Gifted Education

In New York City, there are a variety of programs offered for gifted and talented children . There are different testing procedures depending on the district, the school, and the child's age. For elementary school, most testing is done before a child's fifth birthday. The testing ranges from performance assessment to IQ testing, for the youngest children and usually includes achievement scores for the older ones.

The gifted program can be an excellent way to help a child to flourish in an environment where he/she will be challenged on new levels. It is often a successful method to remove a gifted child in a low performing school program, from a classroom that is both undemanding and "boring."

Access to programs for gifted students is often problematic. It appears that in districts with a mix of races, ethnicities and non-English speaking families, white English speaking children are highly overrepresented, and African Americans and Latinos highly underrepresented. (to learn more on this debate click here).

Many NYC programs largely judge admission according to scores on IQ tests. These tests can be administered by the Board of Education, or can be done by private testers. The accuracy of standardized tests or IQ tests in general, but especially for young children, has been questioned by many academics. Children with language or cultural barriers face further hurdles in getting an accurate reading of giftedness via one test. Other school districts have worked to create a broader and more comprehensive definitions of giftedness. Click here for more information on the Renzulli Triad program.

Barriers to admission to specialized high schools according to their admissions tests can arise from lack of preparation in the coursework necessary to succeed on these exams, (for example lack of. Proper Sequential Math courses). Click here for more information.

The inability of parents to obtain information on gifted programs is a contributing factor to the homogeneity of gifted programs. The ACORN study found that many African American and Latino parents were not given the same information as other parents. The personnel tended to give white parents more information, encouragement, school tours, and better answers to their questions. This issue was brought to the attention of the U.S. Department of Education, civil rights division, that entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the New York City Board of Education in 1998 to help assure that minimal access is given. This MOU is currently being monitored for compliance by the civil rights division.

It is best to research the programs in your area and apply in a timely manner. For elementary schools it is important to look at the admission criteria for Kindergarten, as most elementary programs are full and take few if any children after kindergarten. Information on the different programs and schools for gifted and talented programs on a elementary district by district basis can be found at Insideschools.org .

www.AgateNY.org provides information on Gifted and Talented Education in NY State.
Click here for articles on various topics pertaining to gifted and talented children's education.
One G & T public school program not run by the Board of Education is Hunter Elementary School , which you can read more about at Insideschools.org.