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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s less about how hard the subject is, and more about how organized they are in middle school. If the kid won’t do his homework or study with any basic effort then it stinks to miss out on what for most bright kids should be a straightforward A for the high school transcript. [/quote]

Hard disagree. I'm with the poster who said there's a brain development step you cannot predict that helps students process higher level math concepts. The same kind of brain development I firmly think also helps with computer science concepts like recursion. Pushing those too early is just painful and doesn't accomplish much, where as after the brain development step they are easy.[/quote]

I've heard this fairy tale of "brain development" so many times. Even from math teachers who should know better.
It sounds to me to be similarly pseudo-scientific as [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA]"learning styles"[/url] or the "growth mindset" BS that's so prevalent in our schools - both never verified BS hypotheses.[/quote]

Haven't read the research. But I do believe there are likely some late blooming math thinkers. What about kids who have ADHD? Their minds don't develop the same as a neurotypical student's. The subject of this article is a shining example of someone who came to math late, academically speaking, and subsequently excelled.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/[/quote]
This is anecdotal evidence that's comparable to the story of the chain smoker who turned 100 when it comes to frequency.

Also, to be clear: the argument of the brain development folks is that no one should be accelerated because they are all too young and their brains haven't matured, rather than making individual distinctions between kids who have developed faster and the ADHD kid you're mentioning. In their world, everyone must be held back because if they have not reached a certain age where their brains "develops" or whatever. It's not a call for accommodating neurodiversity, it's a call to lump all children together.

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The problem is that many DCUM posters believe their DC is that genius kid that is 4+ SD higher than the mean and deserves special treatment.  But it's more likely that their DC is in the lumpy middle of the distribution (maybe 0.5-1.5 SDs above the mean) and is only testing high because of prep.  And many kids in this lump middle may actually be worse off by tailoring their education as if they were 4+SDs higher.[/quote]

The schools administer tests every year.  2SD is 98%ile. 3SD is 99.9%ile. 
Parents who are curious can easily know where their kids are on the curve . [/quote]

FCPS kids tend to score high on these standardized tests. Is it because FCPS kids are (on average) higher on the curve than other regions' kids?  I would argue that FCPS kids are more "prepped" than other regions' kids, so their test scores are artificially high.  Which leads to parents assuming that their 148 CoGAT kid (who prepped for 2 years prior) is some super genius.

My data: FCPS kids are not scoring higher than other regions on non-standardized tests that are difficult even for the brightest kids (e.g. AMC tests).[/quote]

CogAT has a very low ceiling, and the difference between a 148 and a 132 in a section is around 2 correct answers.  It isn't possible to decide that your kid is 99.9th percentile in intelligence based on CogAT, since prepping matters a lot, the test isn't comprehensive enough, and the ceiling is too low.  Some parents do know that their kids are very high on the curve based on other data.  Unfortunately, FCPS throws up a lot of roadblocks even if your kid is a +3SD or +4SD type.

My data: My kid first qualified for AIME in 6th grade and has made the top 1% honor roll on the AMC 10 in 7th and 8th.  He's well positioned to make JMO this year in 8th.  In ES, my kid's principal and math resource teacher wanted to accelerate him more than 1 year in math based on all of their data and interactions.  Gatehouse said no.

If you meet the needs of the +3SD and +4SD types, then a decent number of less talented kids with pushy parents will squeeze into whatever program accommodates the highly gifted.  If you want to prevent these kids from overaccelerating to their own detriment, it's likely that the highly gifted kids will also be prevented from accelerating.  You can't have it both ways.  I'd prefer to see the schools accommodate the highly gifted and let the other kids who squeeze into the program take responsibility for their own possibly bad choices.  FCPS would prefer saving them from themselves to the detriment of the handful of highly gifted.  [/quote]

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