I am here to urge the board to maintain the district’s current level of commitment to its most academically talented students. The acronym for the department that serves these kids is TAG, which means talented and gifted.
 

Just two years ago, the district cut five positions from the TAG staff, and 54 percent of the budget. This was more than a third of the full-time equivalent staff at that time, and eliminated virtually all individual services to elementary and middle school
students.

As dedicated professionals committed to maintaining service, the TAG staff reorganized as a district-level resource.  The department’s primary strategy is to help classroom teachers differentiate instruction for academically talented individuals or groups. “Differentiation” is eduspeak for matching instruction to individual students’ needs.

To do this, TAG staff members individually assess students recommended by parents and teachers. They then work with identified TAG students, their parents and their teachers to develop differentiation plans.  This means that the TAG teachers help classroom teachers plan how to instruct students at their next level of challenge--an education every child deserves.  Many TAG students already know 50 to 75 percent of their grades’ content at the start of the school year.

The TAG teachers also help classroom teachers assess other students in the class, in the hopes of identifying a cluster of kids who would together benefit from differentiated instruction. They call this process the “Classroom Action Summary.” Research
has shown that the factors that most contribute to gifted students’ attitude and achievement are receiving instruction matched to their ability with their intellectual peers. The Classroom Action Summary has also become the primary mechanism for identifying
talented kids who come from underprivileged backgrounds, whose parents might not be able to advocate for their kids. These students would not otherwise be recommended for TAG services.

The district does not offer any regular program of pullout classes, replacement curricula or individual tutoring for children identified as academically talented. Only the tiny number of profoundly gifted students receive limited individual, out-of-classroom services, generally provided by untrained UW student tutors. Those are kids with IQs above 160. This is in
contrast to many communities around the country, including Janesville, that provide extensive enrichment or even magnet schools for the top performing one or two percent of their students.

In Madison, an academically advanced child’s only opportunity to be challenged depends upon the ability of the classroom teacher to provide that challenge. Elementary and middle school classroom teachers are 100 percent responsible for meeting all the educational needs of TAG students, including those who may be three or more years ahead of grade level--even
kids with abilities the teacher might encounter only two or three times in a career.

The role of Madison’s TAG resource teachers is to help the classroom teachers accomplish this. They train teachers in differentiation and classroom management techniques, and help to locate learning materials.  It’s an excellent investment of time, because teachers trained to differentiate can apply those skills for the rest of their careers to improve education for all their students.

The district is now recommending that two more positions be removed, leaving the TAG department with one director, who also plans the summer enrichment classes and serves the high schools, and six resource teachers, who split their time among all  the middle schools and elementary schools.

The current ratio of resource teachers to elementary and middle school enrollment is 8 staff members to about 16,500 total students. This means that each staff member tries to meet the TAG needs found within a population of about 1,830 students in five or six elementary or middle schools. I understand that the actual case load is currently about 125 identified students for each TAG teacher serving the elementary and middle schools. {That number is bound to go up as teachers become more aware of how to identify talented kids.}

If the recommended cut in staff goes through, the remaining seven staff members will each become responsible for six or seven schools, with ratio of one teacher to an approximate total population of 2,400 students. The actual caseload would exceed 160
students per teacher.

{This means that each teacher would repeatedly assess, locate resources, and repeatedly interact with 160 students, along with all their parents and teachers.}

{Madison’s TAG services already fall far short of other communities that pride themselves on academic excellence nationwide, and that compete with us for relocating businesses and employees. They fall short of Wisconsin’s midsize communities, such as Eau Claire and Janesville. Our services fall short of our own outlying communities. In Waunakee, for example, the ratio is one TAG teacher to 1,010 students, and they offer five enrichment activities for TAG elementary students. In Oregon, which has an exemplary program, the ratio is one full time staff member to 650 elementary and middle school students, and the district also hires part-time tutors as needed.}

We should provide an education that challenges all of our students to stretch their minds every day. We should strive to maintain the academic diversity of our schools. We should work to avoid “bright flight” to private schools and outlying communities. As we enrich the education of our most academically talented kids, they will in turn enrich the educational
environment of our schools and community. Please do not cut the staff and funding of the Talented and Gifted Department.