Our family, like yours, moved here because we wanted to be in a community which, among other things, placed a high value on our children’s education. I didn’t look into whether there was a GATE program or not, or whether my kids would be eligible, because I assumed all Davis children receive an excellent education. From your editorial and comments, I am learning that, in fact, all students (GATE or not), are doing well and have wonderful opportunities for honors classes, etc. (Other articles suggest there is still an achievement gap here, but that doesn’t seem to be the current concern)

Since, as you’ve argued, non-GATE students do as well as GATE students and, as others pointed out, the GATE program does not cost the district extra monies, what, then, is wrong with keeping the program?

It seems the biggest issue you have with GATE is that it supposedly makes non-GATE students feel inferior. But nothing you have written suggests it is the GATE kids or their parents who do or say anything to make your child feel embarrassed. Your only example of this uncomfortable division of GATE vs. non-GATE comprises of passive-aggressive questioning by parents like you “now a little tired of the charade,” who ask the parent of a GATE student if their kid’s excited about going to Emerson. In that case, you are the one who is forcing that parent to make the distinction between GATE offerings in jr. high. You are the one who is making it ugly.

In fact, if the non-GATE kids’ self-esteem is lowered by not being in GATE, it apparently is not affecting them academically because, as you’ve already pointed out, they do just as well on AP’s, SAT’s, extracurriculars, etc. This leads me to think it’s parents like you whose egos are most hurt by the exodus of GATE kids in the 4th grade, not your kids.

You also contend that because GATE students don’t do any better than non-GATE students in later years, separating them does not save the GATE child from academic boredom. However, I don’t think the goal of GATE is to push the GATE students to have better academic outcomes than the non-GATE students. It is to keep them engaged in the classroom where their academic needs were unmet in a regular classroom. (In fact, if the statistics showed GATE children did better in later years, I imagine the argument would be that non-GATE students didn’t do as well because they weren’t given the same opportunities as GATE students and, so, GATE should be eliminated).

Which leads me to what I think is your one potentially viable anti-GATE argument: GATE should only be available to those students who are not sufficiently challenged in a regular classroom. Your editorial assumes the current testing models (and the cut-off percentiles used by the district) do not actually capture this group of students. And then you state that “[m]ost of the kids who enter GATE were not even necessarily bored or feeling under-challenged in their classes.” How can you possibly know this?

I don’t pretend to know how the current OLSAT and other tests came to be used as the standard, but many of the students I’ve seen leave for GATE in 4th grade were hard to keep engaged in class because the teacher spent much of the time working with kids struggling with the work and couldn’t differentiate the curriculum enough to engage all the kids (my observation from volunteering in class). I don’t know how pervasive the private exam tutoring and re-testing you refer to is, so perhaps it would be helpful to get that data from the district and re-examine policies relating to private testing. The district itself re-tests some students with certain risk factors and others whose scores fall within the standard error of measure in an effort to ensure all students who would be best served in GATE are identified.

Certainly, the current testing system will capture some high-scoring students who are sufficiently challenged in the classroom, but that is not a reason to eliminate the program altogether. If there is a better system for identifying GATE students, I suggest that be the focus of your and our community’s push for change.

I have to tell you, I have received about a dozen grateful comments, e-mails, FB messages and Enterprise posts. Anyway, here are my responses to your specific points:

(1) If GATE doesn’t cost more, then just ONE of my concerns is unwarranted.

(2) I’m not sure “equity” accurately describes a situation where the so-called “cream of the crop” is, for the most part, NO MORE SUCCESSFUL in school than kids who are supposedly NON-GIFTED and who went through the REGULAR PROGRAM program without all the bells, whistles and privileges of GATE. Sheesh, you actually prove my point here! The stated purpose of GATE is to prevent boredom among the most intellectually gifted kids, because the regular program is supposedly INSUFFIENTLY CHALLENGING for them. And, yet, despite the District’s best efforts to create a program in which they can maximize their talents, the majority of GATE kids do not academically distinguish themselves from their non-GATE “honors” peers.

(3) The “shame” to which I refer is what the culture in this town imposes. Imagine, my 8 (9?) year-old daughter was embarassed about not getting into GATE. That feeling did NOT come from her parents, who told her from the start that it was meaningless. But the GATE reverence in this town is so pervasive that it is impossible for parents to escape the initial (illogical) sense of stigma when the kids part company in fourth grade (sorry about the mistake on grade level – it was a long time ago for me!)

(4) Not that it matters, but I inquired from out of state about GATE eligibility because I had heard Davis had a “good” program for gifted and talented kids. Didn’t really know anything else.