Have open discussion of GATE
Ann Murray Paige was dead-on in her assessment of how the GATE program affects the “culture” of our schools. In a town that prides itself on equality and inclusivity, the GATE program is anything but inclusive.
GATE has created two classes of student — those who are “special,” and those who “no one expects as much from.” At the junior high level, the “not-so-special” kids lose access to classes and programs because of dropping enrollment on top of the 20 percent lost to GATE.
And then there is the high school GATE program, in the form of 25 different Advanced Placement subject classes. Never mind that the educators at the high school repeatedly have asked the school board to allow them to rein in this program. Never mind that the “quest for a GPA higher than the kid next to me” is turning our kids into automatons. Apparently, the school board knows better.
The GATE program originally was intended for a small number of exceptionally bright, but intellectually and socially problematic students; usually 3 to 5 percent of any student population. These students have difficulties in the standard classroom and GATE was an attempt to keep them from “falling through the cracks.”
The Davis GATE program is 20 percent of the student population and has been able to achieve this size because the school board allows private testing. These are bright children; in fact, they are some of the highest-achieving students in town. But they are not at risk of “falling through the cracks,” they are not learning in a different format and they are not “gifted.”
The school board members are asking us to give more money, and trust them to use it fairly and wisely. But there is nothing fair, wise or fiscally responsible in enrolling 20 percent of the student population in GATE and 50 percent of the students in specialized “choice” programs.
Let’s work on the “fair and wise” part by having an open discussion about GATE, as well as all the “choice” programs.
Wendy Amundsen
Davis
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=139539
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Posted by Letters to the Editor
on Feb 21 2012.
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Do you think that we should eliminate honors classes in the junior and senior high schools? Should we eliminate AP classes at the high school level? Virtually every public and private high school offers AP classes, so it would put our kids at a huge disadvantage when they apply to college not to offer that opportunity.
Do you think that private IQ testing somehow “games the system” and allows kids into the GATE program who are unqualified?
That seems completely false. Individualized IQ testing would be the most accurate way to identify kids who could benefit from a program like the GATE program. It is expensive though- it requires 1 on 1 testing with an educational psychologist who has a PhD, and the tests often run 3-4 hours long. You can get this testing at Sac State for only $75.
Our district uses the OLSAT test because it is cheap and easy to use. It takes maybe 30 minutes to give, and anyone (like a teacher, who does not have a PhD, for example), could give it quickly to a large group. That is why our district uses the OLSAT.
IQ test scores are also accepted because they are normed to large groups of children. It is probably a more accurate assessment of a child’s intellectual ability.
Rather than curtailing the GATE program, we would suggest expanding it. There are obviously alot of parents who are very interested in this program, so why not make it even more available?
Our child has just been GATE-identified. We are excited for him since he is rarely challenged being with a class of whom 1/3 are below grade level and are still struggling to read or learn basic math skills. At some point, we cannot provide him with enough challenging material at home; we need our tax dollars and local school to do that.
Do you think we should eliminate all special programs that our district provides? We don’t have our kids in Spanish Immersion, Montessori; we will not have them in DaVinci, etc. Yet we pay tax dollars into the pot that supports those special programs too.
One assertion that the author makes is false. Gifted children are not diagnosed with social problems at a higher rate than the general population. Actually, there is some evidence that gifted children tend to be healthier and have lower rates of mental. The stereotype that such kids are “socially problematic” is false and is a way parents comfort themselves if their child is not selected for the GATE program.
It is hyperbole to say that GATE students are ‘special’ and ‘nothing is expected’ from all other students. All students in Davis receive an excellent education. All are expected to achieve to their highest potential.
Advanced Placement classes are not a part of the GATE program. They are open to any child who wishes to attempt them. There is only one high school GATE class, English.
