agreed.

glad to hear you were considered gifted, annie. personally, i'm down with OPP. anyway, it's too bad that in those programs they didn't teach you that you should explain an acronym before you use it.

Ahh, the soft bigorty of lowered expectations.

@2: Sorry. I believe that IPP meant Individualized Progress Program. APP means Accelerated Progress Program, and its curriculum is supposed to be about 2 years ahead of the regular program. ALP means Advanced Learner Program, and also includes Spectrum and ALO, or Advanced Learning Opportunities.

Please, keep paying University of Virginia researchers to find things like that... I'm sure some of that money trickles into the general revenue of the school, and that helps pay for my legal education.

Keep it up, Seattle!

Wait, I'm not following your argument.

Surely you're not saying that commendations should be based on a person's skin color -- praise only if you're dark, criticism if you're light -- right? I mean, that's racist, isn't it?

Commendations should be offered to any people (even white ones!) who are committed to addressing diversity issues. Of course, the fact that their commitment seems to have been insufficient does -- if I may use this term -- color things.

Meh... the gifted programs at my elementary schools over in Bellevue (one of which was something like 55% ESL) were all about Mensa puzzles, day in and day out. I vastly preferred my normal classroom, where at least I had plenty of time to read in the corner.

The Time piece paints something of a different picture:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004050142_app04m.html

'But according to the report, APP is perceived to be "elitist, exclusionary and even racist," and that some of its African-American students are bullied and isolated.'

'The report also raised concern about student selection, saying admission to the program relies too much on a single test and is unfair to low-income students and students without parental support.'

I'd add to this that I've heard people talk about paying for independent *second tests* that gaurantee admission.

Lowell is simply a publicly subsidized private school for the well-off. It should be closed. It's a misuse of public education funds.

Ah, here we go. What is the point of this post? Are programs fine the way they are? The article’s and the study's main point was about class and how the poor are left out of these programs. Yes, it mentioned that the majority of APP students are white, but the main focus of the study was class, something that is usually left out of the discussion. It makes a valid point on race and class. Jonathan Kozol has been making this argument for years and nobody has listened. Perhaps any idiot can see that, highly doubtful, but the fact remains they (every school district in the nation) have not done a thing about it, and you have still have tracks in the educational system. Yall can simplify it all you want, but unless it is fixed, you will only deepen class divisions for future generations. I for one would like to see the achievement gap reduced and would like to see poor children given a chance in gifted programs. If it takes a goofy study to wake them up so be it.

What it means is that the researchers failed to properly proofread their document. Any idiot with eyes can tell that this section should be titled "Recommendations."

Hear! Hear!

from #8: "I'd add to this that I've heard people talk about paying for independent *second tests* that guarantee admission."

I've heard this too.

@12:
What are you implying??????

I firmly believe that the program should exist, however it should not be a "safe haven" for well-to-do children whose parents had enough cash to provide them with the necessary skills to do well on the test to begin with. Test them every year then! IF they can't keep up, kick them out! If you want to make it exclusive, make it exclusive...based on natural ability and true "highly capable-ness" not who your parents are (my son is in the same class with an ex-govenor's kid.)If we didn't have this program, my son would be bored out of his mind in public school. But, it shouldn't be a place for just the wealthy.

max, you make my brain hurt!

@7: That's why I support "full-time gifted programs." Pullout programs like the one you experienced are almost always ridiculous.

The "commendation" was commending the "stakeholders" (parents, teachers, students) for recognizing that there was a lack of diversity and for actively taking steps to improve the situation. These steps haven't worked, obviously, which the report brings up as a problem. However, this isn't just a case of outsiders pointing out a problem -- the "stakeholders" (who are probably majority upper/middle-class caucasian) know it's a problem, and they should be commended for not having their heads completely up their asses.

I'm against No Child Left Behind for several reasons, but one of the problems is that schools are compelled to devote most of their efforts to increasing the test scores of the kids who aren't passing the WASL. Well, this isn't necessarily such a bad thing in itself, but a downside is that the kids who are at the "higher" end - whether or not those kids would qualify for APP or not - are being ignored. These are the future leaders (and writers and artists and whatever) of America, and it is important that schools have program - like APP - to serve them. Otherwise those who can will go to private schools, and those who can't will suffer.

