The Tacoma School District should end its heavy reliance on test scores to determine which students are admitted to gifted education programs, a consultant recommends.
She suggests several reforms to reach highly capable students, including striving for more racial and socioeconomic diversity.
“The philosophy and definition of giftedness in Tacoma does not reflect current developments in the field of gifted education,” Carolyn Callahan, an expert from the University of Virginia, wrote in a report to the School Board. “Further, decisions about program focus and direction have wandered over the past decade.”
Callahan completed a critical evaluation of programs for gifted and highly capable students in Tacoma elementary and middle schools and presented it to the School Board on May 13. The study cost the school district an estimated $20,000.
The board accepted Callahan’s recommendations and pledged to monitor district progress on achieving them.
In her report, she recommends major changes for Tacoma, including:
• New definitions of giftedness.
• New ways of looking at curriculum and increasing advanced content for students in gifted programs.
• New leadership.
The school district has already acted on one recommendation. Connie Wick, currently principal at Sherman Elementary School, will take charge of Tacoma’s gifted programs and efforts to remake them beginning July 1.
Previously, the programs fell under the district director of curriculum and instruction.
Gifted education will be Wick’s only assignment.
Wick, with 36 years of experience as an educator in Washington, served for three years as director of the highly capable program in the Oroville School District in Eastern Washington.
“I have already begun researching best practices in gifted education and in the United States and will work to implement them in Tacoma,” Wick said. “My initial focus will be on forming an advisory committee to help lead the work that we have to do.”
FUNDS STAYED EVEN
Tacoma uses several models for gifted education, including self-contained classrooms, one-day-a-week instruction that pulls students out of regular classrooms, and a multi-age program at the elementary level. Middle school students receive specialized instruction in math, language arts and other classes.
While tough budget times have led some Washington school districts to cut their gifted programs, Tacoma’s has been relatively stable.
The district budgeted an estimated $714,000 for the programs this school year, down from $719,000 last year.
But money doesn’t guarantee success in every area.
Callahan criticized Tacoma’s programs for lacking clear goals and a coordinated curriculum across grade levels. She said some teachers reported being forced to use outdated materials.
Uneven teacher preparation resulted in inconsistencies from classroom to classroom and from school to school, Callahan reported.
She recommended that the school district convene a study group to reach consensus on a definition of giftedness.
The consultant said the group should include parents of ethnic minority and low-income students – two groups often missing in highly capable classrooms both in Tacoma and around the nation.
“The assumption is that you will find all gifted kids with test scores. You won’t,” said Callahan. “People have to look at, What does the community mean when it says ‘gifted’?”
She urges the group to “consider areas beyond traditional I.Q. and achievement scores.”
Tying participation in gifted programs to test scores means truly gifted students will be missed, Callahan said.
Who gets left out? “Kids who don’t come to school prepared to take tests, who haven’t had the same advantages preparing for school, children who are underachievers,” Callahan said.
She recommends that teacher nominations and portfolios of student work also be considered when deciding admission to gifted programs. She points to school districts in Virginia that use a “talent development” program, which reaches out to impoverished students in the early grades to help them develop their full potential.
ENRICH? ACCELERATE?
Callahan visited Tacoma schools in December. She observed classrooms and met with parents, students, teachers and administrators.
“Nearly all stakeholders identified and were concerned about the lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in the highly capable services,” Callahan wrote in her report.
At the same time, she wrote, “misunderstandings have generated concern that increased diversity will lead to a watered down curriculum rather than an enriched perspective.”
And she said there were few efforts to compact the curriculum so that more advanced students could move on and work at a higher level.
That’s a criticism parent Holli Greer agrees with.
She has had three children in various programs for gifted students in Tacoma schools.
Greer said that the gifted classes seem to focus more on enrichment than acceleration. While her two younger children are doing well in the newest of the district’s gifted programs, known as GATE (Gifted and Talented Education), she said her oldest son who went through two other programs did not have the same experience.
She said he once maxed out on basic tests, scoring in the 99th percentile in second grade. But now, she said, she’s pushing him to get through high school.
Even in the gifted programs, she said, he lost interest in school when he wasn’t allowed to fly at his own accelerated pace.
His situation is consistent with what the Tacoma consultant found.
“While teachers recognize that gifted students march to the beat of a different drummer, in most of the classes observed, they must all march to the same beat of that different drummer,” Callahan wrote. “In several classes observed, it was obvious that students were being asked to learn things they already knew.”
Like parents interviewed by Callahan, Greer also criticized the school district for a lack of communication with parents in the gifted programs – parents who she says can be a huge resource for the schools.
“It seems they are afraid to involve (parents),” Greer said. “They know we are going to have opinions.”
Debbie Cafazzo: 253-597-8635
debbie.cafazzo@thenewstribune.com
Learn more
What: You can weigh in on the future of Tacoma Public Schools’ highly capable programs. Meetings are limited to 20 people per session, but more meetings will be added if needed.
When: 6 p.m. June 2, 7 and 8
Where: Tacoma Public Schools Professional Development Center, 6501 N. 23rd St., Tacoma.
Register in advance: Call 253-571-1120.
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