"One-Size-Fits-Nobody"

Testimony given February 23, 2009 to MCPS Board of Education by Eric Marx, Co-President of Gifted & Talented Association of Montgomery County, MD

Good evening.

As Co-President of the Gifted and Talented Association of Montgomery County, I strongly urge you to include in the Committee on Special Populations' work plan a serious review of MCPS' failure to meet the educational needs of gifted and talented and high-achieving students.

Second, I also implore you to postpone the Policy Committee's consideration of Policy IOA until that review has been completed.

It's been more that two years since the Board received the DSAC Report on Gifted and Talented Education -- two years without the Board even publicly addressing the report.

It's been almost a year since the Committee on Special Populations was given a mandate to address GT education -- almost a year without any action.

Many parents say that MCPS is currently gutting GT education -- that's not quite true. Outside of math, in most schools, there is virtually no GT education left to gut. Particularly in elementary and middle schools, the norm long ago became "one-size-fits-nobody."

Instead, MCPS is just attempting to gut the GT POLICY -- ironically, for no reason -- it has ignored the policy since it was adopted. Even under the current policy, MCPS has been more than able to make sure that, in most schools, "no child gets ahead."

In addition to being highly divisive, MCPS' plan to gut the GT Policy would be a repeat of the travesty of the secondary learning centers' closings -- again based only on MCPS' disingenuous promises to provide instructional services that never quite happen -- here as well, there will continue to be no real differentiation in local schools, and no appropriate curricula and training, and real students will really suffer.

This time, please study first and act second, instead of the other way round.

Thank you.