<br>
<br>
<p>I don’t know if it universal, but in our school district the middle school grades have one major relevance: they are used to slot kids into honors, regular, or remedial course tracks in high school. And if your child might want to aim high in college admissions, you want him/her to be in the honors track from the start.</p>
<p>Some kids (perhaps most?) are very sensitive to and overinterpret what you say. I showed great interest in D’s academic achievement in contrast to my parent’s lack of interest (or apparent lack). Often D would interpret my interest in what she was learning as more an interest in her grades in spite of my reassurances. I have learned how to couch my inquiries so as to make them less stressful. You may think that you are demonstating confidence in their abilities and they may interpret this as pressure to take a more challenging course of study. Inspite of their reactions though, they do appreciate the attention.</p>
<p>Coureur: some school districts do use middle school grades for high school tracking. In my first post, I pointed out that our district explicitly allows parents to overrule the school’s recommendations. (I’m always stunned at how few parents take advantage of that.)</p>
<p>MomofWildChild, I just want to say I agree entirely with your comments. My son did not prep for the PSAT and just made our state’s cutoff for Semi-finalist – in hindsight, I never realized how significant that point score could be – but honestly, if he had scored a point lower, his life would have been the same. Mostly what he got was a lot of ego-boosting mail from colleges he had no intention whatsoever of attending offering free tuition. I suppose if we had been financially strapped and a free ride was the only option for my son-- it would have been very important. As it is, it was nice… my son did get a college-sponsored award of $2000/year … but there are other awards and scholarships, and I’m glad that there the PSAT was merely a pleasant surprise rather than a source of early tension. Heck - maybe if he had been stressed out when doing the test, he would have done worse. </p>
<p>My daughter took the PSAT as a sophomore, but not as a junior - she was out of the country on a foreign exchange – and basically that is simply one less thing she had to worry about. I really wish she could jump on that “just say no” bandwagon – she is a wonderful, confident, well-adjusted, smart, exhuberant person who has a tremendous amount to offer any college, plus a straight A student – but does not test well (hence our nonchalant attitude about the missed PSAT). But she is coveting some colleges that do take scores seriously, so she will take both the ACT and SAT this year, and at her request I found a tutor that she can call if and when she wants more help … but I’m keeping out of the process. I mean, if she wants to jump through hoops to try to bolster those scores, it is her life; as a parent, I’m more interested in seeing her maintain balance and sanity in her life. </p>
<p>So in hindsight – the one thing I am very glad of is that I supported and suggested, but never pushed or prodded either of my kids. I also really agree with Carolyn’s post above.</p>
<p>I agree with Calmom. The only people who should be prepping for the PSAT are the people who don’t need to i. e. those who are in danger of being commended or semifinalist. I would recommend taking it as a sophomore to see if you are a “test taker”. This was its original purpose. If your verbal and writing scores are lower than you think they should be, prepare by reading some good books for enjoyment. Math you can prepare for but do it sparingly. As Calmom points out it makes very little difference in the long run.</p>
<p>Regarding the value of middle school grades, our county runs several highly selective magnet schools at the high school level. One third of the points used for the selection is based on middle school grades.</p>
<p>We’ve kind of stumbled and bumbled along with nothing too tragic or traumatic but, if I were to change one thing it would be to estimate what SATII’s D was going to want to take so she could take the AP course prior to taking the SATII exam. In other words D would have liked to have taken the Bio and/ or Chem exam at the end of this term and other than self-study -that ship has sailed without her. Thank goodness there is always U.S. History and Math IIC.</p>
<p>Fundingfather – what are the other two-thirds? IQ tests? Recommendations from teachers? Essays? You don’t need to answer these questions specifically – I’m just wondering if there are ways for bright kids with mediocre grades to make it into these programs. I’ve seen many kids, including my son, who turned out to be late bloomers, and kids often go through a lot of emotional ups and downs during the middle school years that impact their academic performance – but many do grow out of these problems.</p>
<p>Calmom and Funding Father–you raise an interesting point about magnet programs (and placements into high school courses). Some kids don’t do well on “objective” high stakes tests (like the SAT and tests for “giftedness”), and so such programs often rely on teacher recommendations… but what to do if your very bright kid doesn’t get along well with his teachers? (My son had one teacher who actually wanted him to repeat math, because he hadn’t done the homework, even though he’d gotten 100 on every single test.)</p>
<p>Some of the programs out here have multiple ways of getting in: high scores OR teacher recommendations OR essay OR placement test. While I like that approach, of course it’s not “objective.” Which then raises the question of whether a non-objective approach can be fair.</p>
<p>Given that “gifted” programs have been shown to benefit even the non-gifted (is a kid better off flunking an AP or passing a simpler course?), should any student who wants to attempt such programs be turned down?</p>
<p>The reason why I love my daughters high school is because while she had a mediocre middle school experience, her high school offers challenging classes to students who are ready to step up to the challenge regardless of the “track” they have been in .
