Parents of gifted and talented children in Montgomery County, fearful a new focus on underperforming students will lower standards, have joined forces to demand their children not suffer because of a widening achievement gap.
In a letter to the County Council’s education committee on Jan. 25, 12 parents urged the schools to continue pushing students to achieve above the state standards. County analysts worry that level of rigor could drive some students, especially blacks and Latinos, further behind.
By sixth grade, for example, nearly 60 percent of white and Asian students were enrolled in accelerated math, while only around 20 percent of black and Latino students joined them.
“Certainly the gap can be narrowed in above-grade-level performance prior to its closing in grade-level measures,” the letter said.
Their position in defense of high achievers, which they claim is supported by many teachers but not Superintendent Jerry Weast, stands against recent recommendations made to the council in a report on the schools’ progress in closing the achievement gap.
The report, compiled by the council’s legislative office, questioned “whether the school system can reach its goal of narrowing the gap in above-grade-level measures without first making investments to close the gaps still evident by race, ethnicity,” special education and language status.
School board President Nancy Navarro said she wasn’t concerned about the parents’ gripe.
“The data shows we have always focused on differentiated instruction,” she said, citing gifted and talented coordinators in each school and the abundance of accelerated classes.
The primary challenges to Montgomery County schools, she said, are the extremes: “High-flyers whose parents hire extra tutors” and “students from refugee camps in Sierra Leone who have never received any formal instruction in their lives.”
According to some education experts, the parents might be fretting over nothing.
“Education is not a zero-sum game,” said Karin Chenoweth, senior writer for the D.C.-based think tank Education Trust. “There’s no evidence in the data that shows that high-end kids are hurt by the greater emphasis on making sure all kids are making progress.”
