"Hardest Curriculum Available"

Parents Forum
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<p>Bluebayou, my kids were both ID’d as GATE but except for one year the district didn’t have any funds for the GATE program – but you may be right that the principal would be more eager to accommodate my son because of the GATE status. </p>

<p>However, the California laws as to GATE now are different than they were when my kids were in elementary school. I think the current legal provisions went into effect in 2001 – which was the year that my son graduated from high school. I don’t know what, if anything, the schools were required to do for GATE students back in the 90’s besides identify them, and they were pretty haphazard about that. The GATE program itself was something of a “secret”, but I think that was largely because there was no particular value to being identified. My d. was officially GATE-identified in 3rd grade, which was the earliest our district would do that – and I think she went all the way through school without participating in a single GATE-related activity or event – so having the label wasn’t a guarantee of anything. There certainly were not any formal procedures in place at the time. </p>

<p>We did have one meeting while my son was probably in 7th grade that was prompted by some GATE parents complaining about the meager offerings. The principal called in the GATE parents and we sat around a table and he asked the parents what type of program they would like to see – and no one could agree on anything. Of course I wanted something more math-y … but everyone had different ideas, and no one liked anyone else’s ideas – so basically what the principal learned was that there was no consensus and he would have had to come up with about 8 different programs or offerings to please everyone. And I think that the funds he had to work with at the time of that meeting were around $350 – so that wasn’t going very far.</p>

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<p>I think it’s great to accomodate students’ needs, but within reason and with awareness of the inevitable, expensive escalation that will occur. Now, in these tough economic times, our school district has backed itself into a corner such that taxpayers are paying for a number of daily buses between elementary schools and middle schools, and middle schools and high school, so that kids can take AP Physics E&M as 7th graders,or AP Calculus BC as 8th graders. Why is that a necessary expenditure? Because extreme advancement was allowed once, people found out, and so it escalated. Now there are even kids taking classes at the local Ivy at taxpayer expense! I disagree with this and here’s why. Our high school is large enough and with ample enough offerings that no child can exhaust all of them in 4 years. So you’ve taken all the Spanish offered in junior year. Well, why not start another language? The school offers French, Latin, and Italian. We shouldn’t have to pay for the kid to go to college to continue in the language. If he’s that stellar, he won’t forget it all before college. A student has completed multivariable calculus and the next course in the sequence (don’t remember what it is our school now offers), so let him take AP Art History or something. He can safely wait until college for more math. It won’t kill him. Or his parents can pay for college classes. It should not be on the public’s dime.</p>

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<p>GFG, my district pays for taxis to pick up kids at the end of their driveway and drop them off at school so they don’t have to walk to the bus stop at the end of their block. The kid across the street from me gets this accomodation- he has asthma. It doesn’t stop him from playing traveling soccer (not a school league so the district doesn’t know about it) or from spending his summers doing karate, golf and sailing. But he can’t walk a block.</p>

<p>So why shouldn’t his parents pay for a private car service since in your words, “it won’t kill him”. Why is this on the public’s dime?</p>

<p>It aggravates me that every sort of accomodation, regardless of the cost, is justified except if it’s for kids at the upper end of the talent distribution- then they should just “wait for college”. Every month there’s another law suit in my community over a kid whose tuition is being paid at a private school (mostly autism or spectrum disorders) when the parents decide they’d rather have the kid at the local school. If it’s cheaper to pay $35K /year for private school vs. hiring a boat load of special needs teachers, aides, shadows, etc, isn’t that a call that the district can make on the basis of dollars and cents? But no- parents decide that waking the kid at 6 am to get on the (free) van at 7 am is too onerous. So they threaten to sue, the district caves, and now we get to customize each and every school to meet the needs of each and every child.</p>

<p>Except we can’t have a kid taking a physics class that’s already being offered (and probably under-subscribed?) I don’t get the logic.</p>

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<p>^ That’s why the administration has to be very careful in its decision-making. Knee-jerk decisions without clear guidelines will haunt them, since everyone can then push for special everything. My children could have taken Spanish lit. in college, paid for by the high school. However, there was no transportation provided so it was not an option they could take advantage of. At the same time, the school does provide transportation for kids to take higher level math. Who decided one subject was more important than the other, and on what grounds? No one made a deliberate decision; it’s just that parents pushed for math advancement first and then by the time it trickled down to the social sciences and foreign languague, they had run out of money. So all kids aren’t treated fairly. In my opinion, the district has to finish what it starts and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. It’s wiser not to start too many programs/accommodations.</p>

