Afterthoughts from AAP orientation
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Anonymous
Disagree that the lines neglect the middle kids. It is the individual teachers who do that. The best use of resources would be to teach teachers of all grades, AAP and base, how to provide differentiated work. |
Anonymous
This. The teachers can make all the difference. Gen ed. or AAP. |
Anonymous
+1 Interesting how so many successful appeals occur in the wealthier schools. Those parents are the only ones able to afford WISC testing. |
Anonymous
Exactly right. Why are middle and high schools able to offer advanced classes to anyone interested and able, but apparently elementary school isn't? Plenty of "regular" kids would excel in advanced classes, depending on their area of strength. A student doesn't have to be advanced across the board. In fact, many AAP students are completely mainstream and aren't advanced in all subjects. Why does FCPS assume there's a "need" for them to be educated separately? |
Anonymous
I know, FCPS has drawn the lines in the perfect place and the incompetent, untrained teachers that are the problem 
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Anonymous
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Why are middle and high schools able to offer advanced classes to anyone interested and able, but apparently elementary school isn't? Plenty of "regular" kids would excel in advanced classes, depending on their area of strength. A student doesn't have to be advanced across the board. In fact, many AAP students are completely mainstream and aren't advanced in all subjects. Why does FCPS assume there's a "need" for them to be educated separately?
I'm quoting a PP above but the quoting feature is just making this thread way too long. Wanted to comment on the question. I think the reason why advanced classes are not offered in early elementary is that the eager parents will push for this as early as possible. It takes time to get data on kids and that's why they wait till 1st grade to do the NNAT and 2nd grade to take the CogAT. I personally think that this is even too early but it does give the school system an initial baseline. Surely we as first-time parents all think our children are so advanced. My DC1 was reading and writing before Kindergarten and was very articulate. DC was identified early for pull-outs. CogAT was just below the cut off and had superior score on Verbal. I really could have referred her to AAP but when I went to the informational night when she was in 2nd grade, I thought that DC didn't fit despite her good grades, good feedback from the teacher, and she was also a Young Scholar. Come 3rd grade, she started to have trouble with math, which pretty much became the new baseline. She would have struggled in AAP had she been accepted. As far as the WISC, I think parents should invest in it as part of your child's education- and don't consider the school as 100% of their education- I'd say it's 75% at best and you supplement the rest. Don't let your only data points be from the school's NNAT and CogAT. We live in a transient neighborhood that is not wealthy. There are ways through GMU to get a reduced fee on WISC testing. Why do the wealthy parents get their child tested on the WISC? Because these parents are also more educated-- that is why they are wealthy. They have also studied how the school system works and will make sure that their kid get the best of everything. Can you blame them? If we all clamored to get our kids into the advanced program and the school had no way to initially sort the kids out, differentiation in the classroom would be so difficult for the teachers. I hear first-time parents who have kids in preschool who know about this way to get the best services in Fairfax county- all you have to do is "test them in." Even if the county instituted a "line in sand", we as parents will always want to be that line to be in favor of our kid. You just won't please everyone. In middle school, you can work with your kid to enroll in the advanced classes that they excel in and are interested in. By that time, you as a parent, would have a good idea of your kids strengths. In high school, there are even more choices but a lot more focus. You can't have ALL those choices in 1st grade, when you as a doting parent think that your kid is advanced in everything, because reality hits when you find out your kid doesn't excel in everything, or has a special need (anxiety, LD, ADD etc.) that wasn't apparent in kindergarten. School is such a long haul. Those kids who are identified early are given the advanced services. Some kids just bloom late- and that's why a lot of parents here say that in high school, everything evens out. People here are so ticked off about the testing, the AAP Process, the appeals, the Center vs LLIV, and the idea that the advanced curriculum should be available to all from the beginning. And no, I don't think that a majority of kids can handle that AAP curriculum- but that also depends on how it's implemented in the particular school. My DC2 is in a very strong center school- that's why in retrospect, I realize that DC1 would have been a disaster in an advanced program. |
Anonymous
| PP, putting the AAP curriculum in every classroom does not mean every classroom would be AAP. They would just use the same tools (which, by the way, are terrific -- think an actual thought out program instead of random photocopied papers, in my kids' case). The AAP classes would go farther in depth. |
Anonymous
| So you are implying that if your DC1 had also been given the same mediums of instructions like vocabulary building tools, more math projects etc like DC2 , it would have been to the disadvantage of DC1. That is what this thread is all about, nothing against AAP or Gen-Ed |
Anonymous
NP here. I think what she is saying is that DC1 would have had difficulty with the fast pace of instruction in AAP and did much better in Gen Ed. I think PP is very wise. Kids progress at their own pace and pushing a kid who takes longer to get a concept into a program designed for kids who catch on quickly is not good for either the student or the program. It's part of the reason AAP has become so watered down. Gifted kids look at something once and get it, kids put into the program with prepping and propped up by tutoring aren't who it was intended for and end up slowing classes down for everyone. |
Anonymous
But at least their parents get to say they're in AAP... |
Anonymous
How about overhauling the GE curriculum. I really don't think the AAP curriculum is a good fit for every student. But when a parent see it as a better structured program than what their child is getting I can understand wanting it for everyone. |
Anonymous
They are supposed to be they kids that read on there own... Thus no need for reading logs and reading in class... |
Anonymous
| AAP Curriculum - William & Mary Literature units - ugh! |
Anonymous
My AAP student has reading logs, just more detailed than listing the titles or a sentence summary. |
Anonymous
I think assuming some kids can’t handle is just evil. I came from another country with near 0 English and was given Worldly Wise in 6th grade (book6) along with all the novels (Tom Sawyer, The Outsider, My Brother Sam Is Dead), world history textbook, nervous system worksheets on the first day I arrived at my new American school. I’m dumb as f*** as my husband say, but I caught up in a month. Yes, there were some nights I had to stay up, and my limericks sucked, but my progression made me feel ecstatic, excited for school, and motivated. Needless to say, I excelled in school. I think this is how school should be, and what education should be, raising kids up not a race to the bottom. This was a public school btw.
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