NurtureShock (14 page)

While the publishers of the tests aren’t trying to determine how well early intelligence tests predict later achievement,
the academic researchers are.

In 2003, Dr. Hoi Suen, Professor of Educational Psychology at Pennsylvania State University, published a meta-analysis of
44 studies, each of which looked at how well tests given in pre-K or in kindergarten predicted achievement test scores two
years later. Most of the underlying 44 studies had been published in the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, and most looked at a single
school or school district. Analyzing them together, Suen found that intelligence test scores before children start school,
on average, had only a 40% correlation with later achievement test results.

This 40% correlation includes all children, at every ability level. When Suen narrowed his focus down to the studies of gifted
or private schools, the correlations weren’t better.

For example, one team of scholars at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte analyzed three years of scores of an upper-middle
class private independent school in Charlotte. The school required all applicants take the WPPSI test prior to being admitted
to kindergarten. They were identified as smart kids—the average IQ was 116. In third grade, the students took the Comprehensive
Testing Battery III, a test developed to fit the advanced curricula of private schools. As a group, the students did well,
averaging scores in the 90th percentile.

But did the WPPSI results forecast
which
students did well? Not really. The correlation between WPPSI scores and the achievement scores was only 40%.

For students at the
very
high end, the correlations appear to be even lower. Dr. William Tsushima looked at two exclusive private schools in Hawaii—at
one school, the kids had an average IQ of 130, while at the other, just over 126. But their reading scores in second grade
had only a 26% correlation with WPPSI results. Their math scores had an even poorer correlation.

The relevant question, therefore, is just how many children are miscategorized by such early testing?

As I mentioned before, using tests with that 40% correlation, if a school wanted the top tenth of students in its third-grade
gifted program,
72.4% of them
wouldn’t have been identified by their IQ test score before kindergarten. And it’s not as if these children would have just
missed it by a hair. Many wouldn’t have even come close. Fully one-third of the brightest incoming third graders would have
scored “below average” prior to kindergarten.

The amount of false-positives and false-negatives is worrisome to experts such as Dr. Donald Rock, Senior Research Scientist
with Educational Testing Service.

“The identification of very bright kids in kindergarten or first grade is not on too thick of ice,” Rock said. “The IQ measures
aren’t very accurate at all. Third grade, yeah, second grade, maybe. Testing younger than that, you’re getting kids with good
backgrounds, essentially.”

Rock did add that most kids won’t fall too far. “The top one percent will certainly be in the top ten percent five years later.
It is true that a kid who blows the top off that test is a bright kid, no question—but kids who do quite well might not be
in that position by third grade.”

According to Rock, third grade is when the public school curriculum gets much harder. Children are expected to reason through
math, rather than just memorize sums, and the emphasis is shifted to reading for comprehension, rather than just reading sentences
aloud using phonics. This step up in difficulty separates children.

“You see growth leveling off in a lot of kids.” As a result, Rock believes third grade is when testing becomes meaningful.
“Kids’ rank ordering in third grade is very meaningful. If we measure reading in third grade, it can predict performance much
later, in a lot of areas.”

The issue isn’t some innate flaw with intelligence tests. The problem is testing kids too young, with any kind of test.

“I would be concerned if high-stakes judgments such as entry to separate selective schools were based on such test results,”
said Dr. Steven Strand of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. “Such structural decisions tend to be inflexible,
and so kids can be locked in on the basis of an early result, while others can be locked out. It’s all about having sufficient
flexibility to alter provisions and decisions at a later date.”

In contrast to testing children in preschool or early elementary school, Strand found that IQ tests given in middle schools
are actually very good predictors of academic success in high school.

In a recent study published in the journal
Intelligence
, Strand looked at scores for 70,000 British children. He compared their results on an intelligence test at age eleven with
their scores on the GCSE exam at age sixteen. Those correlated very highly. If early childhood IQ tests could predict as well
as those taken at age eleven, they’d identify the gifted students about twice as accurately.

Every single scholar we spoke to warned of classifying young children on the basis of a single early test result—all advised
of the necessity for secondary testing. And this caution didn’t come from those who are just morally against the idea of any
intelligence testing. This admonition came most strongly from those actually
writing
the tests, including: University of Iowa professor Dr. David Lohman, one of the authors of the Cognitive Abilities Test;
Dr. Steven Pfeiffer, author of the Gifted Rating Scales; and Dr. Cecil Reynolds, author of the RIAS (the Reynolds Intellectual
Assessment Scales).

Despite the unanimity of this view, because of the cost and time involved, kids are routinely awarded—or denied—entrance on
the basis of a single test, and in many schools are never retested.

“Firm number cutoffs are ridiculous,” said Reynolds. “If we were doing the same for identifying special-ed students, it would
be against federal law.”

Consider South Carolina.

A few years ago, the state hired the College of William & Mary’s Center for Gifted Education to evaluate its gifted screening.
South Carolina was concerned that minorities were underrepresented in the gifted programs, but—along the way—there turned
out to be an even more complex problem.

Despite revamping the admissions process to increase minority participation, the program remained disproportionately white
(86%). But even more disturbing was the number of kids in the gifted program—regardless their race—who were weren’t functioning
as gifted at all.

