← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · hqz
Thread ID: 12149 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2004-02-04
2004-02-04 23:11 | User Profile
In Era of Scores, Schools Fight Over Gifted Kids
Ohio's Odd Compromise: You Can Take My Student, But Leave His Tests Behind
By DANIEL GOLDEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Hoping to boost their overall results, schools are squabbling over who gets to claim the test scores of gifted students. In Ohio, the scores of gifted children are credited to their neighborhood schools -- even if they actually attend other schools. Missouri and Iowa have similar approaches, and several other states are considering the idea. In Irvine, Calif., no individual school gets credit for the scores of children in gifted programs. Yielding to complaints from other schools, Irvine last year took the scores away from six schools that have such programs. Now those scores are assigned to the district as a whole.
When the policy took effect with last March's Ohio Proficiency Tests given to fourth and sixth graders, the biggest Youngstown beneficiary was Mrs. Schumann's school, Harding. By including Heidi Wingler and other gifted neighborhood students who had transferred and no longer attended the school, Harding's proportion of proficient fourth-graders in reading rose to 57.4% from 47.9%; and in math to 44.1% from 42.6%
The policy hurt the two elementary schools that house citywide gifted-education programs. At Bennett, where one-eighth of students were in the gifted program, the exclusion of their scores reduced the proportion of fourth-graders proficient in reading from 47.8% to 36.4%, and in math from 20% to 15.9%. Scores also dropped significantly at West, where one-tenth of students were in gifted classes.
Kara Guyer, a sixth-grader at West, won city and county math competitions this year. Her two older brothers and one sister also attended the gifted program.
But Kara's results on the upcoming state tests will be allotted to Kirkmere Elementary -- which she left in 2001, after third grade. "The teachers here teach us all the stuff for the proficiencies," says the 11-year-old daughter of an aluminum-packaging worker. "But the other teachers are getting the credit."
Both schools housing the gifted programs fell short of "No Child Left Behind" milestones. If they miss federal targets again next month, they will have to offer parents the option of transferring their children to a school meeting the benchmarks. Both schools also dropped in the state ratings. Those ratings don't carry extra penalties but affect a school's reputation, as the scores are publicly available and closely watched.
"Oh my God, our building report card looked awful when it came out, with no explanation to parents," says West Principal Sandra Kelty Mislevy. "We looked like we dropped all these points. Everybody's going to flee. It's devastating."
Now that their scores no longer help the school, she says, gifted students aren't as big a priority at West. For instance, she may be less inclined to provide tutoring out of discretionary funds for gifted children who are weak in one particular subject. "I would never want them to be unsuccessful," says Mrs. Mislevy, but "they're not a group I focus on."
Imus on Bushy: "He should have been left behind."