Test indicates no racial, social differences in youngsters' future accomplishments

A new way of testing young children in Diboll schools for academic potential has revealed that there are no racial or social differences in what youngsters have the ability to accomplish.

The testing program, called the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, was given to kindergartners and first graders this school year. The key to the test, explained Marilyn Hankla, director of special services, is that it eliminates bias toward good vocabulary and tests only reasoning and problem solving abilities. Hankla presented a report to the school board of trustees at its monthly meeting Tuesday, April 29.

The testing was instituted as part of an effort to identify children who should be in gifted and talented programs, which offer extra enrichment to high-potential students to help them perform to the best of their abilities. Diboll has about 4

percent of its student body in G&T, against a statewide average of 8 percent.

Poor English language skills often are found in children from Hispanic and low-income families. Tests that rely on language skills can cause children whose verbal skills are low to under-perform. Diboll also has relied on teacher referrals for G&T placement, and these can be subjective, whether or not the teacher realizes it.

Hankla said the kindergarten pupil who scored the highest in the tests is an African-American boy who has "behavior issues" and who probably would not have been identified as gifted without these tests. Under the Naglieri system, scores of 85- 115 fall in the average range. This pupil, also classified as economically disadvantaged, scored 148.

The average score for all kindergartners was 99.65. The lowest score was 62. Scoring above the 90th percentile, making them eligible for G&T, were 21 pupils, 15 percent of the class.

Nine Hispanic students attained the 90th percentile, and five of them are classed as limited English proficiency. Of the pupils scoring above the 90th percentile, which means they scored better than 90 percent of their classmates, 71 percent are economically disadvantaged. In total, of the high achievers, 52 percent are white, 37 percent Hispanic and 11 percent African-American. Fourteen girls and nine boys scored above the 90th percentile.

In a later interview, Hankla said early identification of the potential of disadvantaged students is crucial.

"They don't know they have choices in life. They can't comprehend there's a different world out there," she said. "By the time they're teenagers they don't think they have the power to change their lives."

Early identification of high potential children gives the schools the chance to "challenge them." It puts the schools in a position to "be able to channel that intelligence" positively. "Young kids are very impressionable."

One thing she recalls from her own childhood is having teachers and family telling her that there was nothing she couldn't do if she tried. That message has to be passed on to children who won't hear it outside the classroom, she said.

"They don't come to us with low intelligence."

One of the things that has operated in the past is having a largely white, middle-class teacher corps, who unwittingly pass on cultural biases in their evaluations of students. In the past, low-income students have been over-identified as learning disabled.

Hankla hopes the Naglieri test can be a new benchmark.

"Athletic potential can be seen early. Nobody can see the brain," she said. "In athletics, as a community, we are there," she added, pointing to the high level of summer youth sports and the support for high school athletics. "We have to get to the same place in academics."

Part of that effort is bringing in parental involvement. "We are going to the parents one-onone to talk to them," she said. Many of the low-income parents they deal with are single mothers, she acknowledged, and many are highly stressed just trying to live their lives. They don't have the resources to be as supportive of their children as they should be.

But the high-potential, livingin poverty child is the one the schools need to identify and help. "These can become very dangerous minds if we're not careful," Hankla said.

"Athletes are given options, they're given choices." The same needs to be extended in academics.

"These students come to us with very strong reasoning abilities. They're not slow," Hankla said.

"Children of poverty deal with a tremendous amount of stress," she said, and that affects memory, decision-making ability and other areas of the brain crucial to learning.

"Our job is to go to the parents and say, with open arms, 'let's work together,'" she said. All parents want their children to have better lives; by becoming "partners" with low-income parents, the children get a better shot at that better life.

"The most important piece of information" about the highpotential children "is that these amazing children grow up in poverty and they have no clue they have the ability to change their world," she said.

"Teachers have the power to change that, and I don't think they realize that."