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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“ AAP is unnecessary. ”

People will continue to fight for AAP so long as the alternative is largely so called “in class differentiation” which amounts to [b]minimal teacher time for the higher groups. [/b]Allow schools to ability group by classes and people would not care so much [/quote]

Not true.[/quote]

Very true. The one Teacher who responded saying that in class differentiation was possible then posted an example of higher level readers being given more independent reading to do, while the Teacher works with the struggling kids, because they are capable of it. Well, yes but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have equal time to discuss what they are reading with the Teacher.

If anything came out of last year it is how true the idea that differentiation doesn’t happen is. We watched as our kid twiddled his thumbs while other kids were pulled into small groups with the Teacher and other specialists. We saw that he finished his work and the bonus work and then read independently while the Teacher worked with other kids. If you think that parents are not aware that this is happening in the regular classroom then you are crazy.

I have no problem with getting rid of the Centers and having Local Level IV programs. The number of kids being accepted into AAP who are ahead but not advanced is pretty high. The Principal Place kids in local level IV are not that different then the above average kid who is able to be selected into AAP by the committee. The real difference between the Centers and LLIV is probably that the parents who are sending their kids to the Centers are more involved then the parents who are keeping their kids at the base school.

The AAP class gives kids who are ahead a place to go and learn at a faster pace. A kid who is a genius is going to be bored at the Center or at a Local Level IV. Most of the people I know who were desperate to send their kids to a Center school where at a Title 1 or near Title 1 school and wanted to move away from kids whose parents were not as involved and who started further behind. [b]I doubt that the people clamoring to keep Centers are our of McLean or any of the higher SES areas in the County[/b].[/quote]

NP. Agree with all of this except the last sentence. I've said it before on this board but there are two main groups of people who want to keep AAP Centers. The first group has a base school that's not quite Title 1 and offers no advanced math until 5th grade. They know the teachers are stretched too thin and won't give their kid much differentiation. The second group has a base school with very low FRM and wants the distinction of their kid qualifying for a center.

We are in the first group and sent our kid who qualified to the center. Our younger two had CogAt/ Naglieri scores in the low 120s and missed the cutoff. It's not the teachers' fault but they've really gotten shortchanged and we've had to supplement a lot. I'm glad we saved all the material from our older kid because we used practically every bit of it. When your 4th grader who is no genius tells you there are kids--multiple-- in her class who can't add two digit numbers and are reading books she read in kindergarten, you either leave for private, do what you can to make sure advanced math happens in 5th grade, or you seriously consider a parent referral to the center for the following year. I don't mind doing away with centers and actually think that makes the most sense, but they need to bring back more ability grouping in ES. Otherwise you end up with really unbalanced classes, frustrated teachers, and parents who decide to leave for private. FCPS does high school really well because they aren't pretending a student who is two grade levels behind should be in the same class with a student who is two grade levels ahead.[/quote]

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