That being said, this district does put more resources into supporting AP-type classes than it does in supporting the lower achieving students. At a time where are resources are diminishing class sizes in remedial areas is skyrocketing while the high school still offers 5 different languages at 5 levels. Vocational ed, indeed any program not focused on a UC preparation, is cast by the wayside. It is an elitist focus that harms the students least able to adocate for their education.
You missed the point. GATE was intended for those gifted students who do have social and academic problems…exceptional students who were “at risk”, a very small part of the population. It was never intended to be a “private education on the public dole” for bright students. And your right; bright children do often have lower rates of “mental”…which is why this program was not intended for them. My children opted out of GATE, and your comment about parents of non-GATE identified students only underscores what is wrong with this type of program.
If you read the GATE website, there is no mention that the GATE program is intended for gifted students with social and academic problems. That is something that parents comfort themselves with when their child doesn’t get into the GATE program as in, “well, at least my kid isn’t one of those weirdo GATE kids!”
Gifted (not merely bright) students actually have lower rates of mental illness (the “illness” was deleted earlier) than the general population. Gifted children tend to be healthier than the average. Read about Terman’s study of high-IQ youth from the turn of the century.
The GATE program is an enrichment, accelerated program for kids who have an interest and can handle that type of program. For our GATE-identified, highly-gifted child, we are thrilled that he will have that opportunity since we are tired of seeing him spin his wheels in class while other kids struggle with basic skills that he mastered two years ago.
That could happen also in a private school- the GATE program is not a private school paid for by public school monies.
The GATE program was absolutely started as a federally funded program for “at risk” students who do not learn by the standard methods. Years ago, it was hijacked by a parent community (GATE website). Those “at risk” GATE students exist in our town…they are home schooled or attend Wings in Sacramento, since their program is not available to them. On the other hand, your child will have the same program as all those non GATE kids (except for advancing one year faster in math), except he won’t have any of the slower learners or “problem” kids in his class. What’s not to love about that?
Your right, GATE’s better than private school!
“Gifted (not merely bright) students actually have lower rates of mental illness (the “illness” was deleted earlier) than the general population.”
This is true in general, though it is worth distinguishing among various different types of pysychiatric diseases. For example, people with high IQs have lower rates of schizophrenia than the rest of the population. But with bipolar disorder, the rates of those with high IQ and others are the same.
The reverse of this question is, not suprisingly, also true. People with low IQ are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, severe depression, and other nonaffective psychoses, but not bipolar disorder.
For a review of the NIH findings, see this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15066893?dopt=Abstract
Most public school districts have a gifted program. It is supposed to be some type of enrichment program for gifted children- obviously, each district defines differently how they find these kids and what they offer them. What you are describing is not what the current GATE program (or similar such programs) is about.
There are “slow learners” and “problem kids” in GATE and non-GATE classes. Some GATE kids are good at math and others are not. As has been previously described, it is supposed to be about more project-based learning, a completely different way of learning.
In my son’s current third grade class that I volunteer in, the teacher asked the kids to write a few sentences about their family background. Most of the kids could not formulate basic ideas to write about- either “My family is Greek” or “My family comes from California.” For many of the kids, they wanted me to dictate what they should write their own personal story about. I can only imagine how lost they would be in a GATE program that demands more independent learning than they could produce.
The GATE program is not a project based program; that is what DaVinci is all about, and it is very different than the standard teaching format. GATE uses the standard format, accelerated in math. Your observation about your student’s class is dead-on; there is a huge variation in abilities. Giving the top 20% their own private class is great for them…a serious problem for all those good students who are not in GATE…very “animal farm” like.
