“We must be living in Lake Wobegon. 30-40% of the population can’t be gifted, under any meaningful definition of the term. It’s almost mathematically implausible that 30-40% of the population is a full grade year ahead of the population mean.”
I don’t think skipping a grade implies being gifted because as you say, it would lose all meaning if it did. And it’s possible that 30% of a class in a particular grade or even school is one year ahead in one subject. But you’re right, 30% of the general student population cannot be a year ahead.
“You wouldn’t tell that to parents of special needs kids, and you would expect public schools to serve them.”
If a student is special needs and has an IEP or 504, they’re covered under the ADA, so legally they have to get services, K-12, college and employment as well. It would be against the law not to do that. There’s nothing like that for gifted kids.
Post #229 asked (basically) how one homeschools high school/advanced subjects. Here are three examples:
a) Some homeschool parents I know with PhD or specialized degrees actually do teach subjects like AP Calc, AP Lit, etc. Um, that would not be me.
b) I outsource. (Community college, free university audits, local homeschool co-ops with teachers who do teach these subjects, online courses, local independent homeschool classes-we had a great AP Lit teacher for a group of homeschooled students-, tutors, and so forth)
After a certain age (for my eldest son, that was around 10; for my middle son, around 12 or 13), I cease to become a teacher and move into the role of FACILITATOR.
c) Homeschool parents do all sorts of combinations of the above. TBH, there is a plethora of options these days; it can be overwhelming to new homeschoolers.
Re. the post about PGness and mental illness: I have two PG sons. One is very mentally healthy, the other is not. But the other has a chronic disease that contributes to the mental health issues, so it's hard to say if PGness has anything to do with it or not; I suspect not.
The alternative to grade acceleration is, of course, subject acceleration. My son did well enough with college courses beginning at age 12 (though he did online CC at 12, went to a local Christian university at age 13 for a physics class, and didn't hit the community college campus until 14, by which time I was comfortable with the idea), even though he was much younger than the other students. Middle son began at age 16. None of his professors knew he was in high school until he got letters of recommendation from them.
@theloniusmonk, @roethlisburger, 30% of kids could work at least a year ahead, just as 30% are at least a year behind in relation to what’s average. It’s called normal distribution, aka the bell curve. It’s a FACT, and true for every industrialised country, check the PISA survey results. The range of human development is that wide.
No one said all of these kids are gifted. Most of them are the above average, in the 110 to 130 IQ range. Those are the kids who are mostly comfortably making good grades, hardly ever struggle, sometimes being “a bit bored in math class.” Those are the kids who shouldn’t be skipped, but offered more challenge in the regular classroom, maybe move onto a higher math track once tracking is offered. I’m assuming the OP would have been a kid like that. They make up the majority of kids in hig SES classrooms, the majority of kids going to college, the majority of people making decisions as adults.
They will not understand the experience of the kids in the 130 to 160 IQ range and will not be able to meet their needs unless they LISTEN to them.
@blossom, @wis75, the point is that you need hardly any resources for adequate gifted services. The chairs and desks in my kids gifted classroom are the same rickety beat up chairs, the teachers make exactly the same salaries and teach the same curriculum from the same beat up books. The kids use public transportation, with the student bus card provided to every single student in the city that costs exactly the same no matter where you travel in the city (that is probably a European feature not easily replicated in most US cities).
Only they telescope the curriculum, teaching a lot faster, going into more depth whenever the kids show an interesting or need and get to make up enrichment in the time that is left. (In fact, the teachers say that the gifted classroom is the one classroom in which they feel that they are doing exactly what they are trained to do - teach, as opposed to manage, coax, cajole, yell, threaten, repeat, revise.) They don’t get a special budget for that enrichment either. Last years enrichment was a theatre project. They took a trip to the state capital to see a play at a youth theatre, cost a few euros, then they wrote their own play, made up their own costumes and props from scrap material, put on the play in the school auditorium and the parents provided drinks and snacks.
There is no comparison to what children with special needs need. I have a child with major physical disabilities, and I have fought the transport fight many times. And anecdotes about fraudulent parents who wrangle taxi rides for their little soccer player don’t make good public policy at all.
This is from the National Center for education statistics, showing, for all industrialised countries, the student average, the 10th percentile, and the 90th percentile. Hope the link works.
You can see, for the US, that the 10th and the 90th percentile score about 120 points above and below the national average. A gap of 40 points on the PISA competency scales is considered one grade level. As you can see, the relative distribution looks about the same in every country, only the averages move left or right, indicating the quality of the school system.
This shows a full percentile band for the US. If you check the 75th percentile, those students score already about 60 points above the average, which is the equivalent of 1.5 grade levels.
