Hi, I'm an education reporter at the San Francisco Examiner, and I'm beginning research for a story about how the district serves gifted students. The story was inspired by this study by Fordham, which found that gifted kids "struggle to maintain their elite performance over the years " and do not improve their reading ability as fast as lower-performing kids. http://www.edexcellence.net/publications-issues/publications/high-flyers.html
Of course, No Child Left Behind has placed much of the emphasis of education on at-risk and lower-performing students, and many say this has come at the expense of higher-achievers. I'm curious about what your experience has been. Feel free to post or give me a call at 415-359-2741. (Email also works. That's acrawford@sfexaminer.com.)
The district serves gifted students poorly, and to some extent intentioanally so.
In elementary school, the mantra is "differentiated instruction," but with no read metrics or explanation of what this means. Some schools do it well, some do not, and even then it varies by teacher.
In middle school, some of the MSs have honors classes of some kind (though the implementation varies across schools) and several do not explicitly because they believe it's bad for social justice. (James Lick, Denman, for example)
Your post is timely. We have a 5th grader who just started at SFUSD this school year. Our 5th grader is GATE-identified and participated in the GATE program in our prior school district. Up until yesterday, we'd heard crickets regarding the GATE program at his school. We finally received an email yesterday via the school loop that basically said that at the elementary school level, there isn't much going on GATE-wise, but that "fortunately" the MS that we will feed into does have honors/GATE/advanced classes, etc..
I plan to reach out to our school's GATE liaison (or whatever her title was) to see if there is "anything" that my son can participate in this year that will challenge him above-and-beyond what he is already doing. I guess I'm learning the hard way that around here, you have to be your own advocate for things that, might otherwise, happen naturally in a different school district.
I toured Roosevelt for my older one (who is now at Hoover) and it did make my list of 3. I think their honors program is really strong. Our next door neighbors go there, and are quite happy with it, even though it's a LONG commute from our end of the city.
Can I ask what were your three MS choices? Our son is saying he'd like to try Presidio (though I realize that we may not even get it if we put it on our list). Presidio's size somewhat intimidates me. However, I have yet to tour Presidio and/or Roosevelt. I do like Roosevelt's smaller size and we do have the "advantage" that our ES will feed into Roosevelt. We live in westside, so proximity to school is important to us.
My 3 were Aptos, Hoover, and Roosevelt. We're in the SE (more or less) so Aptos was the closest of the schools that offer what we wanted for our daughter. Hoover and Roosevelt were both on the list because of at least realistic commutes (next door neighbors to go Roosevelt), honors program, and orchestra (she plays cello).
Presidio wasn't on my list because we simply could not get her there. I took A.P. Giannini off my list because 1)the place where my daughter would have to change muni buses involved going under an underpass, and 2)no honors until 7th grade.
Personally, I don't mind a large school. Hoover must be close to 1200. Where we came from in NY, there were 10 classes in a grade in ES, so 300ish on the grade, or 900 for the K-2 school, 900 for the 3-5 school, etc. I always felt like the larger schools have more diverse resources, and there was always someone my child felt comfortable with (peer-wise).
Roosevelt still has about 250 kids on a grade, so not really small, just smaller than the others (Aptos, Presidio, Hoover, and Giannini all hover between 1100 and 1200)
I think you should tour both, see what both commutes would look like (either driving or MUNI, whatever works for your family) and then put them in the order you prefer on your list.
I agree with you, Amy, that this is a real and painful issue. It also seems, from what I read, that this is one of the main concerns of families about the new middle school feeder system. How is a family who highly prioritizes AP/honors supposed to help improve a middle schools whose principal is philosophically opposed to appropriately challenging high achieving students, out of concerns to violate some lofty idea of "social justice"? Kids are punished because some principals are trying to force their ideas of what should be "right" on families. In my opinion, principals are our (SF families') employees. They are paid with our taxes, and they should be serving our (most families') expressed needs. But from what I can see that is, in some cases, not happening. Thank you for taking this on. I hope you will be part of making a difference and initiating direly needed change.
