Reply to Advanced Students in DCPS Upper Elementary

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you have a student who is working above grade level in a few areas, how does DCPS differentiate and accommodate their learning needs in upper elementary, if at all? For example, if a 3rd grader is currently doing 5th grade math, what would they do when they get to 4th and 5th grade? Would they be able to continue learning new math that is typically taught in middle school and how is this done - through small groups, pull outs, computer programs, or something else?[/quote]

Giving our perspective after having been through this with a kid who is now in middle school (DCPS). Our school (Ward 3) did acknowledge that our child was far ahead (in math) and did their best to help. This was a kid who was probably ready for Algebra in 4th or 5th and qualified for the USAMO this year. But given restricted budgets, logistics and personnel, what they could actually do was limited -- a few worksheets, being the teacher's helper, a few pullouts where a computer was provided etc. Middle school has been much better, if only for the range of available options. However, while this may be different for every child, it was enough for ours, who is thriving in middle school. [/quote]

Woah, qualifying for the USAMO in middle school is ridiculously impressive... Have they changed the qualifying so that there's a way other than the AHSME/AIME? Not that it's not super impressive in any case, but my info is like 25 years out of date and back then there was a AHSME that you took to qualify for the AIME which then picked qualifiers for the USAMO... And back then there were like maybe 1 or 2 10th graders who qualified occasionally, so a middle schooler would have been like off-the-charts insane. I'm wondering if they've changed the system so that kids get in the pipeline sooner (which would totally make sense, actually)?[/quote]

No, no other way -- just AMC-12 (the new version of AHSME) followed by AIME. The number of middle schoolers who qualified is more than a handful. MAA did institute the USAJMO, which has a lot more middle schoolers qualify by taking the AMC-10/AIME. Still the total number is 500 odd kids across both the USAMO and USAJMO.[/quote]

Thanks. I actually just looked it up and it does seem like they've expanded USAMO qualifying a bit in the sense that there used to be ~175 qualifiers and now there seem to be ~250, but I wonder if that's partially just an access thing via AoPS and other online programs rather than anything intentional/any decrease in standard. I also looked up the results from my senior year and it's like 7 middle schoolers, which is way more than I would have guessed... but still crazily impressive. (There was also only one single DC qualifier that year, so even more impressive.)[/quote]

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