Those charged with planning and administering education programs tend to specialize. Not at the superintendent level, mind you, (It's always been unclear to me exactly what it is that they do!)but as soon as a question is taken up by a Central Office administrator, a program specialist, a curriculum coordinator, a principal, etc., specialization is a 'hammer' that makes every student appear to be some variety of nail. Those charged with planning for the education of the Talented and Gifted are no different. And for each specialty area, a lexicon that excludes the uninitiated and lends significant powers of obfuscation to the insiders.
Those charged with planning and administering education programs tend to specialize. Not at the superintendent level, mind you, (It's always been unclear to me exactly what it is that they do!)but as soon as a question is taken up by a Central Office administrator, a program specialist, a curriculum coordinator, a principal, etc., specialization is a 'hammer' that makes every student appear to be some variety of nail. Those charged with planning for the education of the Talented and Gifted are no different. And for each specialty area, a lexicon that excludes the uninitiated and lends significant powers of obfuscation to the insiders.
Words are powerful. Labeling is one of the most powerful applications of the efficacy of words. Labeling students "Talented and Gifted" creates a group that has the same ontological status as "Learning Disabled", "English Language Learner", "At-Risk Student", "Economically Disadvantaged", "Autistic". It is a rare moment in which any of us has the self-discipline to hear these labels and not lapse into the analytical equivalent of a coma. While in a coma, we seldom do our best thinking. We let stereotypes think for us. We fall into assembly-line compliance with muddled public policies, unable to imagine better possibilities. We believe the labels, live with the obfuscation, and take comfort in compliance.
Budgets are tight, which puts the emphasis on bare compliance and causes us to focus on how much of what has never really worked we can no longer afford to do. We depend on our specialists.
And who are our specialists in this case? There are no endorsements in Talented and Gifted Education. There are courses to take, though none are required as part of a regular teacher education program. There are manuals on the identification of Talented and Gifted students, and of course there are dozens (hundreds?) of books on the topic. Education never suffers from a shortage of 'how to' books. So what is it that our Specialists know? Nothing to write home about. Mostly strategies for attempting to mitigate against the worst effects of grade leveling and Standards Based Education...strategies that should be employed for all students and not just the most able. They often express a therapeutic outlook regarding TAG students, focusing on their unique emotional 'needs' (because being really young charges. They like camps and retreats, as though Giftedness was some sort of religious orientation lived out in lengthy stretches of drudgery punctuated by the occasional mountain-top experience.
Better education for our most able students (call them TAG if you want, but watch out for that coma!) isn't complicated, and it isn't expensive. It's only hard. The secret? Really good teachers, well supported, unimpeded by administrators and specialists. In short, they need talented and gifted teachers.
A good teacher can learn everything that can be reliably claimed about educating exceptionally bright children in two or three days. There are no magic methods, no sure-fire techniques. There is only the attribute of judgment, the quality of insight, the passion for achievement...all things that cannot be taught but must rather be found, recruited, supported, retained. Teachers either possess these qualities or they do not. The education of our most able students depends entirely on this. That's the simple, hard fact of the matter.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Talented and Gifted in Oregon
Talented and Gifted Education in Oregon exhibits most of the qualities of an unsubstantiated rumor. Having worked in education in Oregon for 12 years, and having worked extensively with students who were identified as TAG, I can find no evidence of a statewide philosophy, strategy, program or practice. Sure, there are laws, offices, reports and even an employee at the state level. Occasionally there are meetings. But for that intellectually gifted child who is laboring through life in a school that fails to recognize his ability, the law, the meetings, the memos...all are distant non-realities. For those whose abilities are recognized, the outlook isn't much better.
According to recent Oregonian articles, some wealthy area school districts identify over 25% of their students as Talented and Gifted, while some poorer district identify less than 1%. Where is the Oregon Department of Education while this state of affairs persists? Impossible to say.
The core dilemma regarding Talented and Gifted education may be this: Schools and districts employ a TAG delivery model that is a gross caricature of Special Education law, but the absurd excesses of Special Education are only sustainable by means of the force of federal law and hundreds of millions of federal dollars. Minus these extravagant supports, conceptualizing TAG education in terms of a Special Education paradigm is utterly ineffective.