When it came time for SFUSD to flex its $60M plus in Tier III categorical funds in 2010 it kept every last penny of the Targeted Instructional Improvement Block Grant (TIIIBG) focused on remedial education to the sum of $36M , but it cut in half of the paltry $300K in the Gifted and Talented Tier III program. That tells you what little emphasis SFUSD puts on high achievement. When SFUSD officials public proclaim that they have no concern about API unless it drops below 800, that's is telling you that they have willingly dropped the ball on excellence.
Principals who want to curry favor with 555 take progressive stances in the hope of landing a job in the Central Office. The progressive stance in this case is anti-tracking. This issue should not be decided at the school level. For a district that defines itself by equity above all, the very idea of schools without honors is a contradiction in terms.
I'm homeschooling my 5th grader this year as a result of the lack of adequate attention paid to high achieving kids in SFUSD. I don't blame the teachers or principal at our former elementary school; they aren't given the resources or opportunity to really implement the differentiated education for which SFUSD's GATE program calls. The uneven ability of teachers to fully differentiate curriculum for GATE students is a big problem and should be a focus of professional development, just as techniques for teaching under-achieving students is.
That said, there's no real mechanism to give different, more interesting/challenging assignments to high achievers when you have a class of 32 that spans the spectrum from not understanding/speaking/reading *any* English to a kid who got a perfect score on the language arts STAR test. I don't envy teachers that challenge, and that's why my kid isn't in SFUSD right now. We lost our feeder tie breaker for MS, too, so we'll see where we get placed; if it's in a MS w/o an Honors track, we'll be gone from the District for MS, too.
There are multiple methodological flaws with this study, and in the way it's presented.
The methodology of the study doesn't answer the question "how well are kids identified as gifted early on doing later", instead it answers the question "does a test administered at Grade 2 have much predictive skill on future achievement," [And the answer is "only moderately," the same as a measurement of the 90th percentile of heights at Grade 2 has only moderate skill on predicting what percentile of height they'll be in at 8th grade.]
Despite the claims of the authors, most of the 'decline' they complain about is just regression-to-the-mean, given that most of the "decliners" went into the 80th-90th percentiles.
The study you quote is a NothingBurger. Using the 90% NWEA score as their norm for "giftedness' means that they're still, largely, grading on a curve. There was actually a slight increase in the number of kids in the study scoring above the 90%tile on the NWEA (because of "late bloomers", which is just a random effect from their sampling.
It would have been more useful to use instead of the NWEA, using the international TIMMS.
Grr. Anyway, it's a shame to see such a large (and expensive) study which answers pretty much zip about gifted kids actual performance, other than to suggest testing for "giftedness" kids too early is going to cause miscategorization.
There's a saying in the Management Science (such as it is) that you get what you measure, and you definitely get what you incent.
Sanctions from NCLB aren't imposed if you don't stretch your gifted kids enough.
Even if there were, it'd be difficult to construct good metrics to track how gifted kids are doing. But identifying gifted kids early on is fraught with error (which is what the Fordham study actually finds). If you've only got 50% accuracy in identifying high-flyers early on, then it's hard to determine whether decline in performance of those high-flyers is because of regression to the mean or not challenging them enough.
One interesting item out of the Fordham study: the rate of "high-flyers" in high- and low- poverty schools was within 1-2 percentage points of each other: it was slightly lower in the high-poverty schools, but not by much. Which goes to show you can't keep a bright kid down. It's the ones in the middle and the left tail of the distribution that get impacted.
The problem is: What does gifted mean? In some circles, it's the top 5% - in others it's the top 50%.
It might be better to research how well schools are doing with differentiation within a school - not only to help the lowest performers, but also how well they are moving along middle and high performers of all enthnicities.
I have yet to see any discussion of this in any school site councils or within the SFUSD. Certainly NCLB keeps the focus on the lowest performers only.
@Lorraine -- yes, this is a problem, and it tends to be one that diverts attention from the real question, which you so eloquently described.
That said, I do find that when I've asked how a school will challenge my daughter, I've been told things like "don't worry, she'll do fine," or "she'll be well prepared for the next grade."
