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Is the school board creating a GATE-way to mediocrity?

Did you hear the one about the N-Effect? A research study published in Psychological Science found that when it comes to academics, the more competitors you have, the less motivated you are to do your best.

Researchers Stephen M. Garcia (University of Michigan) and Avishalom Tor (Haifa University) found students’ average test scores on the SAT and other tests go down when the number of test-takers increases. People taking the tests don’t even have to see their competition to have their scores go down, just an awareness that they’re out there seemed to have the same influence on the outcome.

Garcia and Tor named this phenomenon “the N-effect.” The larger the “N”- number of participants involved in a task-the worse the outcome for the individuals who are participating. In an ongoing series of experiments they have found again and again that people work harder, and perform better, when they are up against just a few people.

For example, they gave students a trivia quiz, saying there was a prize for those who finished the test the fastest. Some students heard that they were in a group of ten students, while others were supposedly competing against 99. The students who believed they were in the smaller pool finished the quiz significantly faster than those who thought they were one of 100.

The N-effect seems to be there regardless how difficult or easy the task. People work harder if they believe they have better odds of winning, but this also goes to their motivation to succeed.

All of this makes me think about the current debate over the future of GATE (gifted and talented education) in the local schools. Full disclosure so you can question my motivation – my son has been fortunate to be in the pullout GATE program at his elementary school. Frankly, I think he’s benefited more from the small group-learning environment than the actual curriculum, because there are only a handful of kids in the GATE class as opposed to the 26 in his regular class.

In a Newsweek article Garcia said, “How we compare ourselves to other individuals is the engine that drives how we compete against others. When there are only a few people in the race, we put our foot on the gas, working harder and harder to outpace our competitors. And the competition becomes very personal. How we compare ourselves to others in the room becomes a referendum on our own ability.”

This is so true. And this is one of my primary concerns about folding the GATE program into what is now labeled “Honors.”

“In contrast, when we are against many, many competitors,” said Garcia, “we don’t care as much about how we stack up against one other competitor. Once the crowd is large enough that we don’t feel the element of personal competition, the result doesn’t feel like a personal statement of our worth, so we don’t try as hard.”

I believe that the school board probably has their hearts in the right place when considering this change. I know that the hairs on my neck stand up whenever I hear the label “GATE,” as though some kids are “gifted” and others are not; when I was a kid they called the accelerated program MGM for “Mentally Gifted Minors,” which was even worse. Nonetheless, I think they’re going in exactly the wrong direction. What they should be doing is expanding the number of ability groupings to fit the needs of all children, not limiting them even further. Call them group 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, or name them after fruits, or call them anything you want-but limiting the number of ability groupings serves the best interests of no one, other than champions of mediocrity.

Obviously it’s ridiculous to believe that a single test given to a third or fourth grader is the sole determinant of a student’s educational destiny, despite all the sweating of parental palms over their child’s place in the mini-meritocracy.

But no matter how special we all think our kids are, there is such a thing as an average child and there is such a thing as a child that will be lucky to graduate high school. It’s as ridiculous to try to alter that reality with politically correct labels as it is to try to mend the achievement gap by removing the top tier of instructional offerings, which is what it seems to me that the school board is considering doing.

Why don’t we aspire instead to do a better job of assessing students so they can be challenged and motivated to the best of their abilities in smaller groups? And while we’re at it, maybe we can come up with a better name for the GATE program. Maybe the LESLIE program?

When Leslie’s not wringing her hands over the state of education, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on March 12, 2010.