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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I support this

I also support scrapping the whole AAP insanity.  No one has any clue who is gifted vs just smart when kids are 6-7 years old anyway

Just go back to tracking and multiple levels.  I remember growing up you would separate the classrooms in each grade for math for high average and remedial.  That would also cut down on the insanity of kids taking Algebra I in 6th grade.  No one should be doing that.  7th grade is plenty early and you could have at least one section at each middle school.  Those classes would form your TJ pipeline and go from there.

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Why do these two things have to be mutually exclusive?  Gifted kids need to be with other gifted kids for a number of social and intellectual reasons.  The idea that some form of blended classrooms are good for everyone equally is a fallacy and only serves to engender the problem of the smarter kids being overlooked/ignored in favor of helping less intelligent or struggling students.  The worst thing a teacher can do to an immature, intellectually curious, gifted child is to tell her that her knowledge is good enough to pass already so all she has to do is sit in the corner and twiddle her fingers while less fortunate, more important kids are taught things they should already know.  This is why the U.S. is losing in education vs. the rest of the world.[/quote]

doesn't tracking solve that issue? There are plenty of weak readers in AAP, there are plenty of kids in advanced math who tested in and do as well or better than level IV kids in ES. Tracking gets everyone at the level they deserve to be on [/quote]

How many tracks would you need then? I can think of at least 5: intellectualy challenged SPED, below average, average, above average, gifted
Are you willing to argue in front of those 5 groups that their kids belong where they are placed?

And as for tracking, I went through that as well and it wasn't enough then, with many intelligent kids falling by the wayside due to being ignored (maybe the Good Will Hunting effect).  I went to a top tier public school in the northeast which annually sent 15 to 20 kids to the Ivies, and about 100 (25%) to most competitive schools.  The fact is that the average gifted kid today is way more intelligent than the kids I went to school with because of the easy access of information.  Back then, you basically stopped when your teacher told you to and there was no Khan Academy or YouTube videos to further knowledge.  It's scary with kids today in terms of how how much they know and how capable they are to learn more.  It's like comparing athletes in the 80s (pick any sport) to athletes today in terms of both physical prowess and mental acuity.  There seems to be some form of Moore's law when it comes to all aspects of child growth and development for the upper centile of whichever attribute you look at.[/quote]

Not really, 2 tracks (regular and advanced) would be enough in elementary. Most kids in a school would be in the regular track, and teachers would work with kids in small groups by ability level (as is normally currently done in elementary school). Support staff would work with SPED students who are falling behind (again, as exists in the current model in our schools). The difference would be in the advanced track: Teachers there would still periodically split students in small groups and work with them in class. However, kids/groups who are well beyond the advanced material would regularly meet in a small group with a separate resource to deliver more "gifted" content (Note that this doesn't have to occur on a daily basis, as more advanced kids can learn a lot on their own, but this means someone definitely needs to give them challenging material). The question then becomes whether each school can afford a resource to work periodically with these advanced groups; sometimes the class teacher could do it time permitting, but they should have a resource helper who is trained to work with them a few times a week.

So as you can see, it's just a matter of funding; are schools willing to budget a resource trained to work with the most advanced students? Usually the answer is no, as most of the priority and funding goes in the other direction (i.e SPED or ESOL learners).[/quote]

once you call it advanced, the tiger moms will pounce (especially if they get additional resources). Just keep ES similar to what it is and treat MS like HS- different tracks, take the classes you want and if you fail you fail [/quote]

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