^^^ PP again, this is in MD.

16:24, magnet admissions are probably the most meritocratic process around here, for those of you worried about meritocracy. It's based on test scores, GPA, essays and teacher recs. They are not by lottery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of high IQs. The teachers in MCPS made a big effort to help my DCs have a great experience. They just pulled out materials from 3rd and 4th grade in 1st and 2nd. They tested 99% (the highest you could go) across the board in standardized tests. Admin would say: are these real? when they saw the test scores. There were a couple of other kids like them -- in a neighborhood where every house costs over $1M, what would you expect? When the oldest reached 4th we moved them to private. so did the other parents like ours. Some kids are very smart academically. making them continue to repeat 1st and 2nd grade materials is asking a lot of a 7-8 year old. So if your child is gifted, acts gifted, tests gifted, yes it is a form of special issue and needs to be addressed. The best thing we ever did for our kids was private.

I'm curious, did they not get into magnets, which could easily happen due to space limitations at the magnets not test results? Or you didn't want DC to do a long commute? We moved DCs to a good private in 3rd grade and, honestly, it wasn't all that. DCs went back to public magnets when each reached middle school and that was one of best decisions we made.

Magnets are tough to get into. Lottery? It really depends on the private. But again overall, those parents who can afford privates have some smarts somewhere, regardless of their backgrounds or they would not be able to afford it. I do not see many average/low IQ at our private. (Don't see that many very high either --kind of middle. It is a requirement of many privates to take IQ tests. Not my favorite idea.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of high IQs. The teachers in MCPS made a big effort to help my DCs have a great experience. They just pulled out materials from 3rd and 4th grade in 1st and 2nd. They tested 99% (the highest you could go) across the board in standardized tests. Admin would say: are these real? when they saw the test scores. There were a couple of other kids like them -- in a neighborhood where every house costs over $1M, what would you expect? When the oldest reached 4th we moved them to private. so did the other parents like ours. Some kids are very smart academically. making them continue to repeat 1st and 2nd grade materials is asking a lot of a 7-8 year old. So if your child is gifted, acts gifted, tests gifted, yes it is a form of special issue and needs to be addressed. The best thing we ever did for our kids was private.

I would agree with this poster. If your child is so off the charts - perhaps private may offer more for them. It would be nice if public could make a curriculum for each individual child - but there are limitations to public education. I think in general they are trying to do the best they can with limited resources.

It is a drain on the resources. But each generation has done it, so... That does not make it a necessity. But pretending that they are "just like everyone else" is not solving the problem either. Neither is pretending that it is OK for young children to keep repeating info over and over and over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of high IQs. The teachers in MCPS made a big effort to help my DCs have a great experience. They just pulled out materials from 3rd and 4th grade in 1st and 2nd. They tested 99% (the highest you could go) across the board in standardized tests. Admin would say: are these real? when they saw the test scores. There were a couple of other kids like them -- in a neighborhood where every house costs over $1M, what would you expect? When the oldest reached 4th we moved them to private. so did the other parents like ours. Some kids are very smart academically. making them continue to repeat 1st and 2nd grade materials is asking a lot of a 7-8 year old. So if your child is gifted, acts gifted, tests gifted, yes it is a form of special issue and needs to be addressed. The best thing we ever did for our kids was private.

So now wealth equates to brilliance? Seriously? Some of the most brilliant minds in history who made the most groundbreaking discoveries came from modest means.

You pretty much discredited yourself with that nasty/elitist statement.

Sorry that you feel that way. Just the demographic. I did not make it so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i know better to complain about 'boredom' to parents. no one cares and you sound like ridiculous. but the truth is in the younger grades (thru 3rd) DC have been bored. Their way of explaining the repetition of the work they are assigned. I see it more as being unchallenged or just that they are fast learners. Not that they come knowing all the material... they just don't need 4 or 5 lessons to grasp it ie. maybe 1 or 2 is enough.

also, if you don't have a child with an IQ above 145 then maybe you can roll your eyes. But it sounds reasonable to me. You don't really know what it likes to have a 145+ IQ occupied.... just like I wouldn't begin to tell a SN family that I get what they go thru. Not saying they are the same.... just saying that unless you live it... you don't get it.

No, I get it. My kid has an IQ of 155...AND IS NOT BORED. Do you get that? I don't believe truly gifted kids get bored in school...they can look at things uniquely. Study things from different perspectives, etc. There is nothing worse than a parent who says, "I get that people don't get the troubles I've known because my kid is so off the charts. THank your stars you don't have our troubles."

Get over yourself.

I agree with this, based on my own experience and my kids' experiences. Yes, we are glad for magnets. But I'm always amazed at the personal resources you see in the smartest magnet kids. The ability to see new angles and to go beyond what even the magnet class is doing. Kids with brains like this NEED to explore and to satisfy their curiosity and they have the innate wherewithal to do it. It's true that sometimes high IQ comes with aspergers or other behavioral issues, and you do see this in some magnet kids. But even then, I see the solution as helping these kids learn to work in a traditional classroom - which, yes, involves some boredom, even in the magnets - rather than providing constant stimulation and entertainment.

I'm also with this poster's "get over yourself" line. The posters writing "thank your stars your kid isn't as smart as mine, but that must be why you don't understand how hard it is to be the mom" crack me up. If only you knew....

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of high IQs. The teachers in MCPS made a big effort to help my DCs have a great experience. They just pulled out materials from 3rd and 4th grade in 1st and 2nd. They tested 99% (the highest you could go) across the board in standardized tests. Admin would say: are these real? when they saw the test scores. There were a couple of other kids like them -- in a neighborhood where every house costs over $1M, what would you expect? When the oldest reached 4th we moved them to private. so did the other parents like ours. Some kids are very smart academically. making them continue to repeat 1st and 2nd grade materials is asking a lot of a 7-8 year old. So if your child is gifted, acts gifted, tests gifted, yes it is a form of special issue and needs to be addressed. The best thing we ever did for our kids was private.

I'm curious, did they not get into magnets, which could easily happen due to space limitations at the magnets not test results? Or you didn't want DC to do a long commute? We moved DCs to a good private in 3rd grade and, honestly, it wasn't all that. DCs went back to public magnets when each reached middle school and that was one of best decisions we made.

Anonymous wrote:
I had working class parents, my husband had working class parents, we were both gifted children, we went on to good colleges, got grad degrees, got good jobs in DC, and are now upper SES--the wealth flowed from the intelligence, not the other way around. Now we have our own kids and, not surprisingly, they have been identified as gifted. The kids aren't gifted because we have money--we have money and we have gifted kids because we are very smart. It's correlation, not causation. Its not "elitist" to recognize the correlation and assume that a wealthy neighborhood in the DC suburbs is populated with very smart, high-acheiving adults who are likely to have very smart kids. And it certainly doesn't deny that gifted children originate from all kinds of families and circumstances.

This is a meritocratic understanding of US society which is not, unfortunately, supported by the data. As a population, in the US, rich people aren't rich because they're smarter and harder-working than other people. They're rich because they picked rich parents. (And yes, obviously there are individual exceptions -- for example this PP. That is why I said "as a population".)