@8

My son has been in the APP program since second grade. I agree that the population of the program is skewed towards the well-to-do. I agree with Max @14 that there should be rigorous testing. I also believe that there should be more inclusive ways of identifying potential APP students early on in the school process. As for private testing--who cares--they can either handle the program or they can't.

But it is just a feel good sound bite to blame APP for the failings of the school district as a whole. Gifted programs are federally required and much of the funding is provided by the feds. These programs help keep kids in the public school system--that is a good thing. Seattle Schools have been losing kids to private schools and other districts at a rapid rate. We do not want a school system only populated by the poor. This affects the public support for better schools.

My son is at Washington now and will likely attend Garfield. Despite an unfortunate separation between the APP and general population, he will still be part of a diverse school environment. We place a high value on a public school education. But at the same time it is very important that we try to give our kids the best education they can get in the public school system. Parents all over the district shop schools and apply to alternative or K-8 programs to try to find the best place for their children. The district must allow this to retain students.

The real problem is chronic underfunding of our schools by the state and a lack of recognition that schools with multiple languages and less affluence need more funding per student than most North end schools. We need to make all of our schools better to reduce the achievement gap.

You know what I remember about IPP when I was going to Garfield in the '80s? Massively, disproportionately Jewish. I mean, Jews make up about what, 3% of the population of the city? They made up easily 20% of the IPP classes at Garfield when I was there. But somehow I think the headline, "APP Classes Disproportionately Jewish" (or Asian) wouldn't play as well.

saying admission to the program relies too much on a single test and is unfair to low-income students and students without parental support.

I guess. I was raised on welfare by a single parent who was never around, and I nailed those tests in elementary school and middle school. Though guess I should also mention that I found the IPP students in elementary school so insufferably arrogant and classist that, rather than stay in IPP stream in middle school, I just skipped middle school altogether and started high school early.

Judah, My son had an especially hard time making friends because of that as well. He wants to skip all of it and just go to college.

@17
I guess that's why a substantial portion of these APP/IPP parents lobby the district to block identical programs or similar programs in the South End or West Seattle whenever proposed. OR expansion. OR academically challenging programs with open enrollment.

ONE of the major issues with the Seattle School District is that enriching programs with anything beyond "teaching to the test" are treated as a precious commodity for an elite. Only children lucky enough to have parents with enough moxie or connections get real arts, science, or academic preparation. The district gets away with this, in part because for over 30 years, APP/IPP parent groups were always in the forefront of promoting this view. They never worked with other group to improve education beyond protecting their precious fiefdom.

Reading these comments, I'm starting to get the impression that Seattle's APP program works a lot like the one I went through (or didn't, most of the time) growing up. Early in elementary school, powers-that-be would shove all the rich kids almost AUTOMATICALLY in the gifted program, and tell the poorer kids (like me) that there's nothing wrong with being slow or stupid. Then, in sixth grade, a handful of the poor kids, myself included, we shuffled into an office and told that they'd suddenly realized we were gifted, and kicked a few of the dumber rich kids (who were by now beyond help, since they obviously had learning disabilities that hadn't been attended to) out to make room for us. Then, in 8th and 9th grade, they did the same thing again - took some of the best performing poor kids and stuck them in the gifted program, kicking a few rich kids out again.

Thus, our gifted program ended up being split between rich kids who had to meet relatively low criteria early in elementary school, and poorer kids who were kept out of gifted programs for being poor early on, and then shoved in unceremoniously later when we began outperforming our gifted peers. Diversity in the program lacked as a result - the rich kids were mostly white, while the poor kids were split between white and non-white kids. We ended up with a skewed racial make-up of the gifted program, and no effort to reach out to poor or minority students.

In the end, it still helped me: I got to go to college and graduate school. But, I met dozens and dozens of poor, non-gifted students who were much smarter than me, and were left behind.

What is the point of a gifted program that isn't elitist? I know elitism is a bad word, but is it not exactly what is meant by segregating the smartest kids and giving them a better education?

