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[quote=Anonymous]My oldest daughter is graduating this year and she never experienced the nirvana you describe, although she did benefit greatly from the gifted programs.  My younger daughter (now a sophomore) had a lot more opportunities for enrichment/acceleration.

In my experience that sort of experience has always been more dependent on what a classroom teacher/school principal  chooses to do rather than what MCPS policies dictate. For example, when my older daughter (a mathy kid) was in 3rd grade the official MCPS position was that at the beginning of each math unit a pretest was to be administered.  If a child demonstrated competence with the material to be covered they were supposed to be given more advanced material.  Meanwhile, at a parent meeting the principal explicitly stated that she believed that kids could test well and still not know the information so she believed all children should cover the basic material to ensure they leaened it.  Meanwhile, the teacher seemed disinclined to go to any extra effort.  On the other hand, my other daughter in 3rd grade (with another teacher) was far enough of her clasamates in reading that her teacher assigned her a separate book and spent some lunch periods having book discussions with my daughter.  As tge year progressed a few other students joined their book club.  I would never have expected that level of attention for a single child, but it had a transformative effect.

MCPS has always paid lip service to differentiation (hypothetically adjusting instruction to the child's level), but without grouping this quickly becomes unfeasible.

I have seen MCPS's opportunities  for math acceleration curtailed.  Other than that,  I'm not sure there's been any significant changes.

I think MCPS does have some fabulous opportunities, but as a whole I have always felt it was deficient in many respects. I think MCPS's reputation is based more on the quality of the parents' education and less on the quality of the school system.  I think that as the school population has changed, a smaller percentage of families is able to compensate at home for MCPS deficiencies.  Meanwhile, I think MCPS continues to head in the wrong direction.[/quote]

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