<$BlogRSDUrl$>

My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2008-03-14

Sometimes We're So Stupid I Could Just Scream, part II 

Back in August I wrote about this stupidity:

To help increase opportunities for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds, Miami- Dade County public schools last year began testing all 23,000 first-graders using a culture-neutral, language-free assessment that requires no reading, writing or speaking.

I guess somebody in Denver Public Schools saw this story, also; the difference is that they actually thought something like this was a GOOD idea.

More minority and poor students in Denver are being classified as highly gifted under a new system that gives extra credit to children who are economically disadvantaged or nonnative English speakers.

The "surprising" result?

. . . a student who scores as low as the 75th percentile on cognitive tests could be considered, Howard said. Previously, that child would not have been admitted.

What was that line from "The Incredibles"? When everybody is super, then NOBODY is super?
Clearly that's what DPS is going for here, though accidentally.

Here's a thought: if we want racial equity in the gifted program, simply set the percentage in the program based on the percentages in the school general population, then test everyone in the same old way, and simply skim off the right nombers to make it work.

OH, NO . . . .WAIT!! Then you will get gifted classes where, in some cases, the "gifts" of the minorities are more than one standard deviation down from the "gifts" of the whites. Believe me, when you're talking about something like this, the students know when there's a dsignificant difference like that.

Here's whay I don't understand: WHY don't minority activists become troubled and offended that every time they want more equitable distribution, the only way they can achieve it is by lowering the standards? To my mind, stop getting mad at the results, and start getting mad at the system that produces those results!! DEMAND that the school system alter its way of doing business to produce better results for you. And stop giving reflexive support to the forces of inertia within the system, like the unions and their political stooges, and start supporting people who are trying to do things differently and getting results.

Hat tip to Denise for bringing this to my attention; and big Kudos to KDeRosa for doing the really hard work on this story.
Posted by: Michael / 3/14/2008 12:27:00 AM

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?