A reader quotes another:
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.
Your reader completely misses the point. Once the "gifted" kids had learned the core curriculum in a fraction of the time of the “normal” students, schools divert them to a G&T classroom to do advanced work during their otherwise unproductive time. This decreases the student load on the core classroom teacher, thus enabling the teacher to give extra attention to the kids learning the curriculum at the normal rate. So, following the reader’s analogy, the G&T program was basically "sending the healthy people home from the hospital so the doctor could focus on the patients still needing acute care."
Another writes:
First, G&T makes me think of gin and tonics.
Second, one of your readers objects that "Focusing resources on those who have a greater chance of succeeding to begin with is akin to providing extra healthcare to healthy patients." However, isn't the flip side that resources should be allocated to where they will do the most good? Spending $12k/year on a kid who doesn't want to go to school, and is indifferent at best, seems silly when you could spend the money more productively on a kid who wants to be in school, is reasonably gifted, and is not disruptive. Similarly, if you were a track coach, would you put your time into the guy who runs a 4:15 mile, or the one who runs an 8:20 mile? I would put my resources into the 4:15 runner, but that's just me.
Another:
Your reader who said, "Focusing resources on those who have a greater chance of succeeding to begin with is akin to providing extra healthcare to healthy patients" is correct, but that's a feature, not a bug. We don't tell healthy people to sit down and stop exercising so that other folks who need it more can use the club's only treadmill, do we? We exhort the healthy to remain healthy because that is what is best for our society.
The real debate should be centered around that reader's previous sentence: "Students of every level benefit from extra-assistance." Why is this an either/or situation? As a civilized society, shouldn't we be discussing how to provide the resources necessary to best educate every child? The discussion you are hosting assumes, from the beginning, that we cannot afford to educate every child. I find that a very troubling assumption.
Another:
The reasons why gifted children may suffer in regular classes also lead me to conclude that gifted and talented programs aren't the most important thing we can do to help them learn. Rather, we should better train teachers to include these students and respond to their needs, and we shouldn't allow teachers who can't handle such kids to be responsible for them.
When I was in a "regular" classroom with a teacher who allowed those who finished their assignments to continue working or reading independently while she or he helped those who were struggling, I was blissfully happy. I already knew most of the curriculum, but was able to push my own intellectual boundaries further while still blending in comfortably with the rest of my peers. Sometimes teachers even encouraged those who were done first to help those who were still working, which brought everyone closer together rather than alienating some for being "too brainy".
However, when I was in a classroom with a teacher who insisted on holding everyone back to the same slow pace, and demanded excessive "busywork" or even punished students for wanting to do more than they were asked, then I was miserable. About a quarter of my teachers were like this, and some were even sarcastic and cruel to students who tried to exercise creativity or do more than they were asked. Being trapped in a classroom and forced to go through the motions even though nothing new is learned is harmful to any child. When the teacher also resents the bright kid for being too quick, the experience is rather like being in jail.
Another:
One of the primary arguments against G&T programs, in favor of "inclusion" programs, is that by mixing all the students, the less gifted students are inspired by the more gifted students – or at least that was the justification given to me by the director of my charter high school.
My own experience was the opposite; I couldn't help answering questions in my Algebra class with an ease that made the struggling students face a sad reality: they weren't as smart as me, and even when they worked far harder than me, they weren't as good at the subject. One girl who sat near me, four years older, became depressed and withdrawn. Eventually, I convinced the teacher to let us go to the library instead of attend class, where I helped her learn some of the fundamentals she was missing. The teacher had no time to teach her, in a class where he had to teach to the middle. It alleviated my boredom, and helped her far more than being in a classroom surrounded by kids who, by being themselves, saddened the less capable kids around them.
Another:
I'll give some personal examples that I think are fairly commonplace. Throughout my pre-college schooling, there were teachers – not all of them, but several – who naively thought that assigning seats such that the "good kids" were next to the "problem kids" would help to improve the behavior of the troublemakers. Trying to harness peer pressure inevitably backfired, as the "good" kids – out of self defense as much as anything – matched their behavior to the "bad" ones, making everyone miserable, not least the "good" kid who was now suffering punishments and lower grades. Where before the teacher had a few students who were acting out, now there were more of them. Worse than a waste of potential, it was an active detriment to the whole class.
The Dish 