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Editorial: Nurturing all learners

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Comments (10)

Sunday, September 27, 2009

(Updated 3:00 am)

Are Guilford County's public schools doing right by their very brightest students?

And with so many other concerns to address -- a rising tide of poor students, the racial achievement gap, surging numbers of children who arrive in local classrooms speaking not one syllable of English -- should we even care?

Absolutely we should.

While the school district rightly focuses much of its attention and many of its resources on struggling students, it shouldn't forget what it owes to the academically gifted.

A new report from the Guilford Education Alliance underscores that premise with a blunt warning: "We ignore encouraging our brightest minds at our own peril and with great injustice to these precious children."

Some lessons may come easier to gifted learners, but they still need to be nurtured and challenged by strong curricula and rigorous instruction to achieve their fullest potential.

Otherwise, they too can become disconnected and as prone to perform poorly as any other category of student.

In other words, simply being academically gifted does not guarantee academic success.

The report notes national studies that show that as many as 50 percent of gifted students risk underperforming or even failing. Roughly 20 percent of them drop out.

That's why two of the more successful middle colleges offered by Guilford County Schools -- Early College at Guilford College and Middle College at GTCC -- target bright students who may feel more comfortable in the less traditional surroundings of a college campus. The Academy at Lincoln and the International Baccalaureate Program are other examples of ongoing initiatives in Guilford County Schools that focus on advanced learners.

But more can and should be done. Recent test scores indicate a flattening of results among the highest achievers.

Make no mistake, they are performing well, but they can do even better. And they deserve that chance.

"My child, even reading beyond grade level when she entered school, deserves a year of academic growth as much as any other child," says one parent quoted in the report's executive summary.

The parent is right to expect at least that much from the schools.

The Guilford Education Alliance stresses in its report five recommendations:

l Use available data to monitor the progress of students at all levels.

l Prepare principals and teachers to work "effectively and creatively" with advanced learners.

l Help parents of advanced learners advocate more effectively for their children.

l Make certain that the curriculum meets the needs of advanced students.

l Tap the pool of advanced learners among underserved populations.

There is obvious room for improvement. For instance, among the 11,000 advanced learners in Guilford County's public schools, less than 17 percent are African American and slightly more than 16 percent come from low-income households.

More than 69 percent are white.

The report also notes the social stigmas and peer pressure that can affect high achievers (hence that surprisingly high national dropout rate). Social pressures also likely contribute to the reluctance of some low-income and minority students to enroll in such courses.

Questions also persist about the best ways to nurture and motivate these students.

Is placing them in schools within schools, as is the case with the Academy at Lincoln, the best idea because it groups them with peers who are equally excited about learning?

Or does it hinder their social growth because it isolates them from the general student population?

Some may see increased attention to advanced learners as a threat to efforts to help low achievers.

It shouldn't be.

All students should expect to grow and learn and work to their highest potential in our schools.

All of them.

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lgrimestriad

September 27, 2009 - 8:03 am EDT

Why no mention at all of Brown Summit Middle School as one option? The only option mentioned is a school in a school. Why not talk about the great work being done at Brown Summit where the entire school's focus is on meeting the needs of our brightest students?

jstevenh1952

September 27, 2009 - 10:03 am EDT

Sounds like another ground swell for a Government program on it's way "for the children".

Don't worry our Goverment will rescue us. The One will come down and seek more dollars from the masses and distribute them to programs to benefit us all. MMM....MMM....MMM, the One is great....MMM.....MMM....MMM.

youngprofessional

September 27, 2009 - 10:41 am EDT

What does race or income have to do with being an advanced learner? Doesn't the student qualify based on their performance and testing? The social statics have been well quoted and parced in these articles, but either the student makes the cut or they don't.

Panacea

September 27, 2009 - 11:39 am EDT

That's not the issue. The issue is poor or minority students are not applying--these kids face a lot of pressure from their own communities not to succeed.

A friend of mine used to work for GCS. He tells me that when he asks minority boys what they plan to be when they grow up the answer is always pro football or pro basketball player. When he asks the same question of minority girls, the answer is almost always some sort of professional: doctor, lawyer, busineswoman.

The culture these kids grow up in has to change before we see a rise in minorities in gifted programs.

DaveW

September 28, 2009 - 8:57 am EDT

Some also want to be RAP STARS

ilvteaching

September 27, 2009 - 8:41 pm EDT

Youngprofessional,
I also wondered what in the world race and income had to do with serving the needs on advanced learners in our schools. The fact that there are low numbers of minority and low-income students who qualify as advanced learners is a totally different issue. In fact, in my 20+ years of experience I have found that the more the schools push minorities whose scores aren't quite there into advanced learner programs, the weaker the actual program becomes. They are doing a disservice to the students who actually test into the AL classes AND to the students who are being pushed so hard.