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<p>That is sheer rubbish. Do you think that a great plumber would make a great writer? or vice-versa? Some may but most won’t. Why should a student capable of doing MVCalc as a 9th grader be just as capable of learning Italian? And yes, not having math for several years blunts knowledge, just as not continuing with a language makes one forget it.
My S was strongly advised to go straight into grad school rather than take a couple of years off working lest he forgot the math needed to excel in grad school. This is precisely the reason he HAD to take college-level classes while in high school. On top of the fact that the state mandates 4 years of math. </p>

<p>re: blossom’s post. Exactly. Our district paid for a taxi for a blind student to be ferried to another district (a good half hour’s ride) because she did not get along with the teacher in our district. No complaint was expressed about this accommodation. But the minute parents of advanced students make a complaint, we’re tagged as elitist (as when parents complained about the elimination of Honors, leaving only CP and AP courses).</p>

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<li> My family had an experience exactly like vicariousparent’s supposedly absurd example of grade-changing. He had a one-quarter required studio art unit in 9th grade. He was given a C, which upset him terribly because it was the only non-A grade he got in grades 8-10. We were surprised, because we knew he had worked hard on the unit (having about 0 natural talent for it), and he explained that someone had stolen the teacher’s grade book and she had given everyone in the class Cs as a result. We told him that we thought that was unfair, and that as a high school student now it was HIS responsibility to take it up with the teacher and argue for a better grade if he cared about it. We suggested that he bring her all of the graded assignments she had returned to him, which clearly established that he had a B+/A- average for the work he turned in. Of course, nothing happened. He was too embarrassed to talk to her. Several months later, however, in the course of another conversation, I mentioned this to his guidance counselor (who was also his sister’s GC, which is why we were talking to him). He asked, “Why didn’t you call the teacher?” It turned out that the teacher had changed the grade of every student whose parents had complained to a B, and had done nothing for anyone whose parents didn’t contact her. What a doofus!</li>
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<p>At the time, we decided not to make a big deal about this, because under the regime in effect then this grade was not calculated into his GPA. Then a year later the school changed the way it calculated GPAs, and it was. Probably cost him a place or two in class rank, but no meaningful effect on his life.</p>

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<li> To some extent, I had the benefit of “unfair” parental advocacy in high school, of an especially effective sort because my mother was a teacher there, and because by the time I got to high school it was clear that I was one of the best students in the school regardless of grade level. However, I was never accelerated in English or math – those were the two courses I always took at grade level. With English, there was really no point – there wasn’t any course that really would have been better for me, and nothing terribly wrong with asking me to read the works everyone else was reading, in addition to whatever else I was reading at the time. With math, I was perfectly happy to keep up without having to expend much effort or even having to attend class a lot of the time.<br></li>
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<p>I did not wither or become bored; I directed my energies elsewhere – mainly reading a lot, writing, acting in, and directing plays, learning additional languages and music theory, ECs, girls. I did take one college course in 11th grade (16th Century Spanish Poetry), which was pretty unusual at the time, but other than that I pretty much stayed within the bounds of what high school had to offer. I had no interest at all in going to college early. But it would have been ridiculous to suggest that I stopped learning merely because the classes were not as advanced as I could have handled. There were good teachers around; I found them and they taught me. And the world was full of, you know, books, that one could learn a lot by reading. (Online hadn’t been invented yet.)</p>

<p>Anyway, my point is that sometimes reading these threads the part of my mother that lives in my head scolds, “Only boring people get bored!” There is more than one way to get the most out of one’s high school, and it doesn’t require taking multivariable calculus in 10th grade.</p>

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<p>JHS- we don’t allow a kid with diagnosed LD’s to go off and read picture books during a fourth grade language arts class-- surely he wouldn’t be bored, and I’m sure he’d get a lot out of it. No, we legislate a teacher who is trained and certified in teaching reading techniques appropriate to this child’s needs. And the taxpayers fund it. A kid whose mobility issues prevent him or her from taking gym doesn’t get sent to the school library to play computer games during gym- taxpayers pay for modified equipment, specially designed apparatus, and professionals who know how to teach gym to kids in wheelchairs or who use braces.</p>

