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Anonymous wrote:All the AAP hate absolutely tells me it’s the right answer for my AAP kid.
Imagine trying to claim FCPS is pumping millions and millions of dollars and logistics challenges, and overhead into an advanced learning infrastructure that is really just some extra math….
Love this forum.
DP. FCPS doesn't spend millions on AAP but I agree that the hostility towards academically gifted kids makes AAP the right place for some kids to escape to, including mine.
The only reason there is hostility towards AAP kids is because this system exists, PP. If there wasn't such a huge differentiation, it it wasn't such a competitive process, there wouldn't be any hate. There was absolutely no hatred for children in the gifted program and children who were grouped into different language arts and math programs according to ability in the school system we moved here from. AAP is very different.
+1
I grew up in FCPS when there was an
actual GT program - very tiny and very selective. No one was resentful of the few kids who were chosen to participate because it was obvious they *needed* a gifted learning environment. All the rest of the kids - from extremely bright to bright to average to below average - were in flexible groupings depending on their abilities. It worked for everyone and there was no HUGE group of yellow-bellied Sneetches vs another HUGE group of non-yellow-bellied Sneetches.
Our FCPS school is doing this - they call it the cluster model - and most families that were eligible to leave for the AAP center left to go there, and it is much better without an AAP program (there is still accelerated math, kids are grouped according to ability). I think all schools should go back to this way of doing things.
No, it was called tracking and is inequitable. Most of the impoverished and new arrivals at our Title 1 school would end up in the lower groups.
You mean to tell me that you believe that grouping kids by ability is problematic? That allowing Teachers to focus on a group of kids at the same general level and focus their attention on each group is problematic? Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds? How is placing kids in a classroom with 5 different levels, forcing the Teacher to divide their time and attention between 5 different groups, a good idea? The Teacher has to spend most of their time with the kids who are struggling so they kids who are ahead or are on level are left to do their own work with little to no guidance.
Is that fair because the kids who are on level or ahead get bored and end up slowing down so that the kids who are below grade level can catch them?
All kids deserve an education. We need to stop sacrificing kids who are on grade level or ahead in the name of maintaining optics that make people happy. The impoverished kids at any school need to be in classes that help them get to grade level without holding back the kids on grade level. Inclusion has not worked to close the education gap, it has only gotten larger. The education gap was increasing before COVID, COVID made it worse, but inclusion was failing before COVID. So we need to try something else.
I don’t think you understand. We need to take crates away from tall kids so short kids can see the baseball game.
The inclusive classroom isn’t working. The kids who start behind are continuing to fall behind. Maintaining this system is only hurting the kids who are on or ahead of grade level. It has not helped the kids who started behind. If you are so blind as to to see that the current paradigm is not doing anything to help the kids who start behind then I don’t know what to say to you.
Right, so why is it that we are separating out so-called advanced kids? Please explain to me how that benefits the kids who are behind??
It only benefits a handful of minority kids who are truly advanced and mostly upper middle class white and asian families who can afford tutoring and test prep. That's literally it.
Tracking benefits kids by meeting them at their level. LIV kids in their own class mean that the Teachers can meet the needs of those kids. It also means that a Teacher in a Gen Ed class does not need to prepare lesson plans for 7 groups of kids, only 4-5. If we used a real tracking system, Teachers would only have to meet the needs of 2-3 groups of kids instead of 5 groups.
But we won’t place kids into classes based on ability all around because we know that the kids in the lower tracks will be lower SES kids, typically Black and Hispanic, while kids in the middle track will be middle class kids that are of all colors, and higher track kids are more likely to middle income to higher income kids that are predominately White and Asian. We are petrified of that optic.
So we have a watered down advanced track that is predominately White and Asian and lump everyone else into one classroom in the name of inclusivity. The LIV class does not serve it’s intended purpose because parents prep kids on the tests to score higher because they are desperate to get their kids out of the Gen Ed classes. They are desperate to get their kids out of Gen Ed classrooms because Teachers are teaching to kids who are 2-3 years below grade level, kids on grade level, and a few kids who are ahead. Now the LIV class inclides kids who are 2-3 ahead and kids who are a year ahead in one area, which waters down that track. But that is still better then the Gen Ed classroom that is focused ont he kids who are 2-3 years behind.
The Teachers don’t have the time to teach to all the different groups. The kids who are far behind keep falling further behind. The kids on grade level do ok, some fall a bit behind some move a bit ahead. The kids who are ahead continue to be ahead because their parents are doing things at home or putting the kid in educational enrichment outside of school.
The current system doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the kids behind or the kids who are ahead. But keep talking about removing crates so the kids without crates can see and pretending like the current “solution” is working.
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