August 7, 2009
Dear Members of the MMSD Board of Education:
We hereby present you with our case for a strong and clear “Talented and Gifted Education Plan” for the
District, along with assorted background materials. We offer it to you as additional rationale and support
for the Administration’s proposed Plan.
We ask that you approve the proposed Plan so that we can start the new school year with a renewed
sense of direction and purpose regarding the District’s TAG students. At the same time, we ask that you
view the proposed Plan as a “work in progress” and that you insist that further work and review be done
on it in the coming year in order to strengthen and develop it into a truly exemplary Plan.
Of the things we could ask you to strengthen in the proposed Plan, the one we put at the top of our list is
a strong, clear District commitment to flexible ability-based grouping at all grade levels. Whether
in the form of cluster grouping in our elementary classrooms or accelerated/advanced/honors classes in
all core content areas in our middle and high schools, the consistent use of flexible ability-based grouping
in all of our schools would send a loud, clear statement to many of the families who have left the District
or are currently considering leaving. If the District is truly committed to meeting the needs of all students
– including its high-potential, high-ability students – then it will have to adopt and integrate what are
clearly “best practices” for these students into the educational culture of the District. Given determined
and comprehensive efforts to identify, support and provide for TAG students in the elementary years, in
due time the honors and accelerated classes in our middle and high schools will become truly diverse in a
way that maximizes and honors the full potential of our entire student body.
Inclusion in the regular education classroom for struggling and differently-abled students is a powerful
and effective way to raise expectations for them. In stark contrast, it is a damaging and undermining way
to lower expectations for high-performing and gifted students, and thus not in keeping with our mission of
providing for every MMSD student so that they can achieve their full potential. Getting rid of remedial
classes in our high schools is one thing; getting rid of honors classes is quite another. As well, it is
important to appreciate that our student population is so large and so diverse, the implementation of
honors/advanced/accelerated classes in our secondary schools will not undermine the richness of the
regular education classrooms.
Regarding our high schools, it is important to note that AP courses alone – no matter how many there
may be – do not constitute adequate TAG programming for our high-performing high school students. In
order for there to be “systematic and continuous” TAG programming throughout the secondary years (as
required by State law), there must be opportunities for advanced learning experiences in all secondary
grades. Embedded honors options are misguided because they typically involve more work (as opposed
to more appropriate work) and independent work (which provides minimal if any interaction with either
peers or teacher). In addition – as was noted by a consensus vote of the MMSD Student Senate in
November, 2006 – embedded honors options create divisive barriers between students in the regular
classroom.
It is time that the District make a decision about ability grouping. Either we will do it or we will not do it. If
we do it, we will do it well, with consistency across the District and strong guidance from the
Administration and BOE. If we don’t do it, we will be equally consistent about that and willing to accept
the consequences. The decision about ability grouping must be thoughtful and empirically well-informed.
The decision-making process must be transparent and the result should be clearly communicated to all
stakeholders – administrators, teachers, families and the broader community.
A second component of the Plan that we encourage you to strengthen is the professional development
piece. After almost twenty years of neglect, TAG education is overdue for some attention. Professional
development around gifted education and the needs of gifted learners is both the law (Standard b) and a
critical component of the NAGC Standards. If we are to succeed at “changing the District culture,” as we
have heard the Superintendent say many times in recent months, then substantive, mandated
professional development for all MMSD teaching, administrative and support staff is essential.
A final area where the new Plan must succeed is that of early and inclusive student identification. We
know that our advanced high school classes do not reflect the demographics of our community and we
agree that is a serious problem. However, we believe that the solution to the problem must begin in
kindergarten, if not before. The District-wide use of culturally-sensitive assessment tools in a multimodal
identification effort beginning in the early grades could prove revolutionary because it would enable us to
recognize talent and high potential in places where we’ve never looked for it before.
Currently, large numbers of our high potential and high ability students are not identified and so are not
receiving the education they need to fully develop their abilities. How many? We can only estimate. The
commonly used model of giftedness and talent development in the general population is often depicted as
a three-tiered pyramid that cuts off the top 15% of the population. The top 2% is considered “extremely
gifted”; the next 3%, as “gifted”; and the next 10%, as a high-potential “talent pool.” It is likely that many
students in the talent pool are high-ability students of color and poverty, thus it is critical that our
identification procedures include all three tiers. In a normally-distributed student population of
24,000, one would expect to find about 480 students in the highest tier, about 720 in the second tier, and
about 1200 in the third tier, for a total of 3600 students. However, because the MMSD has a skewed
student performance distribution – specifically, one with a fat upper tail – we have a greater percentage of
high-performing students than would occur if the distribution were truly normal. Please make sure that
the details and action steps of the new TAG Plan accommodate and address the needs of all of our high-
end learners.
**********
In a chapter entitled “No Mystery: Closing the Achievement Gap,” Professor of Education Asa Hilliard III
writes:
There can be no question but that the achievement of African students is, in general, far below their
potential. This gap, however, should not be thought of as the gap between Black and white students. It
should be thought of as the gap between the current performance of African students and levels of
excellence. When we choose excellent performance as the goal, academically and socially, we change
the teaching and learning paradigm in fundamental ways. By setting the required performance level at
excellence, we require excellent performance to be articulated. ... To me the gap between Africans and
Europeans is a nonissue. The real gap is between Africans’ typical performance and the criterion levels
of excellence, which are well within the reach of the masses of them. That is the gap that is unacceptable.
(from Young, Gifted and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students, pp. 138-
139)
It seems Professor Hillliard agrees with your rewording last month of the Student Strategic Objective: the
most effective way to close achievement gaps between groups of students is to prioritize the cultivation of
academic excellence in each individual student.
Thank you for considering our suggestions and for allowing us the opportunity to assist in the
development of the new TAG Plan and the renewal of academic excellence in our schools.
Laurie Frost, Lorie Raihala, Chris Gomez Schmidt, Jane Doughty, Carole Trone, Jeff Henriques, Steve
Rankin, Shari Galitzer, Bonnie Berger-Durnbaugh
cc: Dan Nerad, Lisa Wachtel, Barbie Klawikowski