Privileged progressives, donning their white knight armor, are in the next phase of a plan to end Seattle Public Schools’ gifted students program — known locally as its highly capable cohort (HCC). They complained the HCC was too white.
HCC separates academically gifted students from others via different classrooms or entirely different schools. But in 2020, white Seattle school board directors voted to terminate the HCC over the objections of parents. HCC will be completely phased out by the 2027-28 school year.
Outraged more by the success of white and Asian students than by the untapped potential of Black and Hispanic pupils, progressives would rather drag achievers down than elevate everyone…
What is replacing the gifted highly capable cohort program?
The “whole-classroom model” is replacing HCC and be implemented in each classroom starting in the 2024-25 school year. It’s unworkable.
Under the model, classrooms will include students of all different learning abilities. A teacher is supposed to address each group of students, in classrooms with 20-30 students, with no additional resources and limited new training. How does a teacher create individualized programs for so many students with disparate needs? It’s not likely that a teacher can help a student who can barely read while simultaneously challenging a classmate who is reading two advanced books a week.
“On a recent day in a first grade classroom, seven advanced learners sat on the floor reading silently on their iPads. Several others wrote independently at their desks. A special education student wrote with a paraprofessional aide at their side. The rest of the class sat in a front corner of the classroom while the teacher read a book out loud.”
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The ‘whole-classroom’ model is a guaranteed fail. It is extremely basic pedagogy that students of like ability be placed in classrooms together. If there are large gaps in talent between students, the talented will be bored and the less talented will feel discouraged. Or you will get the outcome italicized and highlighted above. ‘Gifted’ classes were designed to prevent that outcome. ABN
American Buddhist Net 