AZ: Private tests get kids into gifted classes

Hundreds of parents in Arizona are doing an end-around their neighborhood schools to get their kids in gifted programs. They're turning to a little-known state rule that mandates if a psychologist or other "qualified professional" tests a child and determines he or she is gifted, the school must put the student into a full- or part-time gifted classroom. It applies even if the child failed the school's test for being gifted. Some parents call it "buying in." Private one-on-one testing costs from $250 to $700. In districts where parents are aware of the option and have the cash, they often successfully use private tests to get their kids in gifted classes. Officials at several wealthy Valley districts said about 5 to 10 percent of their gifted students were admitted based on private testing. The alternate strategy reflects several trends:

* Many parents distrust their schools' gifted testing. Some districts test all second- or third-graders, while others test only students referred by parents or teachers. Some parents view the tests, which are approved by the state, as one-size-fits-all and say teachers and tests are not sensitive enough to pick up their child's talents.

* Parents don't have confidence in the quality of regular, non-gifted classrooms. They retest their children privately because they think Arizona schools are underfunded and crowded and because many students score poorly on national tests. They want a more challenging curriculum. Many parents also like the cachet of the gifted label.

* Many teachers don't know about the testing options and don't tell parents. If they knew, potentially thousands of additional kids could be labeled gifted. Schools have a financial incentive to limit the enrollment: The state funds gifted programs for up to 4 percent of a district's students; the district must pay for any more.

Competitive world

About 100 kids in the Scottsdale Unified District used private testing to get into the gifted program. In the Madison Elementary District, about 45 to 75 students tested privately into the program.

Dina Brulles of Paradise Valley Unified's gifted program cautioned that the state has minimal criteria for outside testers and some are not well-qualified. Others are eager to sell parents a battery of tests that can run up a tab of over $1,000. "I've heard parents say, 'I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars and I can't guarantee a score? That's a gamble,' " Brulles said. "That may put undue pressure on testers."

Private Phoenix psychologist Jamie Matanovich tests about 50 children a year for parents who want them in the gifted programs at Madison, Washington, and Tempe elementary districts. Most of them make the cut. "I know there are parents who push for inappropriate placement," Matanovich said. "I think it's the competition in the world we live in." Matanovich said she requires that parents bring her the child's grades, district scores and teacher comments before she does the testing. "That scares away people who just want a score to run down to the district."

Put to the test

Many parents want their kids in a challenging, accelerated classroom, whether their children are gifted or just ambitious. They don't feel that their children will be overwhelmed. Gretchen Hansen's third-grade twins are in the Washington Elementary District's gifted program. If not for a suggestion by her children's doctor, Hansen said it would never have occurred to her to ask the district to test them. But now she is considering having her first-grader tested as well.

Hansen's not confident about the curriculum in her daughter's regular class. Hansen said she comes home with all 100 percents. "Is she gifted or is it a feel-good curriculum?" Hansen asked. "Is the curriculum tough enough? Does no one lose?"

The district test was enough to get Jennifer Wheeler's son into the self-contained gifted program at Phoenix's Madison Elementary District. "I would equate it to a private-school education," Wheeler said. She was so impressed with the curriculum that when her second-grader failed to make the cut after district testing, she took her to a private psychologist. The private report got her second child into the program. Wheeler said she isn't convinced district tests are able to measure all children's talents.

Susan Goltz, a former principal who runs Madison's gifted program, said the district used to be less tough about who got in, and kids came and went. Now, only students who reach the 97th percentile on the school test get in. Privately tested children must have a report showing a minimum IQ of 139. Goltz said most privately tested students do well in the gifted program.

Who is gifted?

Schools across the country do not agree on a definition of "gifted." Only 32 states require schools to identify gifted students. The inconsistencies result in varying statistics. While about 8 percent of students in Arizona schools are labeled gifted, nationally it's 3 to 5 percent. Madison has 17 percent of its students in gifted programs; Scottsdale has 13 percent.