As far as Panacea's comment about minority students not applying, I have no idea what she is talking about. Students qualify for AL services FIRST on test scores (tests which are required) and then have to keep their grades up to stay in.
As for the black athlete comment, what a racist comment based on a stereotype. My minority students are just as varied as my white students. And I teach plenty of white boys who dream of playing pro sports. Give me a break!

mickey

September 27, 2009 - 10:28 pm EDT

Panacea,
According to your reasoning, we should see the appropriate number of minority girls opting into the AL programs. Is this happening?
And this seems like a perfect time to bring this up: OK, 69 persent of the AL students are white (the article does not say what the percentage of white students in the general school population is). And this is always stated as if it is a gross injustice. Suggestions are usually offered to right this injustice. Give black children more help, seek out qualified applicants who have the abilities but have never been nurtured, etc. Now, let's look at athletics. At any given HS, the majority of the basketball players are black. Certainly there are white students who posess the inate ability, as well as the physical attributes necessary to play basketball. Are these white students the victims of social discrimination? Should we not spend tons of money seeking out the white students who may be able to succeed on the basketball courts, if only THEIR families allowed them to hang out on the courts day and night, ignoring their homework, forgoing trips to the library, choosing to practice free throws endlessly? Should white students be given extra help in basketball training? Perhaps we should run summer camps for "disadvantaged" white children whose parents couldn't dribble a ball if their lives depended on it?
Obviously I am being faceteous, but on the other hand, fair is fair.

brian444

September 28, 2009 - 2:46 am EDT

The paper did supply the statistics: whites are 40.4% of the system, blacks 40.8%. (That, incidentally, is a shocking statistic, given that whites outnumber black in the county, I think, about 2:1. Another shocking statistic: nearly half--48.6%--of GCS students are "low income." What would GCS schools look like if the rich, white group flocking to private schools were part of the public system?) It's not clear, though, that there is "room for improvement" in improving the status quo, although I believe that there is (a small amount).

The reason that there's not much room for improvement is that being poor or being black correlates negatively to performance on IQ tests, the primary criterion for AL selection. That fact, needless to say, is capable of being spun several different ways.

The reason there is some room for improvement involves the secondary mechanisms governing AL selection. Take my daughter. On the initial test, she scored high enough to get AL services in all areas offered at her school, but not high enough to qualify for "Very Strong Needs" (97% or above), which would allow her to go to Lincoln. She had, in fact, a cumulative score of 96%. But we had/have a backup: paying for another test (given at UNCG), whose results will be available shortly. If that fails, we can do a "portfolio assessment" involving the IQ test and other materials (including EOGs, where she scored 99% in all areas). In other words, we're putting in the work to make sure she gets the VSN label (which may or may be practically useful, since we may or may not want to send her to Lincoln, and since the school AL services may or may not be limited to VSN students, depending on the budget). And frankly, we'll succeed, since it's in GSC's interests to keep students like my daughter. Another kid in her class, in fact, got VSN through portfolio assessment despite significantly lower scores. Bottom line: there's wiggle room that wealthier, more involved parents can exploit, and that lower-income parents are less likely to. That playing field could potentially be leveled.

Incidentally, the statistic that 20% of gifted students end up dropping out of school is nonsense of the kind only a "study" could provide.

jbcarper

September 28, 2009 - 7:51 am EDT

I am greatly concerned that in too many instances the term 'race' is being used when what we should be looking at is culture. Race is a physical characteristic that we define based on skin pigmentation. A person is born with that skin color based on their parental background. No choice involved.
Culture, on the other hand, is a matter of personal and group choice. If a child is raised in a culture that does not value education, chances are much higher that the child won't value education either. If the culture does not value self discipline and personal responsibility, the child is not likely to develop these character traits. It is the sum of these cultural norms that make up so much of the difference in education achievements.
Thomas Sowell has written a number of books discussing the impact of culture on education, income, and incarceration.

JackK

September 28, 2009 - 11:56 am EDT

Over the years, GCS has been all over the place with AL students. An important distinction, often blurred when including students for AL services, is between basic intelligence and academic skill levels. For many reasons, there are probably many students who have a high level of the former but a low level of the latter--to truly succeed in the AL program, especially VSN, however, a student needs a high level of both. Placing students who admittedly have the brains but not the matching academic skills into AL classes for demographic purposes does a disservice to the students who lacks and the students who already have both. One would think that GCS would actively seek out the "diamonds in the rough" during pre-school or kindergarten and work with them to improve their academic skill levels so that by 3rd grade they would qualify fully for AL services and could shine along with their intellectual and equally skilled peers. That has not been the case, however, except in a hit-or-miss fashion.

Also, the brightest and most skilled of our students do not get what most would feel is a reasonable share of the resources available. In all the discussions of low-performing schools, hand-wringing, even outrage, not once has there been a tally of how much money has been spent over the years for all sorts of programs . . . and to no avail. I'm thinking if GCS spent even 1/10 as much on the strongest students as they do to try--apparently unsuccessfully--to bring up the lowest students, then the AL program would be truly wonderful. NCLB, of course, puts all the focus on a leveling--a mediocrity of sorts--rather than on actually pushing all students from their starting place.

In Guilford County, there seems to be a backlash against both the parents of students in the VSN program as well as the students themselves. Over and over I have heard that nothing much extra needs to be done for those students, for "they will do just fine on the tests anyway." Unfortunately, the "tests" are the state mandated minimal standard EOG and EOC tests, which VSN students do well on even if there's no teacher in the room, but which decidedly do not stretch them as far as they can go. It's as if these students have an unfair advantage that needs taking down a peg or two, or just plain ignored.

Finally, our country is caught up in an "equality" or "equity" in education paroxysm. Of course, educational opportunity should be equal, but achievement will always be personal. No other country might do as well as the US does will all its students, but I guarantee that India, China, Singapore, Korea, Japan and most european countries make absolutely sure that their top 10% get what they need to push/keep their respective countries in the race for top engineers, physicists, medical researchers, etc. We ignore our best and brightest, whether on the county, state, or country level at our own peril.