Davis

ItÕs that time of year again when the Davis School District gives all the third-graders a 45-minute standardized test to determine their innate ability (not what they know) and puts those students who score the magic number of 96 on a list of gifted and talented students. (I donÕt know how talented got in there. How do you test for talent?)

Their parents can choose to send these students to one of four GATE fourth-grade classes next year, if there is room. These students can continue in this select group through ninth grade.

To make matters even more interesting, parents of the not gifted and talented group can take their children to a psychologist and have them tested privately, one on one, in hopes of getting them re-labeled. As reported in The Enterprise, about 30 percent of the Asian-American students, about the same percentage of white students and 12 percent of Latinos entered into the program that way last year.

Yikes! Is the 45-minute school district test faulty in determining the innate ability of all the students? That must be so if a large percentage do better being privately tested. DoesnÕt it follow, therefore, that all third-graders should be individually tested? This is very serious labeling with long-term repercussions. If the district must label, it needs to be more careful about it. This is a heavy judgment to make about an 8-year-old. Until now, 22 percent of the students above third grade become Ògifted and talentedÓ and the rest are told, sorry you are not.

I am concerned about the effect all of this has on the students as they live with their labels. Why does the district have this GATE program? Why are these students pulled out of regular classes? Here it is: These students deserve differentiated and enriched learning experiences. DoesnÕt everybody?

Barbara Neu

Davis

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