by Greg Slack

Created on: February 28, 2008

ARE GIFTED AND TALENTED PROGRAMS ELITIST
As a father of three children two of whom are in TAG or advanced classes, I may have some insight into this topic. As much as having children in this program fills me with a sense of pride, I am not without some concerns.

Perhaps a little background on my children will help to make my point more clear. My son was in 1st grade when he was tested for the talented and gifted program, and in second grade he began to take the classes. He has always shown a talent with math and can be exceptionally creative at times. However, at the same time he has proven to have a very short attention span.

He is my second born child, and he has an older sister who also is in advanced classes. She is able to remember any date, fact or figure with ease, and shows a great attention to detail. Despite her talents, she was not immediately tested for TAG. In fact, she was not tested until 4th grade, which upset her a great deal, considering her often-forgetful brother, was already in it. She became even more upset when her test scores put her in TAG but a score on a state mandatory test from the previous year kept her out. This state test had nothing whatsoever to do with the talented and gifted program, but for some reason a score of 75% was low enough to make her ineligible.

In her fifth grade year a teacher recommended her for advanced classes, and she was accepted into them despite not actually being in TAG. She is now in her 3rd year of these advanced classes, and is the only child in them who is not in TAG. This puts her in a strange position; she goes to all the same classes they do except for one, that one class is what makes the rest of them TAG students. She is and has been the only child in this situation, and this has made her a bit rebellious as of late.

This rebelliousness, although justified, is hurting her grades more and more. She is doing all the work they do but not one of them; this makes her an accepted yet not equal member of an elitist group. This is all due to a test mandated by the state, that none in her class were prepared for. As a matter of fact, her class had to retake that test later in that school year, because of their low scores.

On this test the first time around she scored 75%, the second time she scored 90%. This alone would prove that she was ill-prepared, and if not at least the second score would negate the original. Instead the school decided to use the original score which kept her from TAG. Incidentally, her

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