I am currently trying to find more information regarding this ‘new’ mandate by the Indiana Dept. of Education. My current information is from an area teacher who is concerned with the long-term effects of this mandate and so far, I agree. It is called ‘High Ability’ learning.
Previously, accelerated classes have been offered for students who chose to accept the challenge of more difficult coursework in preparation for college, etc. Now, students at all levels, elementary through high school, have been identified as ‘high ability’ based on test scores. The ‘new’ process requires that these students be given more difficult coursework than their ‘non-high’ ability counterparts within the same classroom. Grades are not weighted. The high ability students have to achieve an ‘A’ based on their more difficult work and their counterparts will receive an equal ‘A’ based on their performance with less difficult work. The parents have been notified that their student has been identified as high ability, but I don’t know that they have been told that as a result they will have to do more work to receive the same grade as other students.
This is an open system. Students will know who is and isn’t labeled as high ability. I am all for raising the bar for our children’s education, however, I strongly oppose such open labeling of our students. It has taken years to reach the point of challenging ALL students to be their best and telling ALL students that they don’t have to be what everyone might expect them to be, they can be more.
I feel that we are allowing our education system to label our children and thereby setting limits in their minds on what they can do and what is expected. I have personal experience with people have led lives that were the result of self-fulfilling prophecy. They were capable of more, but lived up to what those around them constantly and openly labeled them: ‘stupid’, ‘trouble-makers’, ‘just like his parents’, ‘not worth the effort’. For our educational system to do the something similar is asinine. I realize that they are not saying that students who are not high ability are stupid, but how are our kids going to interpret it?
In addition, I’m not totally convinced that testing is the ultimate end-all, be-all for determining capability or knowledge. Currently, and this is an actual case under the high ability, there is a student who tested very well and has been labeled as ‘high ability’. This student has learning disabilities and is currently struggling to pass the very basic classes. However, under the state mandate, because the student is high ability, the bar that they are having trouble reaching now has to be raised to accommodate the student’s new status. I understand that this isn’t going to happen often, but it shows the fallacy of testing and labeling.
Add to this, our teachers now have to create and track an additional curriculum within the class, as well as try to convince their students that ‘labels’ don’t necessarily make the person.
Please don’t take my word for it. I encourage everyone, with children or without, to research this new idea and make sure that it is something that they want for their kids. I personally feel that it is a huge step backwards.

quote:

Originally posted by BowlingInArizona:
...few people would disagree that Reggie Miller is more talented at basketball than I am (we’re about the same age, so that seemed like a good comparison). I certainly wouldn’t disagree, and I feel no shame in admitting it.

If you unashamedly agree, Stacey, it may be because you adjudge yourself smarter than Reggie Miller, & value brains over basketball ability. Thus you feel no shame.

But basketball players are generally the smartest of all team athletes. No other team sport requires the constant split-second offense-to-defense precision of the cage game. Remember Luke Zeller's title-winning Shot? Luke succeeded thanks to years of preparation couched in the highly intelligent hunch that he'd need to make it someday.

We're about to elect a basketball player President principally on account of his superior intelligence to the old warrior who shored up his own ticket by putting a champion hoopster by his side. Classically good basketball (not some of the crap we see today) requires all five men or women to understand in-depth all aspects of the game's fundamentals. Basketball has no Pitcher & Catcher doing 80% of the defensive work. Nor does basketball need a QuarterBack to think for the rest of the players. All great basketball players display fine-tuned two-way ability on both ends of the court.

Aside from Team HandBall, the only sport that comes to mind requiring similar back-&-forth offense/defense commitment for long stretches if not the entire game is Tennis. Yet tennis is mainly an individual sport (alas, the decline of Doubles Tennis).

Reggie Miller became a good-to-great basketball player primarily thanks to his intelligence rather than his talent. Lots of 6-7 splendid splinters have come down the pike who never approached Reggie's skill & consistency not only shooting but passing, rebounding, & defending competently. He was more than a catch-&-shooter; Reggie was one of the smartest players ever at fooling opponents (& referees) into drawing foul-shot opportunities.

Now, if smarts is also a "talent," then we can agree unashamedly that Reggie Miller is a more-talented basketball player than you are or I am. But let's don't leave the impression that basketball's all about height & athletic (in the "track" sense) ability. Too many Johnny Woodens, Jackie Robinsons, Larry Birds, & Magic Johnsons (not to mention Kareem Abdul-Jabbars & Wilt Chamberlains) have come down the pike to label cagers as merely oversized pogo-sticks.

As Edison said, Genius is 1% inspiration & 99% perspiration! Reggie persisted, too.

