Seattle Public Schools have ended their gifted programs due to excessive amounts of white and Asian students in them. The Highly Capable Cohort program separated very talented kids away from their lesser-performing classmates to focus more attention on their development. This has been scrapped for a different program with all the kids in the same classrooms regardless of their academic levels.
Teachers and parents have complained about this change, stating that the more advanced kids will not get the proper attention they need to strive for because the lesson plan cannot be too advanced for other kids in the class. The motivation behind this change is equity. The Highly Capable Cohort program featured too many white and Asian students for the administration’s liking. So, instead of focusing on parents and underperforming students attempting to raise their standards, highly-performing kids will get taken down a notch to make the proverbial “ceiling” closer to the floor.
SOURCES:
Seattle schools phasing out highly capable cohort program | FOX 13 Seattle – YouTube
Seattle public schools shuts down gifted and talented program
