Ungifted Education or PI Incompetence?

Letter to the Editor, Seattle Post Intelligencer

“Ungifted Education.” (PI, Wednesday 12 Dec. lead editorial in the PI), reflects an extremely low standard of journalism at the PI.

As a parent of two former students in the Seattle School’s APP program, I was upset when I first read about the report from Dr. Callahan. Unlike your editorial writer, however, I took the trouble of both reading the full report and discussing the matter with its author.

Here are a few facts:

The report itself reflects an extremely low and, in my opinion, unprofessional standard. It contains NO statistical analysis of how well the APP students do as compared to their peers, NO analysis of the material actually learned in the program, NO objective data on the preparedness of the APP teachers, and NO objective evaluation of students currently in the program. Though the program has been in place for 30 years, the authors failed to contact any former students or even to contact the UW professor, Dr. Nancy Robinson, who played a key role in the original design of the program.

Instead of a formal analysis, the report consists of anecdotal comments made by a poorly defined collection of District and Program staff, parents in and out of the program, and some current students. The most critical comments are attributed to unnamed individuals. There is no suggestions that either critical comments or praise were followed up by objective analyses.

Shocked by this, I posted a comment on my blog (www.seattlejew.blogspot.com) and communicated that comment to the report’s author, a Professor of Education at the University of Virginia. While not willing to accept my judgment of the manner in which her study had been done, Dr. Callahan complained that she had NOT been given the resources or the charge to do a proper evaluation. Moreover, she wrote me saying that the District had the report for six months without any feedback to its author.

Frankly, I am shocked at the casual nature of this report and can only assure my fellow citizens that in my thirty years as a faculty member of the University of Washington School of Medicine, I have never seen anything so poorly done. I have asked colleagues abut Dr. Callahan’s reputation and been told that she is well respected. If that is so I worry a great deal about what has become acceptable by our education establishment.

For what it may be worth, eighteen years ago when our kids were in the program, I served as President of the parents’ group. In that capacity, I performed a highly unprofessional analysis of the performance of “our kid’s” that is students in Advanced Placement classes at Garfield, on AP exams. I was able to obtain data for Garfield, Lakeside, Mercer Island and Bellevue , including grades and some socio economic status. I was pleased and excited to see that the Garfield students, including kids from the APP program and others at Garfield, outperformed their peers at these elite schools and did so by a wide margin. Bottom line, at least then the District could claim some pretty heady bragging rights for this program.

Sadly, the current report offers no data on whether that is or is not still true.

Perhaps before making derogatory statements about the program or accepting a “damning report,” the PI editorial staff might make the effort to read the report and do some follow up investigation of its own.

Stephen M. Schwartz .......................................................... stephenm.schwartz@gmail.com
Professor of Pathology ................................................. 206 579 7635
University of Washington School of Medicine
815 Mercer St.
Seattle, WA 98109