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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

How do I know? BTDT. I'm profoundly gifted. My DC's profoundly gifted. And I ended up in academia. So I've lived this scenario from all three perspectives (kid, parent, teacher). In fact, I've even had the experience of being a student at a mediocre college at 14 (after doing some auditing at 12), a good college at 16, (both part-time while still in HS, both at my own initiative), and at an Ivy at 17. So I've directly experienced the difference in what a precocious kid can learn at different ages. And it's a difference that my 14 year old self wouldn't have anticipated.

At any rate, the comparison I'm making is not between a profoundly gifted kid and a kid who isn't. It's between a profoundly gifted kid at one age and the same profoundly gifted kid older. Don't stunt the kid's intellectual growth by rushing it. And don't represent school as something you do as fast as possible or a series of hoops to be jumped through or the only place you can learn. Exploration and creativity take time and a certain amount of leisure to venture beyond set curricula and basic standards and to let your mind play.

[Anonymous]

The legal mandate that requires public schools to provide an appropriate education for each child doesn't extend to the arts
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Please cite your source for that statement. In Maryland the Constitution entitles children to a free public education. No Arts exclusion.

[Anonymous]

Please cite a source that defines public education in MD as including as much arts education as an individual child can benefit from. Courts interpret these provisions as requiring school systems to do as much as possible to ensure that a kid gets as close as possible to the equivalent of the basic HS education that the state provides to all students. It's not a requirement that every student be provided, at public expense, with as much education as (and of whatever type) she or he can benefit from in the period between the ages of 5 and 18.

[Anonymous]

The point about public education objectives that we may be missing relates to the requirement of a stimulating and challenging education appropriate for every child. While a typical 9-year-old in MCPS is getting a stimulating and challenging education appropriate to their ability, aptitude, accomplishment and performance. A profoundly gifted 9-year-old, 2 to 3 standard deviations from the mean, is deprived of such an appropriately stimulating and challenging education if rigidly constrained to multiplication tables instead of algebra, spelling 4 to 6 letter words instead of SAT vocabulary fare, picture books instead of novels and poetry and humpty dumpty piano rhymes instead of concertos. In other words, while his or her peers are receive a stimulating education (paid for by taxes) that they are entiltled to an outlier, the profoundly gifted, is not, in fact deprived, held back and potentially harmed.

The comment about your genetic line of giftedness that opens the door to your relevations and insights about whether a profoundly gifted 9-year-old can perform alongside a similar 12-year-old simply injects dubiousness to your intellectual claims and does not support your argument one iota; rather gravely detracts from it.

Do not feel sorry for the profoundly gifted; it comes off as disingenious and veiled envy!!

[Anonymous]

Do you have any data to support the claim that profoundly gifted children sacrifice play and creative time in pursuit of their scientific, mathematical, literary and musical talents? In fact, many non gifted children make these sacrifices just to keep up (tutoring around the clock)!!

[Anonymous]

The reality is that the county has limited resources. Profoundly gifted children may have to do with "inadequate" educations. Keep in mind that there are TONS of mentally disabled children who also get inadequate services in this county. There is only so much that can be done.

[Anonymous]

Here's the Maryland Constitution provision on education:

ARTICLE VIII
EDUCATION.
SECTION 1. The General Assembly, at its First Session after the adoption of this Constitution, shall by Law establish throughout the State a thorough and efficient System of Free Public Schools; and shall provide by taxation, or otherwise, for their maintenance.
SEC. 2. The System of Public Schools, as now constituted, shall remain in force until the end of the said First Session of the General Assembly, and shall then expire; except so far as adopted, or continued by the General Assembly.
SEC. 3. The School Fund of the State shall be kept inviolate, and appropriated only to the purposes of Education.

The "arts" and the "appropriate and stimulating" requirements asserted by PP's don't seem to appear there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not feel sorry for the profoundly gifted; it comes off as disingenious and veiled envy!!

I don't feel sorry for profoundly gifted kids -- I feel sorry for kids with seriously misguided parents.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/313AB3F2-945F-478E-9C42-8E9C5BA491CD/19068/08HMONT0085306595.pdf

is a recent MD decision that includes a discussion of how free and appropriate education has been interpreted by courts. See pp. 16ff.

As you'll see, the logic is that this education should, where possible, enable kids to progress from grade to grade and to prepare themselves for further education, employment, and independent living. It doesn't require that kids be challenged in ways that maximize each individual's potential.

[Anonymous]

The marginal cost of placing a profoundly gifted 9-year-old student (1:1,000) in an algebra class taught in the county (middle or high schol), is insignificant.

[Anonymous]

And the county seems willing to do that.

[Anonymous]

But only after huge effort by the parent, with the school system fighting it every step of the way.

[Anonymous]

Thought the previous poster's point about math versus the humanities was absolutely on-point and articulated something that rings true to me.

The idea that a profoundly gifted child will be sufficiently intellectually stimulated if only she or he is advanced a few grades seems silly to me. My own experience (and I doubt I'd qualify as profoundly gifted) was that school was never intellectually challenging to me. Not ever. I was accelerated, but it was still too easy academically. At the same time school was a rich source of creativity and social relationships, and I got a lot out of it. My intellectual life developed outside of school and was almost entirely self-directed. I can't imagine the wisdom in skipping a child so far ahead, depriving them of peer social relationships and experential growth, on the assumption that their intellectual needs will at least be met. Because if the child is as gifted as claimed, they won't.

[Anonymous]

22:33, I feel like I've gone through the looking glass... So a child should go to school for "creativity and social relationships" and develop his/her intellectual life at home?

What's wrong with this picture? And let's be honest, how much "creativity and social relationship" is really happening at school. 10 minutes of chat in the lunchroom? Have you visited a public school lately? They have been drained of creativity and there is precious little time for socializing...and much of what there is isn't exactly what I would call positive.

[Anonymous]

Public education should stick to their primary objective. And certainly what I believe I direct my taxes for. The primary school education is didactic, academic and intellectual. It is certainly not to drive "creativity and social relationships" or any "new" "fuzzy math" equivalent.

To my knowledge, metrics for measuring the latter endpoints don't exist. School performance is centered around grades...or metrics such as State exams, AP examinations, PSAT, ACT and SAT examinations).

Unfortunately, in many circles, public education is failing in it's primary objective (compared to other nations with much less resources). And for sure, our public education system does no better in the "noble" arena of creativity and social relationships (witness the myriad of Columbine-type problems in our resource rich environment).

It appears many parents prefer to outsource the development of creativity and social relationships to the schools (instead of family units and communities) and families and schools, likewise, outsource the didactic, academic and intellectual development to Kaplan, Princeton review, Kuman, Score, and private tutors.

The principal at Cabin John Middle School was correct in rescinding her refusal to admit a 9-year-old girl (whom she and her staff had previously personally vetted, evaluated, examined and admitted until they became aware of a "birth date"). If she passes the "sniff" and "intellectual" tests why shouldn't she get an education commensurate with her achievement, ability and aptitude. The marginal cost of placing a profoundly gifted 9-year-old (chronologic age) in a MCPS middle school is negligible.

Put your sorrows to better use. Do not waste your sorrows on the child or the parent. I assure you, they don't need it!