When William & Mary looked at the gifted kids’ achievement test scores for 2002 in third, fourth, and fifth grade, the results
were disastrous. In math, 12% of the gifted kids scored as having only a “basic” ability level. Another 30% were merely “proficient.”
In English, the numbers were far worse. You’d expect the researchers would have concluded that those children should be moved
into a normal classroom, but instead William & Mary recommended the state come up with gifted interventions—basically, special
programs for the kids who were remedial-yet-gifted, an oxymoronic concept if there ever was one.

We called the twenty largest public school districts in America to learn what gifted education programs they offer. Here are
those twenty largest:

New York City

Los Angeles Unified

City of Chicago

Dade County (Miami)

Clark County (Las Vegas)

Broward County (Fort Lauderdale)

Houston ISD

Hillsborough County (Tampa)

Philadelphia City

Hawaii Dept. of Education

Palm Beach County

Orange County (Orlando)

Fairfax County (VA)

Dallas ISD

Detroit City

Montgomery County (MD)

Prince George’s County (MD)

Gwinnett County (GA)

San Diego Unified

Duval County (Jacksonville)

All twenty had some sort of gifted program. Twelve of those districts begin their program in kindergarten. Not one district
waits until third grade to screen the children—by the end of second grade, all twenty districts have anointed children as
exceptional.

On paper, this flies in the face of the developmental science. “I don’t have the perfect answer,” said Dr. Lauri Kirsch, Supervisor
of the Gifted Program at Hillsborough County School District in Tampa, Florida. “I just keep my eyes open, looking for kids.
We create opportunities for kids to engage and excel. We want to give the children time to develop their giftedness.”

When talking to these schools, I realized it was unfair to judge the programs solely on the basis of what age they tested
the kids; it was also important to consider what the stakes were—whether the gifted program was radically better than regular
classes, or only a modest supplement to regular classes. Several of those districts, like Dallas, identify the kids as early
as kindergarten, but they don’t make a fateful structural decision. The children identified as gifted remain in their classrooms,
and once a week get to slip out and attend a two-hour enhanced class just for the gifted. That’s all they get, which is almost
surely not enough. It’s hard to argue that Dallas is better than Detroit, which makes a fateful decision prior to kindergarten,
but the kids who are identified as gifted get something far better—they’re allowed to attend a full-time special academy.

In applying the science to the reality, the problem doesn’t seem to lie with the age of initial screening. Even in kindergarten,
a few children are clearly and indisputably advanced. Instead, what stands out as problems are: the districts who don’t give
late-blooming children additional chances to test in, and the lack of objective retesting to ensure the kids who got in young
really belong there.

Of the top twenty school districts,
not one
requires children to score high on an achievement test or IQ test in later years to stay in the program. Children can stay
in the gifted class as long as they aren’t falling too far behind. Kicking kids out is not what districts prioritize—it’s
getting them in.

Many of the districts are still laboring under the premise that intelligence is innate and stable. By this ancient logic,
retesting is not necessary, because an IQ score is presumed valid for life. The lack of reassessment is kindhearted but a
double standard: the districts believe firmly in using IQ cutoffs for initial admission, but they think later tests aren’t
necessary.

Back in South Carolina, they’ve actually instituted new rules to protect low-performing kids in the gifted classes. First,
students cannot be removed from the program only for falling behind in class—something else has to be going on for a kid to
get kicked out. Second, if a child is moved into regular classes for the rest of a year, they are automatically allowed back
into the gifted program at the beginning of the next year—without any retesting.

The Palmetto State isn’t the only one that believes it is taboo to expect gifted kids to prove their merit. In Florida, a
2007 bill to reform state gifted education couldn’t make it out of committee until a provision demanding retesting every three
years was struck from the plan.

Once again, the test authors dispute these practices—rooted in a belief that if you’re ever gifted, you’re gifted for life.
Explains CogAT co-author Dr. Lohman, “The classic model of giftedness—that it is something fixed—is something we’ve been trying
to get over for some time, without much success.”

Of all the districts we surveyed, none flouted the science like New York City. A single test prior to kindergarten determines
entrance. Meanwhile, those who are admitted are never retested—children stay through fifth or eighth grade, depending on the
school. As of 2008, the New York Department of Education had changed the tests it uses four times in four years, unable to
get the results it wanted. In 2007, a Chancellor’s report noted that too few kids qualified at the 90th percentile cutoff,
so the classes were filled with regular students—42% of the places for gifted kids were filled by children who tested under
the
80th
percentile. Many complained the program had been watered down. Meanwhile, the district’s web site warned older applicants
that they would be put on wait lists in case spots became available—which the district warned would be very rare—even in fourth
and fifth grade.

Private independent schools don’t really have another option—almost by definition, they have to screen kids before kindergarten.
But it should be recognized how fallible the screening process is—how many great kids it misses. Admission directors might
already warn parents, “The admission process is more of an art than a science,” but the science argues it’s not 60% art, it’s
60% random.

In some cities, elite feeder preschools are now using intelligence testing too. And they’re not ashamed of it either: in the
Seattle region, one preschool’s web site boasts of being the only preschool in the state that requires IQ testing for admittance—some
kids are tested at 27 months. In Detroit, one preschool waits until the kids are all of 30 months.