45223wc@houxe.UUCP (01/31/84)
I find it hard to believe that a gifted child cannot get into
the gifted program in your area unless his parents make $75,000 or
more. All the teachers I know really don't have any idea how much
money the parents of the children make and positively DO NOT CARE!
Do you send your kid to school with a note saying you only make
$50,000 so please don't consider my child for the gifted program,
or do the teachers call your bank to check on your accounts?
More than likely you are making your statements based on some
other factor such as most of the children in the gifted program
come from the same (rich) neighborhood. If this is so there can
be many reasons why the children from this neighborhood do better
in school than the average kid, and these reasons may have nothing
to do with money. Maybe these kids all went to some nursery school
that was able to give them a good head start in school. Maybe the
kids in this neighborhood always try extremely hard to be successful
because their parents have been successful and they don't want to
disappoint them. Maybe there were a few really gifted kids there
and the competition among the kids in that neighborhood is so great
that the average kids kept trying harder and ended up being gifted
themselves. I don't know. You left out a lot of facts when you
made your accusations.
Most gifted programs select the kids by some sort of test.
I have never seen a test with the question "How much money do
your parents make?" on it. Sure tests do not always select the
best, but they usually do a pretty good job of it. I would be
against any system where the kids were chosen simply by the
teachers without any test, but I still doubt that even under
that system the teachers would select kids based on income. I
suggest you look for the real reason why the kids in the gifted
program seem to be from one group.
- Bill Cambre ATTISL 02272 houxe!45223wc