But that's just the dilemma. The big problem? A failure of imagination. The fact of the matter is that 90% of students who are identified as Talented and Gifted (like 90% of the students identified as Learning Disabled) can be fully and appropriately educated in the regular classroom.
When I say the 'regular classroom', of course I don't mean the typical classroom. The 'typical classroom' has, after all, been shaped by decades of crippling assumptions that make every non-average child the responsibility of a specialist. The end result? Upwards of 13% of Oregon students are identified as Special Education, and 8% are Talented and Gifted, leaving only 80% of our students in the regular program.
But here's the kicker. Oregon (and most of the nation) has bought into Standards Based Education, which means that only about 30% of the regular classroom students are well served.
So to sum up: 15% of our students are Special Education, 8% are Talented and Gifted (though the proportions of both vary, predictably enough, by socio-economic status from place to place), 30% of our students are reasonably well-served in the regular classroom, leaving nearly half with no hope whatsoever. What's the dropout rate in our largest systems? Nearly 50%. What percentage of students fail to meet the 10th grade math assessments? Nearly 50%. What proportion of students don't even bother to take the SAT's? Nearly half.
The Standards Movement is bad for Talented and Gifted students. It relegates them the the inadequate services of an undereducated, under-funded TAG coordinator. It is the same for Special Needs students, except that the SPED Coordinator is well funded. It is bad for most of the other 80% because they are either already beyond the grade level standards or they are incapable of accessing the standardized instruction for their grade level. Those few students whose needs are well met in the current configuration are the beneficiaries of dumb luck. They happen to be ready and able to access the grade level materials delivered in a standardized package. The Talented and Gifted students, meanwhile, blow through the State Assessments. This should not be mistaken for a sign of them being well served. TAG kids simply 'pad' our passing rates.
What should we do differently? Almost everything. Literally. No joke. Everything from the first bell to the end of the day in every school building in the state.
According to recent Oregonian articles, some wealthy area school districts identify over 25% of their students as Talented and Gifted, while some poorer district identify less than 1%. Where is the Oregon Department of Education while this state of affairs persists? Impossible to say.
The core dilemma regarding Talented and Gifted education may be this: Schools and districts employ a TAG delivery model that is a gross caricature of Special Education law, but the absurd excesses of Special Education are only sustainable by means of the force of federal law and hundreds of millions of federal dollars. Minus these extravagant supports, conceptualizing TAG education in terms of a Special Education paradigm is utterly ineffective.
But that's just the dilemma. The big problem? A failure of imagination. The fact of the matter is that 90% of students who are identified as Talented and Gifted (like 90% of the students identified as Learning Disabled) can be fully and appropriately educated in the regular classroom.
When I say the 'regular classroom', of course I don't mean the typical classroom. The 'typical classroom' has, after all, been shaped by decades of crippling assumptions that make every non-average child the responsibility of a specialist. The end result? Upwards of 13% of Oregon students are identified as Special Education, and 8% are Talented and Gifted, leaving only 80% of our students in the regular program.
But here's the kicker. Oregon (and most of the nation) has bought into Standards Based Education, which means that only about 30% of the regular classroom students are well served.
So to sum up: 15% of our students are Special Education, 8% are Talented and Gifted (though the proportions of both vary, predictably enough, by socio-economic status from place to place), 30% of our students are reasonably well-served in the regular classroom, leaving nearly half with no hope whatsoever. What's the dropout rate in our largest systems? Nearly 50%. What percentage of students fail to meet the 10th grade math assessments? Nearly 50%. What proportion of students don't even bother to take the SAT's? Nearly half.
The Standards Movement is bad for Talented and Gifted students. It relegates them the the inadequate services of an undereducated, under-funded TAG coordinator. It is the same for Special Needs students, except that the SPED Coordinator is well funded. It is bad for most of the other 80% because they are either already beyond the grade level standards or they are incapable of accessing the standardized instruction for their grade level. Those few students whose needs are well met in the current configuration are the beneficiaries of dumb luck. They happen to be ready and able to access the grade level materials delivered in a standardized package. The Talented and Gifted students, meanwhile, blow through the State Assessments. This should not be mistaken for a sign of them being well served. TAG kids simply 'pad' our passing rates.
What should we do differently? Almost everything. Literally. No joke. Everything from the first bell to the end of the day in every school building in the state.
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