I mean, the best colleges are called "elite schools" because that is exactly what they are: the best students doing the most challenging work.

Isn't that the good kind of elitism?

Why does this not seem like rocket science to me?

Base initial participation on multiple data points (multiple tests or grades over multiple years).

Continue to monitor performance annually so kids can be put in or taken out of the program as performance dictates.

If you really want to ensure diversity, maybe have some sort of program for "borderline" kids to help minority students who perform just below the cutoff.

Making sure the kids (and/or teachers) in the program don't behave in a racist or classist way is, of course, more difficult. But, it seems like ensuring fair participation shouldn't be that hard.

@24: Elitism has no place in a publicly-funded institution. There is nothing wrong with it being exclusive (for example they get there federal funding based only on the fact that all the children in the program must score in the 98th percentile or above on the ITBS.) What me and my co-horts are complaining about is that elitism (or snobbery, what have you) is what is killing a good program. You cannot tell me that only upper and middle class white kids are smart in this town. Gifted...or highly capable is a true nature vs. nurture. An average kid with great opportunity can pass a test, but a truly gifted kid can come out of squalor and academically kick all their asses if given those same opportunities.
Don't be ignorant.

Huh. I was in a gifted program in which we spent Wednesdays in a special room with different programming in elementary school, and in which we had on particular class per day in middle school. There was one class you could take for one year in high school. While we were part of that, my fellows in the gifted program, learned, grew, and fulfilled our potential. After it was over, and there were no programs left for us, we all started doing drugs.

To this day, I'm pissed that my best friend applied his aptitude for biology and chemistry to figuring out ways to increase his high and make purer meth instead of receiving the type of education that would have him making good money developing new medications.

So in that respect, Seattle's at least got one thing going for it.

My daughter is in 2nd grade and is enrolled in the APP program at Lowell. She is part native american. Our family is enrolled in the free lunch program and is considered 'low income'.

The problem, it seems to me, is more with how children test into the APP program. We received no information about APP testing from her school, her principal OR her 1st grade teacher. We were informed of the testing by another parent. That parent was college educated, drove an SUV and certainly was not on the free lunch program.

After our daughter tested into the program both her principal and teacher poo-poo'd Lowell and vigorously tried to persuade us to keep our daughter at Alki -- maybe to raise the school's scoring average?

I personally feel the APP program would be much more diverse if it's acceptance testing were given more emphasis in the public school system, thus allowing everyone to know the testing is there and available to all.

Wow, @28... sorry to hear that is going on. I guess I forgot a few things in my "this isn't rocket science" post - tell people about the testing and encourage kids who pass to actually enter the program. This really seems like common sense to me - what the hell is the problem with these people?

@29 I had to find the information on the website and then send in my son's test scores. Because we moved from Everett, I was poo-poo'd and told that my son would probably not be admitted into Lowell that year. They got his test scores and recommendations and, well, had to let him in. It is way elitist. My son's teacher last year proudly asserted that she had an exclusive private school education (but personally I thought she was a dumb-ass!)

Some of my best friends, though, would not have passed those tests -- and I definitely benefitted academically from being around those guys! For instance, one had serious learning disabilities but was a creative genius. We spent hours creating radio shows, drawing comics, and collaborating on stories... There's something to keeping "gifted" kids around "ungifted" kids for SOME of the day, at least, for social but also for educational purposes. (This in reference to Annie's distinction between full-time and part-time gifted programs)

For some reason there was only a gifted program in the 2nd grade in the small town I grew up in (and all I remember about it was playing 20 questions -- for real). We did have honors math starting in the 4th grade and reading starting in the 3rd grade, so that was something at least.

Maybe I'm so astonished by the mismanagement people have described here because in my town, one person could look at all the kids' scores (probably just from the regular-old achievement test) and take the top ten kids or something. Obviously, in a city like Seattle, someone actually has to manage the program and make sure it is being effectively administered.

Gifted...or highly capable is a true nature vs. nurture. An average kid with great opportunity can pass a test, but a truly gifted kid can come out of squalor and academically kick all their asses if given those same opportunities.

