Question for those whose children were not admitted...

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This is the result of turning a gifted program into advanced academics. When my son was in the GT program, the whole point was the busy work and unnecessary homework went away. He was very engaged in his school work, at school, but not doing heaps of h homework at night because he and his classmates "got" what they were teaching and didn't need all the repetition.

What year was that?

It is ridiculous. You hear this argument all the time: it was a gifted program when my kid went, but not now. Translation: Her kid really needed the program b/c her kid is really gifted. Today's program is not a gifted program and the children currently in it are not really that bright...well, compared to her kid.

What I want to understand is how is the program different than it used to be? I keep hearing it is, but FCPS still uses all those gifted and talented resources with the AAP students, so is it really that different in an actual classroom? If so, how? Or has FCPS just tried to pull as many people as they can up into the AAP program without slowing it down too much?

AAP is a completely watered-down version of what used to be GT. They've admitted so many kids - many of whom are right on the border with the top GE kids - that it's no longer only the very highest group of kids. They're mainly avg./above avg./very mainstream. There's no way they can teach a true "gifted" curriculum to this group.

There exists here this unsupported nostalgia for a fabled program where young Mozarts and Charles Wallaces moved chess pieces with their minds unencumbered by merely bright or advanced classmates. If it ever existed it's gone now and good riddance. Every year that passes makes such repeated reminiscences less relevant and their proponents more pathetic.

That was a very entertaining response! I don't know about moving chess pieces with their minds, but there were some seriously exceptional kids in GT. Kind of what you'd expect from a gifted program.

I assume many of these younger super gifted kids are still in the same program, just with other kids who are bright but not super gifted. Most schools in the past and school districts now just have a once or twice a week pull out program with many kids who aren't exceptionally gifted. This is the view of most people talking about a gifted program in the US, not some single school that draws from all around only for the super gifted. Your description reminds me of Bloor's Academy in that book Charlie Bone where everyone is a genius, but that's not the reality of a gifted program in most public school districts.

Doesn't MoCo have Highly Gifted Centers?

Montgomery County's program is a bit more selective than FCPS's, but it uses the same William and Mary gifted curriculum for language arts and the math curriculum is similar too I think the science and social studies is a bit better planned in MOCO.