I attended the board of education meeting on September 8 and listened to the presentation of the external and internal report on the district’s gifted program. In both reports, our district’s math program has been compared with the national average a lot of times. I would like to quickly review some statistics on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in the United States in general.
In a number of studies, it has shown that STEM education in the U.S. does not rank high internationally. In a cross national study named PISA, the U.S. ranked at about 35 for math education among about 64 countries — which is below average and is behind most countries in Europe and in Asia. Both the national science foundation and the white house report have recognized this problem and put strong emphasis on STEM education. When we compare to the national average I hope we understand where the national average is in an international setting. After all, the world is flat.
I do feel lucky that our district stands out when compared to the national average. Our district has had great tradition and strength in STEM subjects. Our high schools rank high in STEM subjects. Some of our high school students have represented the U.S. to compete in the Math Olympics competition. This type of achievement is crucially attributed to the strong math program that starts in primary school. In particular, the math A&E program is an integral part of it.
I appreciate it very much that the school and the district take the effort to review the Gifted and Talented program and the math program in particular. What I get from the external report is that the current A&E program is shown to be beneficial to students in this program. Thus I would be concerned regarding the suggestion in the internal report regarding the possible elimination of this program. I am worried that this will remove such benefits and may eventually hurt the tradition and the strength of this district.
I fully understand that the current A&E program is not perfect — nothing is perfect — but we need to address the issues up front. If the selection process in the third grade can be improved, let’s improve that. If we need to expand the program to serve more kids, let’s have another class maybe at a different level. But not addressing the issues and simply eliminating the math A&E for fourth and fifth grades sounds like a passive, discouraging move.
Instead I trust that the board and the school administration team will have the courage, the intelligence, and the confidence to address the issues with a deliberated decision, such that our district will continue to hold the traditional strength in STEM education.
Jie Gao
West Windsor
Since third grade, three years in a row, my daughter has tried but failed to get into the A&E program. She did not directly benefit from the A&E program. However, as parents and residents of this district, we support the A&E program, including fourth and fifth grade A&E. I just want to give two obvious reasons here.
First, there is a real and strong demand for better math education in our district, and the A&E program serves the needs. America’s K-12 math education is falling behind the world. This is no longer a secret. To build a solid math foundation, it needs to start at an early age. We want to hold our children to a higher standard and to give them opportunities to seek more rigorous training in mathematics, which our current regular math class do not adequately provide. The A&E program is not a problem. Effort of change should be focused on improving our regular math class, not cutting the successful A&E program.
Secondly, the A&E program is an option, a choice. It adds to the varieties of schools’ offerings, much like the different levels of sports programs do. Should we consider eliminating the varsity basketball program or football program just because not all students are good at this sport at this level? Or do we perceive the high achievement of some students in such sports as excessive pressure onto others? No, of course not. Hard work and the pursuit of excellence are not only personal choices, they are also characteristics and merits to be encouraged. They are American spirits. As much as we welcome and support our basketball or football champions, we should also be very proud to see that kids from our district are achieving very good results in various math competitions, including the Math Olympics. In no small part, our A&E program has contributed to such success.
Mike Jia
West Windsor
At the Board of Education meeting, we heard two reports on the Gifted and Talented (GT) programs in the WW-P district, one from an external review team and the other from an internal team consisting of educators who manage and execute the GT programs.
The external report presents very positive findings with recommendations primarily on the clustering and differentiated learning, creative and critical thinking, and stress/anxiety management.
The internal report examines carefully on individual programs and provides specific recommendations on the Accelerated and Enriched Math (A&E Math) program. Issues about the A&E Math identified by the internal report focus on three areas: (1) serving too few, (2) gender and ethnic imbalance, and (3) developmentally inappropriate to test and select participants in third grade (stress, peer pressure, anxiety, inaccurate assessment etc).
The internal report recommends (i) redesigning the selection process and (ii) starting the program from sixth grade instead of fourth grade — eliminating the program in fourth and fifth grades.
I’m surprised that serving too few (tens of students per year) is an issue of A&E. No GT or similar specially targeted programs can cover a large body of students. How many students does a sports team have? And who believes delaying the starting grade of A&E by two years can improve the coverage?
Given the data from the external report on the WW-P student ethnicity (62 percent Asian, 6 percent Black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 27 percent white), I think the high percentage of Asian students in the A&E Math program (exact number not disclosed in either report), which of course needs to be improved, is by no mean a problem worse than in any of such programs for a group of specially interested students like a sports team or a performing art group. The similar is also true for gender disparity in such programs. Again, who thinks a two-year delay can improve the imbalance?
I agree with the concerns on developmental issues of third graders and the need to reform the selection process. However, the two-year delay provides a terrible solution. The test-based method can be changed to a more comprehensive, inclusive, and reliable identification process, and it could be done more often to accommodate the variations in individual development. Eliminating fourth and fifth grade A&E deprives the opportunities from many truly gifted youth, and this was echoed by more than 20 parents who spoke at the BOE meeting.
No program is perfect. On the contrary, the A&E Math has been extremely successful in our school district, making it a great and unique strength of WW-P, all thanks to the absolutely top-notch educators and management teams.
Personally, I heard no major concerns or complaints from the kids or their parents in this program. The internal report doesn’t identify the exact source of complaints, which worries me, as for how such recommendations come out without the initiatives or input from a wider range of stakeholders.
And I hope my worry is truly unnecessary.
Ming Pan
West Windsor
Are you hungry? If you had enough food for your meals, you would not feel hungry!
If you have several kids, one of your kids needs to eat three hamburgers, but the rest of your kids only require one. Will you give every kid just one hamburger and let that one kid feel hungry all the time? I believe you will not do that. Different kid may prefer different amounts and types of burgers, such as beef burger, chicken burgers, cheese burgers. As their parents, you are certainly trying to meet their needs.
Education is like eating hamburgers, meeting students’ desires with differentiated instruction. The WW-P community is doing a great job to have many programs to meet students’ requirements and keep them full. A&E for fourth and fifth graders is one of the successful programs for those kids who are hungry for more advanced math knowledge.
Please keep the program instead of removing it. If there is an issue with the cooking recipe of the hamburgers, please modify and improve the recipe.
Xianqin Wang
Princeton Manor Community, Plainsboro