Okay. So the question is how do we provide those opportunities to poor kids. One way not to do that is to admit them into advanced programs if they don't have the background for it. Offering excellent education to very young kids is a good place to start, but early childhood development can be crucial to a kid's future success in school. ECD is entirely in the hands of the parents.

I also fail to see how a lack of political will to offer better education to everyone is a result of elitism and snobbery. Laziness and a tax-phobic public are overwhelmingly to blame, not evil rich people who lose sleep over the thought of poor kids doing well.

I think it is a sadly ironic commentary on our educational system that words like "elitist" and "racist" and "classist" are treated like they mean the same thing.

It's a problem if you exclude people based on race or class. But to stratify students based on talent and ability is in fact elitist. If you want a system that pretends every student is just as capable as the next, you will only create an institution that is not taken seriously by anybody.

@33. You are right. It comes down to the parents. Throwing money at the problem won't make it go away either.
@32 Let me guess...it was an all-white or nearly all white community. Standardized tests are racially biased and are not a good way to judge intelligence for all.

"If you want a system that pretends every student is just as capable as the next, you will only create an institution that is not taken seriously by anybody."

Cosign. No need to pretend that we're all the same, because we're not. Smart kids are smart, stupid kids are stupid. But I think it's important to keep classrooms integrated -- separating out the "gifted," the "colored," or what-have-you results in pretty damn boring classrooms.

@35. Not surprisingly, it was a nearly all-white community. Though, every minority kid I can think of was in the gifted or honors programs. Probably reflects the fact that in my hometown class and race were not as closely tied as they are in other parts of the country.

I'm not sure I believe that standardized tests are racially biased. I would buy that they are classist -- i.e., they favor kids who have had intensive parental involvement in their early childhood education (which tends to be upper class kids)... but so does, well, school. I think standardized tests reflect the fact that lower class kids (which, in this country is obviously tied to race) as a whole are disadvantged. But, there's nothing about the tests that says that someone is going to do better or worse because of their skin color.

I tend to agree with folks that if you solve the early childhood problem, lots of these issues improve on their own. But... good luck with that.

I have to strongly disagree with Katelyn @37. Intelligence in innate to a certain extent, but there are a lot more factors that determine your future. There was a fascinating article in the NYT Magazine last year about how telling kids they're "so smart" all the time can hurt them, because they have this expectation that they should be good at everything, so when they come up against something challenging, they shut down. Likewise, telling kid they're dumb (either in words or by tracking them into a "regular" program) is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I benefited greatly from honors programs, but there were a lot of kids who then lost out on being around the most motivated, hard working, and intelligent kids in school. They lost out because they weren't expected to be that great, they were the "dumb" kids. I'm going back to school to be a teacher, and I have extremely conflicted feelings about tracking kids.

I am hoping to be able to set up my classroom to benefit different kids intelligence and energy levels, as well as capitalize on different their strengths. Rafe Esquith's book, "Teach Like Your Hair Is on Fire," was really inspiring for expecting excellence from all students, rather than just making assumptions about them.

Exelizabeth, that was the point of my comment -- don't separate out the geniuses.

Katelyn (and exelizabeth),

I like your sentiment, but think it works better in theory than in practice.

I was in school outside Seattle before gifted programs really got off the ground. I read better than my peers, wrote better, juggled big numbers in my head, and spent a lot of time with my head buried in books about astronomy and science.

I was rewarded by my peers for my precociousness with alienation, insults, spitting, and having the holy shit beaten out of me on the playground about once a month. Back in the 70s, the teachers felt that built character.

Several more years of variations like that and I didn't want to be anywhere near school ever again. I left at 16 with a bad attitude that took years to get over.

I would have literally given up irreplaceable parts of my anatomy to go to a school like Lowell.

My daughter is at Lowell. No, the APP program isn't perfect. It is too white, it is too middle/upper-middle class, all of that is true. Most of what goes on though is so freaking cool. My daughter loves being in school, and is near tears if we say she might have to take a sick day.

I just say a little prayer every day that it lasts until she finishes in 10 years or so.