<p>And that’s fine. But if a kid ends up costing the school system $25 for a textbook appropriate for his or her advanced needs- the special ed lobby acts like you’re taking something away from them. And perhaps you are. Because the more strident they become about advocating for every single and often quite minor “difference”, the less is available for mainstream instruction, let alone GT instruction, and then perhaps a taxpayer or two will wake up and smell the coffee.</p>

<p>Surely there is a better way to advocate for your special needs child than to constantly be parading your legal team in front of the school committee. And if your motivation is to provide for all children’s needs- wouldn’t you want to do it in such a way that you weren’t also poisoning the well for anyone who comes after you? Or is it only about you and yours?</p>

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<p>I agree that the special needs advocacy is getting ridiculous and costing everyone money. Perhaps the ADA needs a second look?</p>

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<p>JHS, I’m not sure your mother is still alive and well, but if she is, can you please thank her from me? I love the quote “Only boring people get bored”, I had never heard it before, but now I will remember this for the rest of my life. I love it!! I also enjoyed the rest of your post.</p>

<p>ETA: Come to think of it, with C.C. around, how can anyone get bored ;)</p>

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<p>I wish I were a fly on the wall in some of our schools, because there have got to be some bizarre factors unbeknownst to us which influence the decisions being made. My child has special needs, but my goal has always been to help her progress to a place where she wouldn’t need any extra help. Thankfully, we’ve been successful. She began in pre-school handicapped and self-contained elementary classes, but now only requires 1 session of language therapy per week and nothing more. However, would you believe the school has fought us every time we and her teachers felt D was ready to be mainstreamed in a new subject area? They wanted to keep her in special ed. programs (resource room) even when both the special ed. teacher and the mainstream teacher agreed she doesn’t need any special help. I’ve had to push for her NOT to get accommodations! We had an IEP meeting last week, and it was hsyterical. The mainstream teacher was commenting how D gets 100’s on every test–better than many typical students–and does not seem to need extra help. The CST kept trying to suggest problems: “But doesn’t she have trouble focusing?” and things of that nature. And to each and every objection, her teachers assured them she was doing great. Still, they fought us. So I’m here to say there are times when it must be in the district’s financial interest to keep students classified and receiving special services.</p>

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<p>And we were bloody lucky that there were another two years’ worth of math classes for my kid available for my kid to take after multivariable calc, at a public school no less. But I guess specialized programs are inherently a waste of tax dollars, too. </p>

<p>What I know is that despite the school’s incredible offerings, he still taught himself more math and comp sci at home. He’s still doing it at college, even with a heavy courseload.</p>

<p>What I know is that once we got out of the toxic neighborhood elem school where my kid was deliberately sabotaged by teachers and the principal alike (and I found out the horrifying specifics from an angel at the central GT office after the fact), my kid got radical acceleration and appropriate classes with kids his own age. </p>

<p>What I know is that the access to these programs kept my kid engaged, challenged and emotionally healthy. He has said they saved his life.</p>

<p>What I know is that parents whose kids were fortunate enough to be the pioneers continued to advocate for reduced gatekeeping and increased access to advanced math for ALL students.</p>

<p>What I know is that we didn’t have to rattle cages once we got past the gatekeepers at the local school. There was a defined path available; the local school clearly chose not to let students pursue it.</p>

<p>I’m with Marite on this one. I’m out of here – this thread has become intensely painful.</p>

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<p>It is in the districts financial and political interest; it is in the union’s financial and political interest; pity the teachers and parents who are trying to focus on the child.</p>

<p>But-- how wonderful GFG that your child has progressed to the point where she’s surpassing expectations! And surely you see how frustrating it must be to the parents of kids of “high ability” who can’t get a darn thing from the schools- even at zero or modest cost- when they realize that your D is excelling and yet the district is trying to shower her with very costly services that she doesn’t need???</p>

<p>And although I don’t know your D- she sounds truly exceptional (in the non-PC meaning of the word) to have gone from self-contained elementary classes to such moderate intervention right now! What a great success story.</p>

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<p>The public school has an obligation to teach the state-mandated curriculum for each grade level. If it provides much more than that, and many of them do, we’re very fortunate. There is no ethical or moral obligation on the part of the state to provide a high schooler with four years of college education. As it is, the top students in the type of high school many CCer’s kids attend, probably receive at least two years of college level classes. My S took 13 AP’s and a couple more college-level, AP-weighted classes and he was just a normal smart kid with no outside classes or tutoring and no secret tracks. I think that’s sufficient and taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for more. Just my opinion.</p>

