Seattle Public Schools Shuts Down Gifted and Talented Program for Being Oversaturated with White and Asian Students

[Turd Fergusen]

Katie McAllister’s son spoke in full sentences when he was 18 months old, recited the Gettysburg Address at age 2 and learned to read at age 4. By 5, he was sitting in the corner of his classroom reading “Harry Potter” books.

So when his kindergarten teacher suggested McAllister consider one of Seattle Public Schools’ highly capable cohort schools — programs and sometimes entire schools reserved for kids who can skip ahead — McAllister jumped at the opportunity.

“It was a real lifesaver,” said McAllister, whose son has ADHD and spent five years at Decatur Elementary. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if he was in a neighborhood school” — one that doesn’t offer a program for highly capable kids — “because he can be really frustrating (to the teachers around him) if he’s not challenged.”

But now, in an effort to make the program more equitable and to better serve all students, the district is phasing out highly capable cohort schools. In their place, SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student. Teachers won’t necessarily have additional staff in the classroom; the district is working to provide teachers with curriculum and instruction on how to make it work.

Three elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools are currently highly capable cohort schools. The elementaries are Cascadia, Decatur and Thurgood Marshall; middle schools are Hamilton International, Jane Addams, Madison, Robert Eagle Staff and Washington; and high schools are Lincoln, Garfield and West Seattle.

SPS started phasing out highly capable cohort schools in the 2021-22 school year and will be finished by the 2027-28 school year. Starting in 2024-25, the whole-classroom model — which the district calls the “highly capable neighborhood model” — will be available in every school.

Full Article

Why Seattle Public Schools is closing its highly capable cohort program

The Seattle district is overhauling its gifted education program. In its place, SPS is offering a new classroom model in an effort to make the program more equitable.

www.seattletimes.com

 

[BuffettGirl]

Oh look, "equity". The smart kids will suffer for being smart, but the not-smart kids won't be feeling not-smart anymore. Who cares if it is at the expense of the smart kids? Just as long as no one feels not-smart next to a smart kid it's all 'equitable', right? Are they going to cull the classes for the not-smart kids too? Or are those OK, just not for the gifted kids? What a fun experiment they have going forward. How do we kill the spirit of the smart kids, while simultaneously over-inflating the egos of the not-smart kids? Yet another reason I am grateful for having grown up when I did. I wasn't treated like a criminal for being in the gifted program . This is killing my soul...

 

[Doctor Slaughter]

Oh look, "equity". The smart kids will suffer for being smart, but the not-smart kids won't be feeling not-smart anymore. Who cares if it is at the expense of the smart kids? Just as long as no one feels not-smart next to a smart kid it's all 'equitable', right? Are they going to cull the classes for the not-smart kids too? Or are those OK, just not for the gifted kids? What a fun experiment they have going forward. How do we kill the spirit of the smart kids, while simultaneously over-inflating the egos of the not-smart kids? Yet another reason I am grateful for having grown up when I did. I wasn't treated like a criminal for being in the gifted program . This is killing my soul...

All by design by those that despise us and want us to be mindless drones, or fertilizer.

 

[ronda2711]

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again and again




handicap monitor







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[cubby]

Are they saying that all the students who have been assigned to a particular grade are going to be all in one room? With not necessarily and more helpers than in a regular classroom? Did I just read that?

The teachers already can't teach because of the behavior of the kids in a regular classroom-25-35 kids, with a hundred or more kids and no helpers they will be completely outnumbered. Whoever thought of this stupidity should be taken out at dawn and shot.

 

[Metalfan]

We have to cultivate future socialism,and absolutely cannot have anyone smart mucking up the gears.

 

[BuffettGirl]

We have to cultivate future socialism,and absolutely cannot have anyone smart mucking up the gears.

It's em smurt ones that'll think outside da box and fuck up the works fo' ever'one else...

 

[Sejanus]

Gorgeous building in the posting.

 

[McDanel]

Are they saying that all the students who have been assigned to a particular grade are going to be all in one room? With not necessarily and more helpers than in a regular classroom? Did I just read that?

The teachers already can't teach because of the behavior of the kids in a regular classroom-25-35 kids, with a hundred or more kids and no helpers they will be completely outnumbered. Whoever thought of this stupidity should be taken out at dawn and shot.

No, not all in one room. No advanced placement/college prep magnet schools or classes. Back to moving at the speed of the slowest.
Did you read the line about individual lesson plans?

 

[cubby]

@McDanel

I did, and what that means to me, is that each student within this large class will be on different lesson plans, so that every student will be in a different place with their studies, so that this one teacher has to keep track of where each student is within that day's/week's lessons.

If that's not what it means, please explain it to me, because I don't understand this at all. Maybe I'm entrenched in the way that kids used to be taught, when they did actually learn something, when learning was the most important action going on inside the classroom.
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No, not all in one room. No advanced placement/college prep magnet schools or classes. Back to moving at the speed of the slowest.

Still doesn't make sense for the ones who will be bored. I know how kids can act when they are not kept interested, busy and engaged, and today they are even worse, so how does that turn out smart kids who can do math, read, write, and reason?

 

[knockout]

No matter how anyone wants to interpret this
It comes down to dumbing of students
When you have a classroom of advanced students they push each other to achieve the best they can be, mixing in a bunch of lesser students removes the challenge of accomplishment for the advanced students.
Does create less pressure, but also less creativity, determination and development

 

[McDanel]

@McDanel

I did, and what that means to me, is that each student within this large class will be on different lesson plans, so that every student will be in a different place with their studies, so that this one teacher has to keep track of where each student is within that day's/week's lessons.

If that's not what it means, please explain it to me, because I don't understand this at all. Maybe I'm entrenched in the way that kids used to be taught, when they did actually learn something, when learning was the most important action going on inside the classroom.
[automerge]1712242405[/automerge]


Still doesn't make sense for the ones who will be bored. I know how kids can act when they are not kept interested, busy and engaged, and today they are even worse, so how does that turn out smart kids who can do math, read, write, and reason?

Oh, I wasn't saying it was a good idea, it's asinine, especially the individual lesson plans.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

"Seattle Public Schools Shuts Down Gifted and Talented Program for Being Oversaturated with White and Asian Students."

******************************

●Substitute "wealthy" for "White and Asian" and "poor" for "POC" to understand this.

The magnet schools were in the most expensive parts of Seattle where a couple with two kids needs to make $300,000 to live comfortably, mortgages are $7,000 and rent is $3,000.

A parent on the outskirts of the district (where housing is affordable) would have to commute 4 hours a day for drop off/pick up.

After the change, the consequence was that the poor had more access and it wasn't stuffed with the wealthy which happen to be Asian and white.

I won't even get into the tests you can pay for, for entry.


● Out here in the West we still have a lot of one-room schools, there were six in our district that went up to 8th grade, then they came to our high school.
They were all up to speed and did well.

*Oh shit, I just realized why I thought our high school was so idyllic and my classmates were so well- behaved and why I'm shocked when I hear stories noŵ of sex and fighting and pregnancies (I thought they'd moved!) .
I was always put in college prep classes and everyone was studious and quiet and we didn't need anyone keeping us engaged, we just were. We liked learning and studying. I can't remember anyone needing discipline.

I thought everyone was like that. Duhhhh. I didn't hate P.E. because of exercise, I hated that the "mean girls" were there. Duhh.*

Anyway, I don't think some mixed level classes for them is a problem.