No, no, no. Do your homework, people. The GATE program does not use “the standard teaching format, accelerated in math.” It deals with the way gifted students learn: rapidly enough to change the nature of the actual kind of learning their minds are doing. It becomes almost intuitive, but still fact-based because of memory activities (like mnemonics), ability to generalize correctly (and not wildly, like many of the comments in this exchange), build on classroom learning by themselves. Some teachers use different techniques entirely, like mind-mapping. My granddaughter’s teacher started sixth grade by having the class analyze their own individual learning styles and learn how to build on them. Just getting the idea of different learning styles into the regular classroom is a real challenge that could take months. GATE kids found it self-evident. This is what is meant by higher order thinking skills, independent learning, and cooperative learning. Offer a GATE class “the standard teaching format, accelerated in math,” and they’ll ask why the other subjects can’t be accelerated, too.
Rapid learners in the standard classroom have already spent a lot of time sitting on their hands. The example I like, from a California Assn. of the Gifted conference, is that it takes the average student plus or minus 17 exposures to the material to learn long division, but it takes the gifted student two or three exposures to learn the same material. I like this example because I experienced it myself. After a day or two doing long division problems that came out nice and even, I realized that you can’t divide 4 into 17 or 15. I slowly raised my hand. “Now, Lisa,” my teacher said with a smile, “Don’t you worry, we’ll get to that next week!” I figured it out on my own but didn’t know where to put the culprit — the remainder. I continued to sit through the arithmetic lesson for a whole week before official confirmation. I had two classmates who were right there with me, one carving his initials on his desk and the other shooting spitballs; by the end of the day, we were ready to move on from decimals to whatever lay ahead. They ended up at NIH and I worked with gifted kids.
The percentage of rapid learners in my Appalachian town was the standard three per cent. My mother didn’t say, “Oh, how wonderful you are!” She said, “The kids in your class fall asleep in school because they’re anemic, they don’t always have a good breakfast, their hot lunch may be all they get to eat, they aren’t dressed warmly enough, they have to walk to school in the snow with holes in their shoes. Of course you can do better than they can in school.” I started asking my mother for bigger lunches to share with a couple of my second-grade friends. Then she took me to the library. Twice a week.
Wendy, Leslie — In Davis there really is a population of about 20 per cent who qualify as rapid learners. There has been, for decades. No big mystery to it. The tests don’t lie, it’s the population of Davis that is special. Our population is skewed by: the university faculty and staff, the State employees and workers in the capitol, the best and brightest foreign students here for advanced degrees — they all kick that 3 % up, as do the people who come here for the good schools. One year the entire football team came from the gifted program. There is something called a comparison band which compares Davis with other districts. It’s in the Paly High, Menlo-Atherton, Beverly Hills comparison band. High achieving students, high achieving parents. Davis has long held second place in the number of advanced degrees held by our population — in the entire country. Blame the parents!
Ron — What students learn in GATE is not that they are better than everyone else, but that no matter how good a student you are at something, there is always someone better than you at something else. They learn that everyone has something to offer them. (When you’re always the best at everything in a standard classroom, what do you learn?) They do learn to work together on projects; they also learn self- reliance, which is good if you’re reacting to new material as if you’d always known it, and you don’t know why. That’s how fast a rapid learner learns.
We shouldn’t forget that the AP classes can save the parents a lot of money when the students hit college. But learning to cope with the college-level content and expectations is the real benefit. AP teachers are AWARDED these courses and I have never heard them complain about the honor. Considering the amount of debt all but the wealthiest families will bear when their students graduate from college, we should be grateful for our AP program. Other districts have just as many courses and they continue to expand.
If Davis students are being turned into automatons by too much competition, someone needs to take a step back and say, next year maybe. There’s always the one or two with chips on their shoulders; again, blame the parents. Don’t get rid of the counseling office. They do help. GATE students compete civilly because they will have learned to form study groups, to appreciate differences, and to work both together and alone.
Vote Measure C for the whole panoply of choices our school district offers parents and their students.
Has anyone else noticed that only the people who are not afraid to speak out against GATE as also not afraid to leave their full name? Based on this case sample, the anti GATE folks are more brave than the pro GATE folks. Do you think we can get special services from the school district for our bravery?
Couldn’t have said it better myself…i guess “Name (required)” isn’t clear enough.