Seattle closes gifted class because minorities are 55% of student body but only 48% of program

Caryn Lipson

April 7, 2024

Dumbing down education to fight “racism”

School districts that promote social justice DEI agendas may be causing more harm than good. A case in point is the Seattle, Washington school board which is closing down its “Highly Capable Cohort” (HCC), a program for high-achieving students, because there were more white students in the program than black, Hispanic, Asian, and multi-racial students, reported Pat Dorney for Law Enforcement Today.

Referencing KTTH-770’s Jason Rantz's report on the dissolution of the program, Dorney explained that from 2015 to 2021 the percentage of students of different ethnicities increased, yet, it was not good enough for those looking for equal representation.

In 2015, the Seattle Public Schools hired an “equity specialist” whose charge was to address (in other words, find) so-called racial inequities. Three years later, the HCC served 13% multiracial students, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic, and 1.6% black. In 2021, those numbers had increased to 20% multiracial, 16% Asian, 8.2% Hispanic, and 3.4% black. In other words, most cohorts virtually doubled their participation, while Asian participation saw a 25% increase. However, that wasn’t good enough for critics who complained the program was “racist” and had to go. (Emphasis added.)

Minority parents ignored

Rather than searching for more non-white students who would qualify for the program, and despite protests from minority parents whose children had been benefiting, the program will be closed. In the coming 2024-2025 school year a whole-classroom model will be implemented, which Dorney quotes Rantz as arguing, is “unworkable.” Students of varying levels will all be placed in one classroom but they will not be taught in the same way forcing teachers to adapt lessons to both students who can barely read and those "reading two advanced books a week:”

[Rantz] explained that students of all learning abilities would be included in the classroom, with each teacher responsible for between 20-30 students of differing learning abilities, with no additional resources and limited new training. Rantz argues it will make it impossible for teachers to create individualized programs for students with such disparate needs.

“It’s not likely that a teacher can help a student who can barely read while simultaneously challenging a classmate who is reading two advanced books a week,” Rantz wrote. (Emphasis added.)

7% gap was too much

Benjamin Ryan tweeted about the disbanding of the Highly Capable Cohort; including one mother's comment that it was of tremendous help to her highly gifted son with ADHD who was reading Harry Potter books at age 5.

Pie charts, included in the tweet, show the apparent disparities between the racial/ethnic makeup of the Seattle public school student body and the Highly Capable Cohort. While 45% of the student body is white, the HCC was 52% white.

What will happen to extremely gifted students?

Rantz, Dorney continued, recounted the “typical” school day for a whole classroom model, as depicted in the Seattle Times, as “hardly impressive:”

According to a recent Seattle Times feature, it examined a “typical” day in the whole classroom model, which Rantz called “hardly impressive.”

On a recent day in a first-grade classroom, seven advanced learners sat on the floor reading silently on their iPads. Several others wrote independently at their desks. A special education student wrote with a paraprofessional at their side. The rest of the class sat in a front corner of the classroom while the teacher read a book out loud.

In other words, Rantz said, advanced learners were sent back to the scourge of COVID-19 learning, “relegated to impersonal iPads,” while other students are writing, alone at their desks, somehow avoiding the distraction of the teacher loudly reading a book out loud.”

Less advanced students will not be lifted up

Rather than lifting the underachievers, the move will dumb down the gifted students, according to Rantz.

The move to dumb down the gifted kids to the level of their less advanced peers is “another lazy move,” Rantz argues. Instead of trying to lift the underachievers up, they dumb everyone else down. Is it any wonder that test scores are in the basement?

A program that helps no one

In conclusion, Dorney argued, the school board was failing to support the more gifted students as well as those for whom they were aiming to provide equity.

By mothballing a program that lifted kids up and was working for the lowest common denominator, the progressives on the Seattle school board are failing not only their high-achieving students but the very students whose “equity” they are trying to achieve.

There's nothing like a quality education

Those who made it up from poverty, such as economist, social critic, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for Public Policy Research Thomas Sowell and teacher Dena Simmons, attest to the difference a proper education makes.

Thomas Sowell: "fairness not an option"

Sowell, Frontline News reported, appreciated the lack of fairness he experienced in an era before affirmative action and DEI. Growing up with hard-working parents who never made it past 7th grade, Sowell's teachers expected him to leave school knowing as much as children from more affluent homes that had books and magazines that his did not. Never was there consideration that he might not be able to succeed and needed “assistance” to make up for his underprivileged background. During his 1999 talk at the Harvard Club, which is depicted in the below After Skool cartoon of his talk, Sowell said:

Whenever I hear the notions of fairness in education, I think back to my own education and I think, “Thank God my teachers were unfair to me.”

He believed that had his teachers lowered their standards, as they are doing today, he would have been doomed to failure. However, he continued, “with a good education, change can happen in one generation. This was shown time and time again,” Sowell said in the clip below, using the late Jamie Escalante as an example. Escalante's Hispanic students did surprisingly well on their calculus exams astonishing the testing company.

Dena Simmons: “empowering my students to take ownership in their learning”

In the 2013 TEDx Teacher's College talk below, Simmons recounts her early years growing up in New York City's Bronx borough. After receiving her degree and returning to the Bronx in order to give back to her community, she discovered that there was a big difference between her and her students; she was now living there by choice while her students were there, as she had been as a child, because of economic circumstances.

Simmons did not talk about diversity, equity, or inclusion, although she did recognize the difference “privilege” made and now considered herself privileged. Ironically, the privilege she had was her mother's hard work and her own diligence. Nevertheless, wanting the best for her students, she became more mindful of her students' experiences, working to empower them and give them a sense of self-worth, stating (@10:00):

I celebrated my students by reading writers whose stories resonated with theirs, by constantly adjusting my teaching to meet the needs of my students, and by empowering my students to take ownership in their learning.

Actually, one activity that I did in my classroom was dedicating a day to celebrate each student. My students and I would write warm fuzzy messages on sticky notes and then I would collect these sticky notes and give them to that student. My students would keep these messages of love and support on their desk for weeks. As a class we celebrated each other's assets.

In essence, a mindful educator is a culturally responsive educator. She pays precise attention to what students bring to the classroom, to what excites and engages them, to what upsets and offends them, and to what makes them feel important and powerful.

Good teachers strive to prepare underprivileged students to succeed in life. They don't expect them to fail absent special help and/or lowering the standards.

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