MCPS refuses to enroll child in 6th grade/middle school who has completed 5th grade

[Anonymous]

....therefore you would like to punish the daughter by letting her relearn multiplication and fractions with other 9 year-olds?

[Anonymous]

Presumably you don't cultivate your children and take pride in their accomplishments!

[Anonymous]

In that case, perhaps you will keep your 9 year-old with other 9-year-olds.
Better yet, you're probably a redshirter ... and would hold your child back a grade or two!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know, the more I think about this, the more I feel that dad wants to show off his daughter. I know that he wants her to get an education, but what is all this publicity about? He seems like he needs to show something to the world, this prize he has been cultivating.
BTW, his article was awkward, also braggy about his role as a professor.

I disagree. What's wrong with wanting an appropriate education for your child? He has been dealing with MCPS for several years now, to no avail. The only thing that MCPS--with an image carefully cultivated by a $10 million PR department--responds to is publicity. He's shining a light on the reality of MCPS. What exactly are the "advanced courses" that the school system could offer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What exactly are the "advanced courses" that the school system could offer?

Apparently the school said it could bus the child over to middle school each day to take a math class.

And probably it had some kind of Gifted/Talented class for kids in the regular classroom.

[Anonymous]

There is no "Gifted/Talented" class in MCPS, other than the Centers. And haven't you heard? Everyone is "gifted" in MCPS. Where is this child going to be with her intellectual peers?

[Anonymous]

http://themorechild.com/2009/08/31/truth-out-mcps-hates-grade-skipping/

[Anonymous]

Roughly 40% of elementary school children in Montgomery County are labelled "gifted" however that term is defined. This child may by 2 standard deviations from the Montgomery County "gifted" standard...approaching what some call profoundly gifted (PG). The Montgomery County school assessment process and the State exams have a very low bar - hence the proponderance of "gifted" children in this county. A tried and tested solution to this dilemma is to offer a significantly above grade level examination (e.g., Explore 8th grade test, SAT test for high schoolers, SCAT exam) to this "gifted" group to separate the wheat from the chaff or tease out the profoundly gifted group (into which this child may fall). The needs of the latter group clearly cannot be met with the existing fibrotic mentality of the MCPS leadership!

Any of the 5 regional educational talent searches around the country (e.g., CTY, NUMATS, TIP, C-MITES) provide a track record and blueprint/template for the leadership of the Gifted and Talented at MCPS. There are 3 decades of data and validation for this approach.

Unfortunately, I had the head of the elementary GT section of MCPS (with PhD) personally claim in a parent conference: "the Montgomery County standard was higher than that of the Center for Talented Youth at John Hopkins University" when I presented my son's transcripts reflecting significant subject acceleration (4 grade levels) when only in the first grade.

This father has an uphill battle indeed!

[Anonymous]

Update from The More Child blog: http://themorechild.com/2009/09/03/news-child-enrolls-in-mcps-middle-school/

[Anonymous]

very interesting blog post!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What's wrong with wanting an appropriate education for your child?

That begs the question of what is an appropriate education for a 9 year old. For humanities, it's unlikely to be a middle school curriculum. What you get out of a novel at 9 (no matter how bright you are) is very different from what you get out of a novel at 12 or 13.

I feel sorry for the Doogie Howser kids whose parents are eager to get them through HS ASAP. They seem to end up at mediocre schools, at least compared to the colleges they could have attended had they hung around in secondary school and went broad and deep rather than fast and narrow. And I remember an article in the Washingtonian a couple of years back where one such kid/parent couldn't understand why she ended up a B student in a nothing special college after completing HS so quickly. It was pretty clear just from listening to the quotes that they had no clue that "not getting anything wrong" can be a recipe for mediocrity rather than excellence. Judgment, insight, risk-taking, originality all just dropped out for this kid who was focussed on mastering as many facts as quickly as possible and never got much experience/practice thinking critically and for herself.

So, actually, I'm fine with advanced math and regular English/social studies for a highly-gifted 9 year old. Seems appropriate to me.

[Anonymous]

How about music and art? Would you hold an advanced child back in these domains? What's so special about literature and writing?

[Anonymous]

The legal mandate that requires public schools to provide an appropriate education for each child doesn't extend to the arts so, as a practical matter, it's a non-issue. The education of musical/artistic prodigies doesn't happen in public elementary and secondary schools in the US and no one expects it to.

FWIW, I'm inclined to think that math is the exceptional case (rather than literature and writing). Basically, math doesn't draw upon experience in the way that other disciplines (including arts) do. That's why acceleration makes sense in that context.

But a 9 year old, no matter how smart, isn't going to get as much out of a novel (or a history book) as she would at 12. And why turn your brilliant 9 year old into an average 12 or 13 year old by encouraging her to buzz through texts and classes as fast as she can and move on as soon as she passes whatever has been defined as the threshold for proficiency at a particular grade level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: But a 9 year old, no matter how smart, isn't going to get as much out of a novel (or a history book) as she would at 12.

Really? How do you know? Profoundly gifted kids often are perceptive and capable of sophisticated understanding far beyond their years.

Anonymous wrote:I feel sorry for the Doogie Howser kids whose parents are eager to get them through HS ASAP.

You seem to think these are cases of pushy parents. Did you ever think that it could be the kid pressing for more?

[Anonymous]

You seem to know much about the legal mandates for public school education? Are you sure that mathematics is the only subject that States are mandated to provide an appropriate education for a child in this country? State education law varies in our union.

Why should a 9-year-old get what a 14-year-old gets out of a novel ... or for that matter a 9-year-old get the same thing out of abstract algebra as a 14-year-old? In fact, the transmission of educational insights may flow in the reverse in the case of a unique precocious 9year-old. The unique and precocious 9-year-old may have more to offer to the ordinary 14-year-old. This may hold true for literature, art, music, mathematics and logic!!