Dear Dick,
I am in Saint Johns County School District. We had a wonderful school district as little as three years ago, with a contained gifted program plus ESE services. They used to identify twice exceptional students, and serve them well. That is all gone now, with RTI. We now have gifted only identified but not served and 2e are treated horribly -- essentially punished for their disability.
High achievers are served well, defined as those who perform well in the standard grade level curriculum, focused on test-taking. My gifted dyslexic son is served a "high achiever" curriculum solely language-based, and all of his grades are based on written tests. No homework is used for grading purposes any longer--that was new this year.
Everything is standard test based--the FCAT curriculum. When he is unable to perform on an open book test, or finish a classroom assignment that is geared contrary to his disability (which they all are now), he is punished with loss of recess.
He got a D on a five page test in science, even though he totally understands the concepts and is great at math and science, because he couldn't read half of the terms. He received a D on an open book test in science for the same reason. The school does not give him any direct instructional strategies to help him succeed. Sink or swim.
They will not modify the tests for him at all. The best they will do is have an ESE teacher pull him out of the class and read the questions to him, but she is so negative with him it is not worth it. Her comments to us were "he can do the work if he WANTS to" or "if he is interested" as if he woke up one day and decided to be gifted and dyslexic.
And, geez, then make it interesting! Gifted curriculum for him now has become a pumpkin project, and a yearbook project. When I noted he cannot do open book tests, without being taught strategies to compensate for his dyslexia, the teacher asked me if I expected him to obtain a high school diploma.
This is a kid with a 137 IQ! His nephew, who was fortunate enough to have a good education, is also a visual spatial learner, and went to Montessori early on. He's an aerospace engineer with Lockheed, just accepted at Johns Hopkins graduate program, but the school wonders if I want my gifted son to graduate from a Florida high school. We hired a tutor, but a tutor cannot make up for a full week of a hostile educational environment.
Our school district is pushing all ESE out. They only want good test-takers, and that is all the curriculum is designed for, because that is all our country is rewarding--leveling all to the mean and if they can't be average, they are pushed out with no where to go. We don't even have any private options in our area that serve gifted or 2e, if we could afford it.
The only decent private options would mean no neighborhood friends, as they are 30 to 45 minutes away, plus out of our price range with two kids ($20,000 per child per year), and they don't even serve gifted or 2e.
Patricia Seres
“Failure to help the gifted child is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure, but which is surely great. How can we measure the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society.”
Dr. James J. Gallagher, University of North Carolina
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Dick Kantenberger
Gifted Education Writer at Examiner.com
Board of Directors and Head of Business Development at Rainard School for Gifted Students
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