Grade levels, raising standards closing the achievement gap, its all about money - it’s all a myth. Check out how many countries are richer than Vietnam, but do much worse both on absolute outcomes and equity.
Very helpful, thank you. Not surprisingly, the top 10 percent of American students really underperform compared to top students in other industrialized countries. Shows how well our public education system is serving our gifted kids.
I should have added that this happen to be the science scores since those happened to be central to the 2015 survey, but can’t edit the post now.
Reading and maths scores look a little different from country to country, particularly Asian countries scores soar right up on the maths scales. The English speaking countries of the world tend to do particularly well on the reading front, the US does better there, too, I believe.
Sorry, here I am not liking when acronyms are thrown out and I use one. It’s the AP in Literature and Composition. I bring it up because it’s an intensive class and along with calc, chem/physics, AP in a language and apush, are the gold standards for admissions offices.
“No one said all of these kids are gifted. Most of them are the above average, in the 110 to 130 IQ range.”
You should reread this thread, there are a lot of claims of being gifted in the 110-130 range. I agree though that these are not gifted and above average.
“They will not understand the experience of the kids in the 130 to 160 IQ range and will not be able to meet their needs unless they LISTEN to them.”
Sure, I don’t think anyone would disagree with that, but it has to be the kid talking, not the parent. If the kid in fifth grade says, I’m really bored in every subject or I’m really interested in partitions, sure you listen and see what you can do. If the parent says, my fifth grader is Euler-esque (my new genius of the day), you find out more.
What the OP is saying, is that a lot of these kids are ok with being kids, which is a good thing.
From some teachers, principals, and faculty in the Colleges of Education, there is opposition to the existence of differentiated education for gifted students, as elitist or separatist. There is also the “All students are gifted” idea. Some programs for gifted students are not necessarily more demanding than the regular programs, but are more fun. This leads to the idea that all students would benefit from “gifted” education.
An underlying question is: Do you think that gifted students should work as hard in K-12 school as average students have to do? That is not unrelated to the idea that a lot of the kids are ok with being kids. I assume that a lot of average students are also ok with being kids and would not complain if the expected level of attainment were reduced for them as well.
I don’t think ANY elementary students should have more than 30 to 60 minutes of homework a day. Gifted classes should not mean more or less work. Middle school I would stretch it to 90 minutes.
“An underlying question is: Do you think that gifted students should work as hard in K-12 school as average students have to do? That is not unrelated to the idea that a lot of the kids are ok with being kids. I assume that a lot of average students are also ok with being kids and would not complain if the expected level of attainment were reduced for them as well.”
They definitely shouldn’t have to work as hard and can use their capabilities to do less homework and spend time on other things - which could include relaxing! They can of course stretch themselves and skip a level to get challenged if they want it, not for college admissions or their parents, which is the default behavior now.
Homework was not given till like 6th grade when I was in school and for sure shouldn’t be given out like it is now.
“Very helpful, thank you. Not surprisingly, the top 10 percent of American students really underperform compared to top students in other industrialized countries. Shows how well our public education system is serving our gifted kids.”
Ok you cannot compare a city-state like Singapore (6M) or Hong Kong (8M) to the US with a 325M population. The Singapore Edu Minister came to the US to find out why the US despite having average scores is more creative and produces
Here’s a blurb:
“Singapore is not about to ditch its obsession with academic excellence and discipline, but a new focus on entrepreneurship – and notions of challenging convention – marks an admission by educators that exams alone can’t produce one ingredient needed for economic success: new ideas.”
When Singapore produces a Steve Jobs who disrupted three industries, let’s compare education systems. And to make it fair, we should take a similar diverse city-state, like the bay area. I’ll take my chances with the bay area kids.
Elementary age kids of all levels should be enjoying learning. School shouldn’t be “hard work”
There should be challenges but this idea that kids should be grinding away at age 8 is insane.
“When Singapore produces a Steve Jobs who disrupted three industries”
It has worked because U.S. has been importing a large number of highly trained/educated engineers from countries that better supported their top 10 percent, to support the enterprise operation that Steve Jobs envisioned.
“Other studies have found that the foreign-born are more likely than the native-born to obtain a patent — and that immigrants account for rising shares of U.S. patents in computing, electronics, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. More than 40 percent of companies in the Fortune 500 in 2010 were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant.”
U.S. is the richest country in the world isn’t? It can educate the top 10% gifted of our population better if it wanted, isn’t it? Maybe the budget deprived school districts can’t. But why can’t the government?
After the decades of selectively taking the smartest from other countries, we probably have a better gene pool for higher intelligence new born too, eh?