In SFUSD, there are a large number of elementary schools where <50% of the kids are identified as "proficient." So, by and large the schools focus on those kids -- actually, in my experience, they focus most on the kids who are JUST BARELY UNDER proficient -- improving their skills gives SFUSD the best "bang for the buck" with NCLB.
What I'd like to see throughout SFUSD is truly differentiated instruction, either within acedemically diverse classes (hardest for the teacher) or using "tracking" (highly unpopular with some, and rejected outright by some SFUSD middle schools).
"actually, in my experience, they focus most on the kids who are JUST BARELY UNDER proficient -- improving their skills gives SFUSD the best "bang for the buck" with NCLB."
That is an excellent observation. If you look at the API results for Muir, the second grade class which is the largest, actually had a large increase in the number of students in the below and far below basic quintiles compared to the year before, despite having increased a significant number from below proficient to proficient on a schoolwide basis. Conversely, the 5th grade class had a very anomalous 5th grade result with all the students in the below and far below basic categories leaving those groups. That is extremely unusual, particularly at that grade level.
SFUSD seems to not realize that many SF families have choices, like moving out, or private school. By not offering advanced curriculum or tracking, they are alienating the exact population who (in many cases) help keep the test scores up, keep the classrooms focused, who volunteer their time and raise money. And the more these kids leave, the worse the school system gets. They should be doing everything they can to keep these families!
Hi, I'm an education reporter at the San Francisco Examiner, and I'm beginning research for a story about how the district serves gifted students. The story was inspired by this study by Fordham, which found that gifted kids "struggle to maintain their elite performance over the years " and do not improve their reading ability as fast as lower-performing kids. http://www.edexcellence.net/publications-issues/publications/high-flyers.html
Of course, No Child Left Behind has placed much of the emphasis of education on at-risk and lower-performing students, and many say this has come at the expense of higher-achievers. I'm curious about what your experience has been. Feel free to post or give me a call at 415-359-2741. (Email also works. That's acrawford@sfexaminer.com.)
Link didn't work-- sorry about that.
They don't. Not at all.
In elementary school, the mantra is "differentiated instruction," but with no read metrics or explanation of what this means. Some schools do it well, some do not, and even then it varies by teacher.
In middle school, some of the MSs have honors classes of some kind (though the implementation varies across schools) and several do not explicitly because they believe it's bad for social justice. (James Lick, Denman, for example)
I plan to reach out to our school's GATE liaison (or whatever her title was) to see if there is "anything" that my son can participate in this year that will challenge him above-and-beyond what he is already doing. I guess I'm learning the hard way that around here, you have to be your own advocate for things that, might otherwise, happen naturally in a different school district.
Can I ask what school, and what your MS feeder is?
We're in the SE (more or less) so Aptos was the closest of the schools that offer what we wanted for our daughter.
Hoover and Roosevelt were both on the list because of at least realistic commutes (next door neighbors to go Roosevelt), honors program, and orchestra (she plays cello).
Presidio wasn't on my list because we simply could not get her there. I took A.P. Giannini off my list because 1)the place where my daughter would have to change muni buses involved going under an underpass, and 2)no honors until 7th grade.
Personally, I don't mind a large school. Hoover must be close to 1200. Where we came from in NY, there were 10 classes in a grade in ES, so 300ish on the grade, or 900 for the K-2 school, 900 for the 3-5 school, etc. I always felt like the larger schools have more diverse resources, and there was always someone my child felt comfortable with (peer-wise).
Roosevelt still has about 250 kids on a grade, so not really small, just smaller than the others (Aptos, Presidio, Hoover, and Giannini all hover between 1100 and 1200)
I think you should tour both, see what both commutes would look like (either driving or MUNI, whatever works for your family) and then put them in the order you prefer on your list.
When it came time for SFUSD to flex its $60M plus in Tier III categorical funds in 2010 it kept every last penny of the Targeted Instructional Improvement Block Grant (TIIIBG) focused on remedial education to the sum of $36M , but it cut in half of the paltry $300K in the Gifted and Talented Tier III program. That tells you what little emphasis SFUSD puts on high achievement. When SFUSD officials public proclaim that they have no concern about API unless it drops below 800, that's is telling you that they have willingly dropped the ball on excellence.
