A reader writes:
The thing that always pissed me off about G&T programs is that they pulled "gifted" students from core curriculums and gave them extra assistance on "advanced" curriculums. Students of every level benefit from extra-assistance. Focusing resources on those who have a greater chance of succeeding to begin with is akin to providing extra healthcare to healthy patients.
My mother-in-law fights this illogic today. She heads up our county's ESL and G&T programs. The school system is constantly taking funds from the English as a Second Language kids, but never touching the G&T programs. The programs are about socio-economic politics, not best-practices in education. Those in power preserve their benefits at the expense of those who really need assistance. But hey, allowing the smart kids to play chess twice a week is worth it, right?
Another writes:
Nothing you've posted from your readers explains how G&T started in the first place.
I went through middle school in the late sixties, and we were tracked, i.e., we spent our four non-elective academic subjects with the same students, all of generally equal intellectual ability. There were three sets of highest track students, and I was in one of them. The school district was an extremely rigorous, wealthy public district in suburban New Jersey.
Like many of your other readers, I was stunned and delighted to find myself in classes where, for the first time, everyone was on the same reading level and no one had discipline issues. I was amazed at the difference in the classroom, how liberating it was, and how invigorating. We all moved along at lightening pace, and we more or less demolished the grade-level curriculum.
By the 1970s, however, by which time I'd moved to suburban Boston, tracking was considered sinful. We had a curriculum director who declared in writing, and this is almost a direct quote, that segregating children by ability was as evil as segregating them by the color of their skin. No kidding. He was in the same crowd that wanted to expunge grammar from the curriculum because it wasn't "relevant." My personal answer to the ridiculous English classes I had to suffer was to take four years of Latin.
I finished high school in 1973, so I can't speak directly to G&T, but I suspect that the sort of attitude described above played a big role in the creation of de facto tracking of G&T classes in the 1970s. G&T starts in elementary school, so it's earlier tracking. I'm sure it's great for the kids who enjoy it; I'm not so sure that every school system should pay for it. It certainly seems to be at odds with the whole "inclusion" philosophy (and with one child in full-time special education, I could write a book on that).
The Dish 