Reply to Anyone's child not able to stay in AP?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]13:49  The responses were to reply to 13:02.  I think people are tired of hearing that AAP costs too much when it really doesn't cost any more than if the kids were at their base schools. Costs really should not be a reason to dislike the program.[/quote]

Perhaps a reason to dislike the program is one that has been mentioned many times -- AAP is so overblown with average kids who either test well or were prepped for the test.  These are not gifted kids who "can't learn" in a regular, Gen. Ed. environment.  To pretend that they are is doing everyone a disservice.  These kids grow up entitled, thinking they are somehow smarter or more gifted (such an overused word) than the other kids.  And the GE kids wind up thinking that they are somehow less than or inferior, when in fact, most of them tested almost as well as those in AAP.

The bar for AAP needs to be raised to perhaps a 140 (or higher) cutoff, allowing those kids who are really and truly gifted to be taught in special classes.  All the other kids need to be in Gen. Ed. -- high achievers, low achievers, and the many in the middle who are most often overlooked.  It's ridiculous how many average, run-of-the-mill kids are admitted to AAP.  Standards need to be much higher.[/quote]

There are a multitude of problems with your statements and conclusions:

1) You are making assumptions and treating them like facts.  DO GE kids really feel inferior from the system?  Do you have evidence to back up the theory?

2) Do you understand the practical implications of raising the bar to 140?  they are:

2.1) 1/10 - 1/20th th as many students (assuming a Gaussian distributions of scores); that means instead of 2000 kids per grade, you would have 100-200 kids per grade in the county, and there would have to be transported to central schools in order to maintain critical mass.  That would mean third graders travels for an hour to get to school.

2.2)  AAP would be more selective than TJ

2.3) Measuring intelligence in 7 yo's is not an exact science.  There are gifted students that do not test well (that day at least), and there are student that have been taught how to beat the tests.  And the same kid, at 7, can have a variance of about 30 points from one day to the next.  Case in point, when I entered the 8th grade, I was tested on the date of enrollment with a standardized test.  We had been camping out, as our furniture had not arrived.  And my sister was sick.  I was distracted.  I did not do well on the test, scoring 110, and was placed in the average track.  I became a bit of a trouble maker, and was sent off to a private physiologist.  The first thing that was done was to test me, and I tested  at 148 overall, and 160+ in some areas (e.g., processing speed).  Not bragging, just trying to give an example.

3) The implication is the 120 kids are holding back the 140+ kids.  I have seen no evidence to support that.  In fact, the nature of AAP is the project approach, which means that the really best students can demonstrate the ability.  If it were worksheet based, i would agree.  Math curriculum routinely has things that are really challenging, where getting one problem right is considered above grade level.
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