Gilroy
– A new method of identifying students for the district’s Gifted
and Talented Education program will be a better measure of
intelligence and give Hispanic and other second-language students a
fairer shot than tests used in the past, say committee members
backing the plan.
Gilroy – A new method of identifying students for the district’s Gifted and Talented Education program will be a better measure of intelligence and give Hispanic and other second-language students a fairer shot than tests used in the past, say committee members backing the plan.
After five months of research and discussion, nine volunteer parents along with a GATE consultant and administrator unveiled what they call a well-defined, equitable and research-based process to identify and refer GATE students in GUSD.
The plan also provides parents with a way to clearly understand the criteria for eligibility, how they’ll be notified if their child is GATE-identified, and if and how they can appeal if their child falls below the percentile range for eligibility, committee members said.
The new process starts with a test called the Raven Progressive Matrices Plus, a non-reading, non-language-based test that measures cognitive processing skills rather than achievement levels. Standardized tests and assessments the district used in the past mainly measured achievement skills, such as the ability to memorize facts or the knowledge of a broad vocabulary.
The Raven test, on the other hand, is a measure of “fluid intelligence,” testing students’ ability to reason and process information, make abstract judgments and transfer information to progressively more difficult tasks. The test will be administered to second graders every year in March, beginning this year.
GATE students who are in the third grade or above this year will not retest using the new assessment. Students in grades other than second will be considered for testing on an individual basis this year, according to a clearly defined criteria.
“What we don’t want to have is a situation where a bunch of kids are being tested when they’ve unsuccessfully tested in the past,” said committee member Bill Hudson.
New students who transfer into GUSD in the fall will be tested in September and October. Students who were GATE-identified in other districts might have to retest in GUSD, depending on the process their previous districts used.
The Raven test consists of 60 multiple choice tasks arranged in five sets of 12 questions each. The questions build upon each other, so students are challenged to use patterns of reasoning to help them determine the answers as they complete the test. The test is administered by a trained proctor. The district plans to use two this year, one of whom is bilingual.
Because the assessment does not rely on language skills, even students who are still learning English will be able to excel, said Marcia Brown, the district’s director of student services.
Currently, about 5 percent of students in GUSD are GATE-identified, compared to 7 percent in Santa Clara County and 6 percent in the state. GUSD’s GATE-identified students are split mainly between Rucker and Luigi Aprea elementary schools.
“The thing that really struck us going through the process is that there were some schools in the district that had no GATE students at all,” Hudson said.
Although a breakdown of ethnicity for GATE-identified students in GUSD is not available, Hudson and Brown said it’s safe to say the makeup does not mirror the district’s overall student population: 66 percent Hispanic, 25 percent white or non-Hispanic and 9 percent Pacific Islander, Asian, Filipino or other. Committee members said the new assessment will more accurately reflect the district’s population.
“I’m confident there are GATE students on every campus,” Brown said.
The assessment is only one component of the overall GATE certification process. The second and third steps are referral and parent notification.
Students scoring in the 98th percentile range are eligible to be referred for a case study for GATE certification. A case study includes examining the Raven test results as well as teacher and parent surveys. A certification committee comprised of site and district administrators and other personnel will review each case study and fill out a form for certification. If the committee approves certification, the student’s parents and school will be notified, and the student’s name will be placed in a database.
Parents of students scoring in the 94th to 97th percentile range will be notified of possible appeal. The appeal process, by request only, is based on parent and teacher surveys and whether the student scored at the 90th percentile or above on one of three standardized tests: the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education, the California Standards Test or the Measure of Academic Progress.
For parents of students scoring below the 94th percentile, the appeal process considers whether the student scored at the 90th percentile or above on all districtwide standardized tests, as well as the Standardized Testing and Reporting test. A committee comprised of the student’s principal, primary teacher, resource teacher and others familiar with the student’s work will study whether the student should be identified.
The district will purchase materials and begin training proctors this month, and the first test will be administered to all 750 district second graders in March.
Parents will receive notification of the results in April, and a parent information meeting will be held following notification. Parents will not receive a bar graph or some other representation of their child’s strengths and weaknesses, but they will receive the percentile range in which their child scored.
An initial cost estimate for the plan is $7,500. Of that, $4,500 will go toward test materials and $3,000 toward proctors. Materials include answer sheets and test booklets, which can be laminated and reused over three years, at which point the district is required to resubmit its GATE plan to the state for review.
The new test is significantly less expensive than the test the district used last year to identify GATE students, which cost $8,600 in personnel alone and did a poor job of identifying GATE students, Hudson said.
The Raven has been around since 1936 and has undergone a few revisions since then, most recently in 1998. San Diego Unified School District has used the test to identify its GATE students for about 15 years, and according to GUSD committee members, that district found the Raven allowed underrepresented populations a better chance of being identified for GATE.
New GATE plan
Identification assessment: Raven Progressive Matrices
• Non-verbal, non-language-based
• Measures fluid intelligence, testing ability to reason and process information, make abstract judgments and transfer information to progressively more difficult tasks
• 60 multiple choice tasks arranged in five sets of 12 questions each
• Administered by at least two trained proctors
