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My crisis pregnancy occurred in 1992, when I was 36 years old. I already had three children, my husband was still in a career training program, we were renting in the S.F.Bay area (way expensive). We did not have in mind having another child, but we were careless on the birth control front. Like your guests, "we knew better." I felt stupid. But we also had carried three children to term (plus some miscarriages) and we knew what was going on "in there." This was a little person getting ready to join us, and nothing about our external circumstances or desires could make us able to snuff out this already-formed life that had begun. The birth of this child meant that my husband shortened his career training, I curtailed my career track, we drove (still drive) old cars and put off other material pursuits. It also meant all kinds of joys of the type you can never, never anticipate. I am so sorry that crisis pregnancies demand such an important, emotional decision be made in such a time-pressed fashion. I am glad my inability to take this life kept me from dwelling on negative scenarios that could have otherwise nudged me to make a "pragmatic" decision. I am also thankful that "family-friendliness" seems (finally!) to have become a trendy notion so that I feel more socially supported as a mother than I felt, say, 20 years ago when my children were young.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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A question for John or anyone else who is knowledgeable about this subject:

How is it that you were able to get treatment for your sexual perversion (for lack of a better term) without having to turn yourself in, since you had to admit to a professional that you had perpetrated a crime against a minor? I admire your wife for giving you an ultimatum that led to seeking treatment, but why didn't that process lead to your prosecution due to the counselor's obligation to mandatory reporting?

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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I think you are saying that gifted students have special needs. I would have no problem with considering TAG education as a branch of Special Education, because these students have special educational needs that are not only academic, they may (or may not) be social or emotional. I would like to seem them benefit from some of the resources that are available to Special Education students.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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Allocation of resources is a good indicator of educational priorities. Would you be able to ask your guest from the Parkrose District how many staff in her district serve special education students exclusively, how many staff serve English language learners exclusively, and how many staff serve TAG students exclusively?

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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What works? Well, TAG students want to spend some time working on material that is a challenge to them, and they want to spend some of their day working with other students who are like them academically. Some folks want to put up the argument that TAG parents want their children to have a custom education that meets their every need, etc, but really, most just want at least some opportunity for appropriate education during the student's school day. I think we would even put up with having our children in larger-than-average classes if they were on target with the rate and level of learning. Sometimes that is finally available to students in high school, in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes.
Meantime, we do what we can. We found a distance learning program in math that served my son in middle school. We paid for it ourselves. Later the district broke down and began to pay for the program for a few exceptional students. My daughter found middle school unbearably tedious, but it seemed impossible to modify the rigid curriculum, so she just skipped seventh grade so she could get out of that place faster. I would not call that an ideal solution, but you do what you have to. The next daughter suffered a lot in middle school but hung in there; the only creative thing we did was bring her home early every day one year to work on science at home, since the offering at school was so weak.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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I wish every family with a talented and gifted child had parents who could "engage with them and enrich their lives." Why the assumption that a TAG student is not going to be from a less fortunate background? My family was able to advocate for our children and also find those extra-curricular challenges to meet their needs, but we are talking about needs like not wanting to be bored silly by the tedium of the everyday classroom. Is that a basic need or a special need? What about the need, in math class, to learn new material? What about the need, in literature study, to talk about a book with someone else who has a passion for it? Is the need to do these things basic, or special? Talented and gifted children can sit for months, terms, years without having these things happen, because what is very appropriate for many other students just happens to be out of sync for them. They are called on to be tutors and leaders for other children, and do develop skills if they rise to the occasion, but when do they get to fly? Sometimes never, unless they have a very special (overworked) teacher, or a parent goes to bat for them.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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Beaverton also has a special program, at the middle school level, for highly gifted children; it is called Summa. This program came along too recently for my three children who would have qualified for it, but I have spent time with the Summa students, and they are happy kids in a wonderful, very suitable rich learning environment. Their program is housed in the same building as a comprehensive middle school, so they spend time with the other kids at lunch, electives, etc. This is a great solution for those who test at the 99% level and above, but our district points to it as a solution to "the TAG issue" and then does little to serve the other talented and gifted students.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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Don't get too excited about Beaverton School District's TAG program. They mostly have a better PR department: see my posting above about the "differentiated instruction model" which is Beaverton's excuse for TAG service. They too have one or two "administrators" who mostly administer a few tests, keep elaborate files, run an event or two, and brag about "success." Many parents seem to confuse good grades and test scores with adequate education.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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I am the parent of four children, each qualified as TAG students by our school district. The way our district "serves" TAG students is through what is called "differentiated instruction." In theory, this means that teachers have heterogeneously grouped classrooms (all ability levels), and they give the same material to everyone but employ different delivery techniques and have different expectations for kids based on their capabilities. In practice, teachers get very little staff development in differentiation, and rarely have the time and/or resources to implement what they know is right. This model of service is a joke and does not fulfill our state mandate that highly capable students be served according to their needs.
This is a very bad time to be a talented and gifted student in Oregon. With high-stakes testing and the pressure schools feel to meet AYP (annual yearly progress) goals, school administrators have every incentive to serve their students who do not meet state benchmarks, and absolutely no incentive to serve "the best and the brightest," even if they are grossly underachieving. Sadly, talent and potential in a student is rarely celebrated by teachers and administrators because in their world, exceptionality is functionally a burden and a liability. All of the focus on working for state benchmarks has warped the education community's attitude toward excellence. A parent who wants his or her child to have opportunities to work with students of like ability or to have challenges appropriate to their ability is likely to be smacked with the label "elitist" before they even know what hit them. Parents who want to look at options like acceleration, modified curriculum, flexible grouping, online learning programs, or other options are likely to be branded as obnoxious, and/or asked "why would you want to do that?" Their children are not valued and encouraged in their giftedness; instead their specialness is seen as a nail that sticks out, that must be hammered into conformity.
What works? I think there are many ways to meet the needs of talented and gifted students, but it won't happen unless we there is fundamental shift in how we view these students: they will need to be seen as valuable yet vulnerable. Like all students, they will do best when their needs are are acknowledged and accommodated. Their needs may be somewhat different from those of other students, but they don't have to be more expensive to serve.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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