Advocates and educators agree that most gifted tests used in schools favor children who grow up in the United States in wealthier, well-educated families and learned English from birth. "Everyone thinks their child is gifted. The term is thrown around so loosely," Hansen said. She said just about every child on her street has been labeled "gifted" and wonders how one-third of the Moon Valley neighborhood could possible be gifted. "Kudos to us, I guess," Hansen said. "Are we all gifted?"

Not in the west Phoenix neighborhood of the Cartwright Elementary District, where most kids are still learning English and come from lower-income or Spanish-speaking families. At Cartwright, the cutoff score on the same gifted tests is the 85th percentile to make up for students' lack of language skills. About 2 percent of the district's population is in its gifted programs. Curriculum director Cindy Segotta-Jones said no parent has ever sought a second opinion from a private tester.

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Bright Britons deserting universities

Universities will be dominated by foreign academics soon unless more British graduates are persuaded to stay in higher education, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge has told The Times. Alison Richard - who has a quarter of her staff and more than half of her postgraduates from overseas - raises the prospect of universities depending increasingly on foreign academics for regeneration.

The situation across the country is most acute in science, technology and mathematics, as fewer British students are recruited to undergraduate courses, which restricts the pool going on with postgraduate study. Professor Richard's comments are echoed by Universities UK, the umbrella group of vice-chancellors, which cautions that the danger of relying wholly on non-British researchers in some subjects is not only that they go home, but also that the lack of home-grown talent spirals downwards into less interest in schools.

While Professor Richard, an anthropologist who has returned to England after 30 years at Yale, delighted in the cosmopolitan make-up of her staff, she said that she was concerned that the brightest students did not want to follow in her shoes. "What does it say about the perception of universities in this country if an ever-falling proportion of really bright British undergraduates is not considering continuing with this as a career?" she said. "We will always be able to staff Cambridge with brilliant people from all over the world, but if you can't get your own students then British universities will carry on, of course - but without their own."

For the past two decades the number of overseas students undertaking postgraduate research at Cambridge has risen each year. Last year 53 per cent of its postgraduates were foreign students. At undergraduate level overseas students made up only 15 per cent of the total, and overall more than one in four (27 per cent) of all its students came from abroad. "Twenty-five per cent of Cambridge's academics are from outside the UK and it's a wonderful cosmopolitan international mix and I think it's quite splendid that we are as international as we are," she said. "Now the question is - if it were 75 per cent from outside the UK would that be a `bad thing'? I don't know how to answer that question. "So should we be troubled if none of our brightest British undergraduates goes on to further studies and PhDs? Actually, if the truth be told, that does trouble me."

Professor Richard says that lecturers' historic poor salaries are partly to blame, as is the old public opprobrium of universities as irrelevant ivory towers. While that has changed, she says universities are still underfunded and competing with a more exciting world. Although it is not a problem for all disciplines, Professor Richard is clearly concerned about the lack of children studying science, technology and maths (STEM) at a higher level at school. Currently roughly 39 per cent of STEM postgraduates at British universities are from overseas.

Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK, agreed that an overreliance on foreign academics in those subjects was a concern. "The long-term issues for UK business, industry and universities are very serious, because some proportion of overseas academics will stay in Britain, but a good number will go home," he said. "In some subjects we can already see this - especially in maths - where we're seeing huge numbers of people from Eastern Europe in the staff. They are very good, but there is a shortage of home-grown talent."

Professor Bone, who is also Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool, said that the danger was that Britain would not generate its own core of academics. He said this problem had already been encountered in Australia, where some universities were dependent on Asian academics. Last week a study found that nearly two thirds of British academics had considered leaving the country to work overseas and that more than half had considered abandoning university life completely for a better-paid job in the private sector. The biggest gripe among lecturers was bureaucracy, with one in three spending at least 16 hours a week on paperwork.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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