Principals who want to curry favor with 555 take progressive stances in the hope of landing a job in the Central Office. The progressive stance in this case is anti-tracking. This issue should not be decided at the school level. For a district that defines itself by equity above all, the very idea of schools without honors is a contradiction in terms.
That said, there's no real mechanism to give different, more interesting/challenging assignments to high achievers when you have a class of 32 that spans the spectrum from not understanding/speaking/reading *any* English to a kid who got a perfect score on the language arts STAR test. I don't envy teachers that challenge, and that's why my kid isn't in SFUSD right now. We lost our feeder tie breaker for MS, too, so we'll see where we get placed; if it's in a MS w/o an Honors track, we'll be gone from the District for MS, too.
This Fordham study is a nothingburger.
There are multiple methodological flaws with this study, and in the way it's presented.
The methodology of the study doesn't answer the question "how well are kids identified as gifted early on doing later", instead it answers the question
"does a test administered at Grade 2 have much predictive skill on future achievement," [And the answer is "only moderately," the same as a measurement of the 90th percentile of heights at Grade 2 has only moderate skill on predicting what percentile of height they'll be in at 8th grade.]
Despite the claims of the authors, most of the 'decline' they complain about is just regression-to-the-mean, given that most of the "decliners" went into the 80th-90th percentiles.
The study you quote is a NothingBurger. Using the 90% NWEA score as their norm for "giftedness' means that they're still, largely, grading on a curve. There was actually a slight increase in the number of kids in the study scoring above the 90%tile on the NWEA (because of "late bloomers", which is just a random effect from their sampling.
It would have been more useful to use instead of the NWEA, using the international TIMMS.
Grr. Anyway, it's a shame to see such a large (and expensive) study which answers pretty much zip about gifted kids actual performance, other than to suggest testing for "giftedness" kids too early is going to cause miscategorization.
Sanctions from NCLB aren't imposed if you don't stretch your gifted kids enough.
Even if there were, it'd be difficult to construct good metrics to track how gifted kids are doing. But identifying gifted kids early on is fraught with error (which is what the Fordham study actually finds). If you've only got 50% accuracy in identifying high-flyers early on, then it's hard to determine whether decline in performance of those high-flyers is because of regression to the mean or not challenging them enough.
One interesting item out of the Fordham study: the rate of "high-flyers" in high- and low- poverty schools was within 1-2 percentage points of each other: it was slightly lower in the high-poverty schools, but not by much. Which goes to show you can't keep a bright kid down. It's the ones in the middle and the left tail of the distribution that get impacted.
It might be better to research how well schools are doing with differentiation within a school - not only to help the lowest performers, but also how well they are moving along middle and high performers of all enthnicities.
I have yet to see any discussion of this in any school site councils or within the SFUSD. Certainly NCLB keeps the focus on the lowest performers only.
That said, I do find that when I've asked how a school will challenge my daughter, I've been told things like "don't worry, she'll do fine," or "she'll be well prepared for the next grade."
In SFUSD, there are a large number of elementary schools where <50% of the kids are identified as "proficient." So, by and large the schools focus on those kids -- actually, in my experience, they focus most on the kids who are JUST BARELY UNDER proficient -- improving their skills gives SFUSD the best "bang for the buck" with NCLB.
What I'd like to see throughout SFUSD is truly differentiated instruction, either within acedemically diverse classes (hardest for the teacher) or using "tracking" (highly unpopular with some, and rejected outright by some SFUSD middle schools).
That is an excellent observation. If you look at the API results for Muir, the second grade class which is the largest, actually had a large increase in the number of students in the below and far below basic quintiles compared to the year before, despite having increased a significant number from below proficient to proficient on a schoolwide basis. Conversely, the 5th grade class had a very anomalous 5th grade result with all the students in the below and far below basic categories leaving those groups. That is extremely unusual, particularly at that grade level.
What Gifted Students Need From You
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/11/07/tln_colucci.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/02/MN2N1D26NV.DTL