She is able to take college prep classes in 9th grade and AP classes in 10th grade, although she would have not had that opportunity had she attended our local high school, as the science there is tied to math, and her math skills are slightly below grade level.
Her high school offers a greater selection of AP classes than any school in the state, and if a student wants to try them they can. Since it is a very diverse school, with kids who may be intimidated by the level of work, they also offer support for those students to succeed in challenging classes, rather than expecting them to succeed in lower level possibly boring classes before they are offered an AP class
Her fall semester of freshman year, she had a support class as well as her college prep courses. She received straight A’s and now spring semester she was able to drop her support class and add an elective while continuing the rest of her courses</p>
<p>dmd - at my son’s high school, any student who wanted to get into AP English could sign up for an “honors” component in 10th grade – in addition to their regular English class, they would attend a series of 3 or 4 after school meetings and write several essays – if they completed all requirements, they were in the AP class. The school did not offer AP math or science courses – I think the other APs, like AP US history, were open to whoever signed up. </p>
<p>At my daughter’s high school, admission into the honors or AP English classes was done by submitting a written essay. My daughter got into a very advanced track at her school by accident – when she entered 9th grade, the computer had assigned her to 10th grade classes – we just finessed that one to keep the advanced math & biology class. I think the other AP classes are open to all comers, although sometimes scheduling conflicts create a problem. My daughter was allowed to enter AP Psych midyear when she returned from her foreign exchange. </p>
<p>I think that the AP and honors classes really should be open to any student who really wants the course – but I do see a problem when it is the parents, and not the student, who may want the class. I think at my kid’s schools, the essay requirements were at least in part to screen out those kids who weren’t willing to do the work.</p>
<p>For the magnet schools in our county, the three equally weighted components for acceptance are: middle school GPA, national standardized test scores (I forget which tests or how many of them that there are in what constitutes the average), and a test designed and administered directly by the county. Each of the magnet schools (I think there are currently four) accepts a class of about 60 kids. They attempt to achieve geographic and socio-economic diversity by allocating two slots per magnet school to each feeding school district. This leaves a few at-large openings to the remaining top scorers. The result is a very high achieving group of kids who typically lead the state public schools in average SAT scores.</p>
<p>Funding father: a question for you… do you think the school would achieve the same results without all that screening? Two of the top schools here in WA both are open to everyone in their districts by lottery. Those schools make the case that it’s the act of making a choice for a school that results in motivated kids.</p>
<p>Our district is contemplating trying to eliminate or at least reduce choice to save costs on transportation etc.( Including closing neighborhood schools) One criteria they use are test scores to determine if a school is successful, but if the free/reduced lunch rate is already lowest in district, and the students come from educated supportive backgrounds shouldn’t good scores be a given? Conversely, if a school has high poverty rate, shouldn’t they receive more support before the school is put on the closure list?
( I know off topic but grrr)
I am much more impressed by a school that self selects by students who want to attend- not necessarily- students who test into a school, but then is able to turn out highly capable learners, as in the case of my daughters college and her sisters high school.