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<p>English is different from math. Even languages are different from math and science. One does not have to take an AP course or a college course to continue to hone one’s skills and expand one’s knowledge of literature. But math and science are linear subjects. And very very few can learn on their own without peers and especially without someone to explain what they don’t understand.</p>

<p>Those who do not have a child absolutely hungry to follow his or her passion don’t understand the intellectual deprivation that can be inflicted on such a child by a rigid school system. I have pointed time and again that in many cases, acceleration costs nothing and yet it is not offered to those who want it.
Like Countingdown, I’m outta here. It’s too painful.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure how acceleration costs nothing, marite. That may be the case in the early years when the child can just be taught with older children. But eventually the school will need to provide a brand new math class for the child and his peers. And will there be enough children at that extremely advanced level to even make a class? The school will need to pay for very highly qualified math teachers (PhD’s)–above and beyond the current standard for high school teachers.</p>

<p>“Those who do not have a child absolutely hungry to follow his or her passion don’t understand the intellectual deprivation that can be inflicted on such a child by a rigid school system.” I guess I could say the same to you about children who are passionate about English. If you don’t have one of them, perhaps you don’t understand their pain. Imagine a fourth grader who reads and understands adult literature having to sit through a class on “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”. It’s bad, very bad.</p>

<p>But that doesn’t mean the school should provide a class on Shakespeare to a 4th grader.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, that was/is true of many GATE programs. But if your district was accepting money (even the paltry $350 per school), by law they must follow the plans laid out in the application for those funds. Most principals are not in the loop since the application is typically a district-level effort. (I co-wrote our district’s app awhile ago.) But even if the principal prefers to remain clueless, you and other GATE parents had the law on your side. (We too had a principal who could care less about GATE kids (and math), after a few threatened law suits, the Principal retired early.)</p>

<p>My point is more to Keil: your son may have only received the (math) accommodation required by state law.</p>

<p>fwiw: the GATE requirements were put on hiatus last year with the budget crisis.</p>

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<p>Anyway, I think we all agree it is a very good thing for children to receive education in every subject on their level, though we may disagree about the extent of the public school’s obligations in this regard.</p>

<p>But back to the original post, one concern I’d have is how schools might choose to assign the designation of “most rigorous” available if there are a handful of super advanced children who went beyond even the normal accelerated track. Do only those few children get that label? Or as long as your child is on the regular advanced track he gets it? The reason it concerns people like me is not because our children aren’t as smart or we didn’t advocate for them as much as others and now are crying “foul!” Rather, it’s because often the acceleration is highly dependent on parents spending thousands of dollars in summer classes and tutoring. Now there’s no reason why those children shouldn’t benefit in college admissions, and they obviously do, but a less affluent child who took advantage of everything that was provided within the free system shouldn’t be disadvanted either.</p>

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<p>The GFG. Read my posts. The acceleration cost absolutely zero. My S was even prevented from joining a group within the same classroom not on economic grounds but ideological ones. It would have entailed him sitting about a few feet away from his age group.
Even the students taking college classes cost the school nothing as the college provides scholarships. No transportation was required or asked. No additional classes were required or requested; the accelerated students did not displace anyone. </p>

<p>Some of these issues may arise in other districts but there should not be a blanket condemnation of acceleration. And just as our hearts go out to special needs students, so should we have sympathy for the students who are told to learn how to deal with boredom, learn to twiddle their thumbs because they are expected to work at a level that may be appropriate for their age group but that they left behind several years ago.
We do not expect students with special needs who function at a 3rd grade level to perform at an 8th grade level with help. But some seem to think that students who are capable of performing at an 8th grade level should be content to perform at a 3rd grade level. Why is that?</p>

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<p>The solution to this problem, which I enjoyed through sixth grade, is Montessori schools that enable each student to work at the level s/he is capable of. But I know that’s a pipe dream.</p>

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<p>hanna, my kid was a Montessori kid , too. Made for some interesting “scheduling” once she transferred to public school. But, to their credit, the little public school did just fine by her. We were very lucky.</p>

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<p>This thread makes me dizzy.</p>

<p>We struggle to pay private school tuition. Our small school only offers 8 APs in a 2 year cycle. I am constantly evaluating if it is worth the $ and sacrifices. Since we can’t afford to move and the private offers more than our public (which has no APs), I need to accept. In the long run my only goal is for my kids to be well prepared for college.</p>