Dr. Monty's N.Y. Times comments on Gifted and Talented Program

Please see original article here.

12:45 p.m. | April 15th, 2008

Parents have been living with both a sense of rage and hopelessness after witnessing the demise of G&T programs that have served their communities well over the past decade. The upping the bar to the top 95% was absurd, as seen by the dismal results which finally caused the COE to lower the bar to 90%. Even educators who gave the test had no idea which was the correct answer for some of the questions. Furthermore, the pre K children who attended pre K public school were tested at their home schools in a familiar setting with familiar teachers. The pre K kids in private schools were dragged into unknown schools. Would not this dynamic affect their scores on tests ?Additionally, some of the changes are absurd. For example, last year, my four year old was precluded from taking the gifted test in District 21 despite the fact that District 22, where we live, has no pre - K gifted programs and despite the fact that her older sister attends a gifted program in District 21. Yet, we were allowed to have her attend a regular pre K class in the same school as her sibling. So what was the rationale of that rule? End result - she continued at ther private pre -K School. This year, we are scampering to find alternatives given the 95% cutoff and now 90% cutoff and the June notification date.

I want to keep my daughters in the public school but want their needs to be met in an accelerated program. Is this elitist? I think not. Of course, all the policy makers in the city have never sent their kids to public school and use their connections to get their children into the toniest private schools which lead to Harvard. If the City wants to keep the middle and working classes in the city they should leave well enought alone with the gifted program.s The problem is not with the gifted programs that have worked over the years. The way to fix it was to add new gifted programs to the districts that did not have the

— Posted by Dr. Monty N. Weinstein