I realize that magnet schools are very popular and that parents of students who are high acheiving are often very motivated to get their kids in those schools and in our district anyway put a lot of political pressure on the district to have some sort of selection basis that favors their kids, understandable, but the district is there to serve all kids, not just the ones who sue.</p>
<p>Can you tell I have spent the last week arguing with APP parents ( advanced program) about why special education needs to be funded before gifted programs? ( not to mention that it legally needs to be funded 1st)
Virtually every APP parent I spoke with lives in a posh area of Seattle , has a professional degree and is convinced only a select academic path can fulfill their dreams of the top college for their child. SInce many of these kids are still in elementary school- it is all I can do not to roll my eyes!
I don’t have a problem with advanced learners being served in public schools, but I do have a problem with the way they are “chosen”</p>
<p>DMD: I doubt it. The caliber of incoming student would, by definition, be watered down since, the way it is, all of the incoming students already have to want to be there. By opening it up to a lottery, you would definitely lower your average in terms of quantified scores. Whether this is the right thing to do or not from a societal perspective is a different issue. However, I have to presume that the program would be watered down by randomly selecting from the entire pool of those who wanted to be there. It would be like MIT hoping to maintain its high standard by randomly accepting anyone who wanted to go there.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, keep arguing that special education needs to be funded before the gifted programs. You’re right.
A society should be judged by how they take care of the less fortunate.</p>
<p>FF: if MIT did open its programs to anyone who wanted to go there, and kept its programs the same as they are, wouldn’t they continure to turn out superlative graduates? Perhaps their failure-to-finish rate would be higher… but how much of a problem is that? </p>
<p>I don’t know the answer to this problem–none of us do–but I do find myself wondering how much of any magnet school’s success (whether it’s selective colleges or high schools) is due to the selective process rather than the caliber of the actual learning that takes place there. That’s why I find the lottery programs (at the high school level)–rather than selective programs–so interesting. In those programs, the students are theoretically the same as the rest of the school district, but excel at the completion of the program.</p>
<p>“A society should be judged by how they take care of the less fortunate.”</p>
<p>What about the gifted students who are less fortunate? Your statement is mixing apples and oranges, making the presumption that special ed students are “less fortunate”. Certainly they are less fortunate in terms of needing special ed, but not necessarily less fortunate from a socio-economic perspective.</p>
<p>However, in looking at those who are socio-economicly less fortunate, I have to wonder whether gifted programs wouldn’t be very beneficial in helping them out of poverty. In the magnet program that I have been talking about, by mandate the poorer districts send their brightest students into the program. Unfortunately, when they have to compete against the brightest of the more affluent districts, they tend to struggle a bit. Why is that? We know that they have the capacity for being competitive. Could it be that they suffer from inadequate gifted and talented programs in their elementary and middle schools? </p>
<p>I personally think that society needs to address both needs. If you ignore G&T students, you will be stifling the best and brightest that hopefully will eventually be the nucleous of the next generation of scientists and leaders that are the core of this country’s financial well being - the source of our ability to fund the special education and G&T programs of the future.</p>
<p>fundingfather, you make some good points.
I would love to fund special ed and gifted programs.
If push comes to shove and the money is only there for one program, my preference is for the special ed program.
I am incredibly aware and have personal experience with both special ed kids and gifted kids.</p>
<p>The special ed kids are so much more in need. It is not even close.</p>
<p>“In those programs, the students are theoretically the same as the rest of the school district, but excel at the completion of the program.”</p>
<p>I doubt that the incoming student body represents a random sample of the entire student population in the state. As you say, there is some self selection going on here. Those who are willing to put a priority on education are the ones who self-nominate. This is likely the reason why they do better than those who do not attend the magnet school. However, if you were to select from this pool of people, the brightest of the bunch, I’m sure the ultimate test results and top college acceptance rates would go up even more.</p>