A couple of weeks ago, the Appleton School Board heard a presentation about the Odyssey/Magellan Magnet School. For those that are not familiar, Odyssey/Magellan is the school for gifted and talented children in grades two through eight in the Appleton Area School District. Excuse me, I guess the new term for that is Talented and Gifted–because the acronym required for everything in the education system to make it as difficult for the general public to understand becomes “TAG”–which apparently sounds better than “GAT”. It’s a school within a school, being housed at Highlands Elementary.
The presentation started with administrators sharing the history of Magellan School, the numbers of kids enrolled there, how it works sharing space with another school, and why it’s not a charter school (FYI, you can’t have special conditions for kids to attend a charter school). Then, several students of varying grade levels addressed the School Board to talk about their experiences at Magellan. Each of them praised the accelerated curriculum, being allowed to set their own pace for learning (instead of having to sit through classes where other kids need continued instruction to learn something), working independently on “passion projects”, being required to actually talk to experts for projects instead of just “Googling it” for information, being on pace to take college credit classes from day one in high school, and sharing classes with other kids that come to school every day focused and ready to learn. One little girl even bragged about how Magellan’s test scores boost the overall rating of the district.
After the kids were done, I was feeling really positive about the Magellan program. As a kid who “worked ahead” while attending a private grade school, I could understand why those kids were so excited about not having to “wait for everyone else” to continue learning. And the whole presentation was a refreshing change from the usual workshops sessions on low reading and math scores, behavioral issues, and attendance problems.
But, then the adults started talking, and all of that positivity went right out the door. The Board heard next from parents of Magellan students, and their speeches were littered with TikTok-based therapy-speak creating a sense of victimhood and potential doom.
The Board heard about how “hard” things are for kids that “learn differently”–a term you will notice that removes the positive connotation of “Talented and Gifted” and instead lumps their child in with students that have developmental disabilities or that are (legitimately) on the autism spectrum. One mother claimed that not providing advanced instruction would put gifted students in the infamous “school to prison pipeline” because they would just be bored and would act out in class all the time. There was also a claim that Magellan is “literally saving lives”.
By the time those comments wrapped up, the little girl that was so proud and happy about her test scores and getting to work ahead of her grade level had a look on her face like she had just found out that Christmas was canceled this year. So why would parents of the highest-achieving kids in the education system want to portray them as “high-risk” and in danger of becoming failures in life? (To be honest, if it weren’t for the political and social leanings of those parents, most of those kids would be home-schooled or go to a private school.) But, the reason for that came during question-and-answer time from the Board.
One member of the Board noted that Odyssey/Magellan is the smallest “school” in terms of enrollment in the district. And despite getting an extra 15-million dollars a year for the next four years in a voter-approved referendum last month, Appleton is still looking at closing and consolidating more school buildings due to declining enrollment in the future. The soon-to-close Columbus Elementary in the downtown area has just 79-students this year, and administrators could no longer justify the cost of a stand-alone building and all of the administrative costs as well.
Another Board member wanted it pointed out that Odyssey/Magellan is also the least diverse school in the district–at least in regards to race and socio-economic status. That led to a question about “barriers” to certain populations being accepted into the program. Now keep in mind, students at the magnet school have been identified by teachers in kindergarten and first grade as being highly gifted–both in their educational development and comprehension of advanced material. Unlike some Talented and Gifted programs, it is not just based on admissions test scores. That being said, I’ve heard at a number of other urban school board meetings that teachers are biased against some racial minorities when it comes to assessing educational acumen and behavioral traits–so lots of people think that’s not a fair way of doing it either. (I would note that all three kids who addressed the board that night were not white.)
I will give credit to the Board members for not coming up with the lame “everyone is gifted and talented in their own way, it’s just up to us to find out what that gift or talent is” line that I have heard in other debates about this topic. The Board discussion wrapped up with a line that made me laugh out loud: “Well tonight is about ‘celebration’, but there are a lot of questions to be answered in the future”. It reminded me of a wedding where the drunken Best Man gives a speech extremely offensive to everyone–and that increases the likelihood of the marriage ending in divorce from 50% to 90%–but wraps it up with “but let’s all just have a good time tonight!”
I don’t know what the budget is to operate the Odyssey/Magellan Magnet School for a couple hundred gifted and talented kids. But I can tell you that it is dwarfed by the amount the district is spending on the thousands of kids now in special education programs. And those special ed expenses appear to only be heading up at almost unsustainable rates.
As I’ve mentioned in My Two Cents before, parents that demand that their kids have individualized education plans have a lot of forces behind them, not the least of which are federal laws. There are no requirements by either the Federal Department of Education nor the state Department of Public Instruction for school districts to provide gifted and talented educational programs. And so the parents of those students are forced to downplay their kids’ exceptional talents and pass them off as potential victims as well, deserving of additional funding for their programs too.
If we were truly interested in making sure that every child reaches their full potential in public education, we’d have gifted and talented programs in every school at every grade level, and parents would be making every effort to help their kids earn spots in those programs. But we’re currently in a place in our society where excellence is not “celebrated”–or at least not without constant reminders of who literally isn’t making the grade.
