如何选拔天才儿童？

这是棕榈滩邮报(ＰＡＬＭ　ＢＥＡＣＨ　ＰＯＳＴ)网上博客中的一篇文章，讨论目前佛罗里达州小学教育中的天才选拔与教育计划。

Pay to find more gifted

Gifted programs teach Florida’s smartest students. Experience, however, teaches that nobody is smart enough to create a perfect system for choosing which students should get into gifted programs.The current system, which the state Department of Education is trying to revise, is flawed. Children generally need a 130 IQ to qualify as gifted. Parents who can afford it hire private psychologists to administer the required tests. Others might have to wait months for a district psychologist to conduct the evaluation — assuming that a teacher or parent recommends them.

Because of economic disparity, some students effectively buy their way into a gifted program while others may be overlooked. One result is that racial minorities are underrepresented. In Palm Beach County, for example, about 66 percent of the 7,900 gifted students are white even though minorities make up more than half the student body.
Parents have rebelled against any suggestion that private testing be outlawed, and the backlog for testing by school psychologists is a legitimate complaint. Setting lower standards for minority students, which the state has tried, also has correctly come under fire. The recommended compromise — screening every student for indications that he or she might belong in a gifted program — is a workable compromise. The huge unanswered question is whether the state will, as it should, pay the testing expenses. That bill’s total is unknown.

Universal screening, with follow-up testing for those who qualify for it, will not solve the whole problem, since affluent parents still could have their children tested prior to kindergarten while others still would have to wait. Another proposed revision would allow children who do not score a 130 IQ to enter gifted programs if they have high enough scores on the FCAT or a standardized test.

That proposal rankles those who think being gifted is a trait rather than a behavior. In fact, achievement should be considered along with IQ scores. But a big problem is identifying a suitable test. The FCAT wasn’t designed for that purpose, and in any case it isn’t administered until the third grade. Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties all offer some form of gifted instruction in kindergarten, so students relying on achievement rather than IQ could be shut out of such early programs.

Still, the proposed changes have a modest chance of increasing minority enrollment in gifted classes. But that would mean hiring — and paying — more qualified teachers for the gifted. Would a stingy state do that and pay for screening? And do all that without penalizing regular students? When was the last time the state was that smart?