[Ohiogift] Fwd: [CGEPNETWORK] more about gifted education in the national press

[Jane Piirto]

Here is a comment on the Chester Finn article about the need for gifted
education on the American Psychological Association network list serve,
from Joe Renzulli. I agree with him, having experienced the value of being
the leader of a special school years ago!
Jane


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Subotnik, Rena <rsubotnik at apa.org>
Date: Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: [CGEPNETWORK] more about gifted education in the national press
To: CGEPNETWORK at lists.apa.org


 Hi Rena,



Thanks for the excellent piece by Finn on underserved high potential/low
income students — wish he would have pushed this argument when he was
assistant secretary!  Because of my current work I especially appreciated
his comments about the counter arguments offered by people who are critical
of special schools and hope readers of your blog will see special schools
as a major alternative to all the differentiation buzz going around, but
that they will also be prepared to face some of the bombshells from people
who have been harshly critical of my special school initiatives.



As you know, I have been working with three urban school districts in
replicating the very successful academy we started four years ago in
Hartford, CT (98% Black and Hispanic) and the replications have been much
more challenging than I anticipated.   Our academy in Hartford was the
*only* urban school in the state to recently have been named as one of
Connecticut's Schools of Distinction and we earned one of the highest
ratings on the State Department of Education's School Performance Index
last year.  More importantly, our kids have taken all kinds of honors in
things like National History Day, Invention Convention, and other ways that
our model focuses on the application of knowledge in addition to just
improvements in test scores.  We have a very simple mission for our
academies —* competitive* four year college or university matriculation and
graduate and professional school aspirations following college.



Getting back to Finn's insightful caution about critics of special schools
for HP/LI students — these are some of the comments that have appeared in
the blogesphere and even picked up by *The Washington Post* about my
special school initiatives:  "Segregationist,"  "Absurd," "Revolting,"
"Unconstitutional," "Gross injustice," "Violates Brown vs. the Board of
Education and Connecticut's Sheff vs. O'Neil State Supreme Court Decision."
 A civil rights lawyer is actually threatening me but a Uconn Law/Education
professor says there is no cause for concern.  In the meantime, these
experiences have given me good background for a how-to article that I hope
to get our once my replication-school experiences are completed.



I am at this point, however, convinced that the field should proceed
full-speed-ahead with special school initiatives by getting Finn's message
across to administrators and policy makers.  It can only help when someone
with his respect gets behind this — again, thanks for sharing this article.



Best wishes,



Joe



Joseph S. Renzulli, Director

The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented

University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor

Raymond and Lynn Neag Professor of Gifted Education and Talent Development

Winner of the 2009 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education



Visit our award winning website www.gifted.uconn.edu/ for information about
our summer and academic year programs including Confratute, Three Summers
Master's Degree Program, On-Line Courses, UConn Mentor Connection,
Parenting Specialist Help, and the latest research from The National
Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.





*From: *<Subotnik>, "Subotnik, Rena" <rsubotnik at apa.org>
*Reply-To: *"Subotnik, Rena" <rsubotnik at apa.org>

*Date: *Sunday, January 5, 2014 8:58 AM
*To: *"CGEPNETWORK at LISTS.APA.ORG" <CGEPNETWORK at LISTS.APA.ORG>
*Subject: *[CGEPNETWORK] more about gifted education in the national press



from the (new) winter issue of National Affairs. And feel free to pass it
on if you like.

--

Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University &
President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
1016 16th Street NW, 8th floor, Washington DC 20036
Office: 202-223-5450; fax 202-223-9226
Home: 301-656-4489; fax 301-718-7395
Website: www.edexcellence.net
Primary e-mail: cefinnjr at edexcellence.net
Secondary e-mail: cefinnjr at aol.com

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-- 
Jane Piirto, Ph.D.
Trustees' Distinguished Professor
Director of Talent Development Education
247 Dwight Schar College of Education
Ashland University
Ashland, OH 44805
Office phone: 419-289-5379
Web site: www.ashland.edu/~jpiirto
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