wanted to look at education like a business and quantify learning into something concrete, like percentages. So, School A is fine because X% are meeting/exceeding AYP standards, and School B is doing poorly because Y% are not meeting standards. Easy, simple.... but wrong.

Also, NCLB was an attempt to subvert money to private, RELIGIOUS schools, which the Right-wingers who wrote the bill love. Ultimately, they'd love to send their wealthy, Christian, mostly-white children to a Christian school with other white Christians and have it paid for with a government voucher. Then public schools can become the "Medicaid" or County Hospitals of education. A place for poor, mostly-brown people to learn how to operate a cash register or lawn mower and receive basic, sub-par education. This is the ultimate goal of NCLB.

The quality of middle > learner education has seriously eroded as the time goes by > with us strapped by NCLB. > > At the top of the pile sre the gifted students, the > students with the most potential and the students who have > the best chance of being our movers and shakers in this > upcoming generation. All research shows that gifted > students need smaller classes where they receive continual > motivation, encouragement, correction, refocusing, and > original thinking time. In my state, Georgia, the class > limit for gifted used to be 21 students. In practice this > worked very well, giving the teacher the flexibility to > work individually with students in an environment conducive > to the learning potential of the students. Georgia, due to > the financial crisis we all face, increased the minimum > class size for gifted students to 23. My school district > took an even more dramatic approach. They eliminated the > minimum size for gifted classes. Some schools have chosen > to follow this standard, some have chosen 28 as a minimum, > and my school has decided upon 25 students. All of the > situations seriously impact gifted education and, in the > process, have reduced the level of service to gifted > students by their teachers. There is less time and > potential for individual extensions and remediation to > enhance the learning of highly intelligent students who > will potentially be our future business and political > leaders, our engineers, our scientists, our doctors and > nurses, and our artists. Why? All because of the emphasis > NCLB places on the bottom of the pile. One school in my > district has even eliminated gifted science completely, > while the current administration's priority in teaching is > science and math. How can that be justified by this school? > > Gifted education is in serious peril as long as NCLB > exists, and regular ed students suffer even more as all the > emphasis is on testing, testing, and more testing. In > addition, the lock-step policies of schools to ensure that > specific information is taught at a specific time to match > the timing of the abhorent tests takes away all teacher > flexibility and innovation. NCLB must be eliminated and > the education community needs to come to its senses.

Oct 17, 2009

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Terri The Obama administration's 'Race to the Top' has taken a bad thing- No Child Left Behind- and has made it a great deal worse. Interestingly, what the left is pushing, in terms of education, is the same rhetoric that the right used -blame teachers and teach to the test.

Sadly, the direction education continues to take is quite dismal. Outs...See More

Dec 13, 2009

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