Well,
DCSOMEONE and BOWLING, I am going to have to say, I must be in that "non-high ability" group.
Why, well, I can honestly understand your concerns DC, and I do agree!
Bowling, wow, you do have some great insight and you do make one think.
Both of you make me want to look into and study this whole situation, even though my daughter is already out of HS and in college. I have to admit, this is all over my head, so I will not even try to venture into this subject until I have been somewhat educated.
But, Jethro, I am sorry, you lost me here! I read all of your post and I really do not see what you are saying that truley contributes to THIS discussion.
If I am to follow you here, and please forgive me if I am wrong, ONLY basketball players are of the "High Ability" league.
I do belive, very strongly, that sports in HS are important. After all, my daughter received a scholarship to play ball in college.
But, so is Band, the Chess Club,JR ROTC, I could go on for, well, you know.
My point is, this issue that was brought up, seems to me, has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, the up coming elections or even the West End of Washington, IN. It has everything to do with the education of the children of our schools in Indiana. Remember, our future leaders, the ones that will pick out our nursing homes!!
I truely hope to read more on this very important issue to learn just what is going on so that I may give an educated opinon on this subject should anyone ask me.
As for me..Larry Bird out shined all!!

quote:

Originally posted by Coltsfan#1:
If I am to follow you here, and please forgive me if I am wrong, ONLY basketball players are of the "High Ability" league.

Duly forgiven, Coltsfan#1! High-ability persons are found everywhere -- Dr Stephen Hawking obviously can't hoop it up the conventional way yet is brainy as can be.

Stacey's selection of Reggie Miller as a "talented" basketball player struck me as oddly furthering a myth that great cagers get by on something other than smarts. Nothing could be further from the truth, & we have the examples of Luke Zeller, Larry Bird (yes!) & many others mentioned & unmentioned to learn from. More than any sport, good basketball-playing requires well-rounded understanding & judicious teamwork to achieve goals on both offensive & defensive ends.

quote:

... this issue that was brought up, seems to me, has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, the up coming elections or even the West End of Washington, IN.

I didn't bring up basketball. Obama & Palin are basketball-playing examples of braininess. As a preparation for politics & business (of the non-nepotist kind), no sport beats hoops.

The West End, now that you bring it up, has borne the brunt of ill-advised "labelling" in our recent local educational blame-game. Our neighborhood school is disproportionately Hispanic, meaning disproportionately possessed of bilingual skills, yet diversity is too often blamed as a Reason for the WCSCorp's chronically low report card every time the ISTEP rolls around.

Instead of seeking to "integrate" & close down the school in our town's neediest & largest student district, the WCSCorp should be telling taxpayers what's on the drawing board to maximize the language-advantage & other edges Dunn Elementary enjoys. Perhaps the "gifted & talented" program is just the ticket for The West End. But something worries me our neighborhood's kids won't be disproportionately boosted into such programs festooned w/ bells & whistles (tuned to international trade, for example), nor will they even be included amongst the Star-Bellied Sneetches in anything resembling a fair share.

Maybe I'm paranoid. Last time the local School Board commissioned a group of the city's best & brightest to consider the future of elementary schools, only one person w/ a West End address (out of some twenty total) made the list -- & he wasn't advised of the meeting places & times, so never provided input.

I am starting to have a better understanding of what the State is trying to accomplish and it does seem that the schools have some control over what programming to use to meet the mandate's requirements. I still have reservations about the way it's being done, but not about the importance of addressing the needs of our gifted students.

One of the statements I keep hearing is that as long as the teacher presents it properly, 'labeling' won't be an issue. I hope that there are plans to train and monitor teachers so that it doesn't.

My initial information indicated that higher ability curriculum would not be available to any student not initially identified as high ability, thereby creating 2 classes of students. However, IF the school follows the proper guidelines, identification is an ongoing process and no student is permanently assigned in either group. If they are not maintaining high ability work/assessments, they will drop back to the normal grade-level work, just as they can begin high ability work if they begin to show strengths in those areas. This makes a huge difference in my opinion because the opportunity is there for all students to reach this level and no one is being told 'you can't'--just that they have to work for it.

In regards to labeling being a natural part of life. I understand that labeling occurs, and school kids often label each other. However, having an authority such as a school or State validate those labels is unacceptable and we must be very careful that it doesn't happen.

On another note, I would also like to see a better effort from my school administration in keeping the general public informed of these types of changes--something more than just mentioning it at a school board meeting. Even that would be ok if an agenda with somewhat of a description would be posted in the newspaper in the weeks prior, preferably in layman's terms for those of us not familiar with education 'speak'.

quote:

Originally posted by BowlingInArizona:
Definitely basketball success is NOT based totally (or even "mostly") on innate "talent". Basketball smarts, hard work, willingness to work as a team, and leadership skills all play a much bigger role.

