Reply to AAP should be eliminated as it’s not the path to equity

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Reply to "AAP should be eliminated as it’s not the path to equity"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think we need to eliminate travel and try-out sports as well. All teams should be open to every child. Tracking by athletic ability is inequitable. [/quote]

A better analogy is that the rosters of all sports teams should be finalized by the end of second grade.  If your son sucks at basketball (which he’s never tried before) when he’s 7, he gets put in the “not an athlete” pool and only by the grace of god will he ever receive the opportunity to try again.  The fact that in middle school he’s over 6’ and has incredible hand-eye coordination is irrelevant.[/quote]

I mean, at 7, the top 2% or top 15-20% of naturally gifted athletic kids are able to be sorted.  [/quote]

And… this would be a terrible way to select a team for any competitive sport.

You DO realize that in athletics the kids (and even professional level adults!) have to make the team every single year, don’t you?  You don’t get selected after one good tryout and then have a guaranteed spot forever.  Some kids who aren’t necessarily natural athletes end up being scrappy overachievers and incredible assets to their teams, and some naturally gifted athletes just can’t or won’t perform in a competitive setting.

And academic achievement isn’t really different.  Make the “gifted” kids earn their spot every year, and allow other kids a fair chance to see if they can “overachieve” despite less than gifted IQ scores…[/quote]

Natural talent and desire are two different things, sometimes they align and sometimes they don't.  Just as some kids are naturally athletic, some kids are naturally academically gifted. Gifted programs are not about creating teams or even about achievement but about keeping gifted in the game, instead of bored and disruptive or disengaged.  If they also have academic achievement, that's great! If they don't, that doesn't mean they get kicked off the team or out of the gifted program.  [/quote]

But AAP is NOT a gifted program.  It is about advanced academics.  If the naturally gifted kids can’t or won’t do the work they absolutely should be kicked out, and the kids who aren’t naturally gifted but do have the desire, work ethic, and capability to do the work should absolutely be given a fair chance (read: not cross their fingers and hope their talent is discovered) to test into the program every.single.year.[/quote]

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