Precisely. Remember, there is no "I" in your key word above -- TEAM -- but "I" figures prominently in HIGH ABILITY. So might My Kid, right?

quote:

The question here is related to one's current abilities, and being given the APPROPRIATE experiences to develop them. The only point in using the basketball analogy was to point out that some people ARE more naturally talented than others, EVEN IN BASKETBALL. That says NOTHING about their work ethic, or prospects for success, or the standard of living in the West End.

Another crack about the West End. What's APPROPRIATE for Goose Tatum should also be good for Elmer Gantry. In other words, deciding Who's oh-so-High on the Ability totem pole requires a level of cool dispassionate evaluation that's been noticeably lacking of late.

quote:

I'll admit that I don't know what Reggie's practice regimen was like during his NBA career. However, I suspect that he didn't spend a lot of time walking from one end of the court to the other, carefully practicing "not dribbling the ball off his foot". Such a drill would have been silly, and a waste of his practice time, given the degree to which he had developed his talent at that time. Even Larry Bird, who was infamous for working on fundamentals his entire career, likely didn't do the "walk the floor" drill; maybe blindfolded, walking backwards, dribbling a different ball with each hand, but that's a different drill.

Most of us, not just the creme de la creme, move from simple arithmetic to algebra. What has DCSomeone concerned is the notion that a harried classroom typical teacher who's become conditioned to despair of the value of good grammar skills will somehow capably reverse that self-doubt & impeccably impartially divide her classroom into The Ones & Those Ones.

quote:

On the other hand, if *I* were to start playing basketball right now, that might be a very appropriate drill for me - walking the court while dribbling may not be a given for me. Yes, Reggie and I are both over-40 middle-aged men, but the argument is very similar for a K-12 student. To develop their abilities, students need to have appropriate educational experiences.

Leaving Reggie aside -- For starters, is it "appropriate" to "teach" bilingual children to drop their language ability at every turn? Aren't these natural-born double-talkers as "gifted & talented" as fair-haired Peggy Sue?

If we can keep gratuitous (yet at least Hoosier-based) comments about Reggie & Larry out of the conversation & focus on our own community, aren't we doing a terrible disservice to future generations by blaming bilingual kids like Enemesio & MariCruz & their parents for the inability of others to absorb what they know thanks to hard work, grit, & ingenuity?

My only addition to this thread is that with the woefully underfunded No Child..... the school system has had to struggle to meet the demands of the slower learning students in order to meet the test requirements & get their funding thereby leaving the quick-learners to their own devices while the other students have SSP. When I went to Grade School back in the 70s, we had 3 ability levels per grade & it seemed to work well in that students of each class worked at their own speed although it did seem to be an unfair label to those not in the high class. But as mentioned before, kids come up with their own labels anyway, so at least they were competing on a level playing field.

Bravo, Mr. Bowling! That's the first time I've laughed out loud at something on this forum since Morgan and Santi got sent to ether hell. You write a mighty fine sentence, young man, for a technocrat.

quote:

Originally posted by BowlingInArizona:
Hi DCSomeone,

I
First, I want to stress that these programs/services are almost NEVER "forced" on students or parents, and I saw nothing at the website to indicate it is any different here.

I know of one "for sure" [who has long gruduated from WHS] Who was FORCED to take advanced classes!!

Thank you, bowling for all the information. I read with great interest when this thread first started, because I am very interested in the education of our children. Please don't stop posting. Your posts are very informative. I do not have children at the grade school level, but I would like to stay informed about our school policies. Thanks to you and DCS for keeping some of us informed.

quote:

Originally posted by BowlingInArizona:
... I'm evidently blaming bilingual children in the West End for something that happened ...

The topic of adjudging Higher Ability in Washington isn't about you, Stacey -- it's about how well we're evaluating bright-eyed pupils Right Now. We're kidding ourselves if the same educators who bemoan bilingualism rather than joining in the fun are handed the task of segregating students from High to so-called Low.

As Annie Lennox said, Change your mind & the rest will follow. At least we got you to imagine Larry Bird dribbling backwards w/ an ABA & NBA ball in each palm. Keep thinking outside the box.

As I gather more information, I feel better about the new approach and implementation. I still have some less major concerns and will continue to follow up and make sure that these are addressed.

I'd also like to note that I'd like to see the bar raised for all of our students. However, since our society now expects our schools to be parents as well as educators, there is not enough time in the day to do all that needs to be done.


Thank you Bowling for your insightful input. I have spent a significant part of my life trying to help people who haven't reached their potential because of upbringing, poor desicions, and generally unfair share of negative circumstances. As a result, I get really jumpy when I encounter situations that may contribute to another child missing out on his/her potential as a person, especially in the only place that many of them can receive the positive support we all need.