Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

My kid is a September birthday and thus very young for her grade. Skipping her a grade would put a 7 yo in with 9 yos. That seems like a bad idea socially--she's smart, not mature. The challenge is that the math being taught this year is remedial at best. So slow. So basic. So boring. No critical thinking required whatsoever. At least 2/3 of the class is bored out of their minds.

They can spend that time working on their numerals. At 7 kids need tons of exercise to get their hand muscles up to speed.

100% of 2nd grade math in virtual school is on the screen. It's typed only this year. Most of class is spent with kids explaining how they figured out the sum of 7+4 or how they determined the hundreds place in 321. Think 15 minutes per problem. Soooooooo slow.

The pace of ES math this year is galatial. My first grader is basically going to spend the entire year learning numerals up to 110 and how to add numbers 0-9 to each other and subtract the same from each other. SO slow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

My kid is a September birthday and thus very young for her grade. Skipping her a grade would put a 7 yo in with 9 yos. That seems like a bad idea socially--she's smart, not mature. The challenge is that the math being taught this year is remedial at best. So slow. So basic. So boring. No critical thinking required whatsoever. At least 2/3 of the class is bored out of their minds.

They can spend that time working on their numerals. At 7 kids need tons of exercise to get their hand muscles up to speed.

100% of 2nd grade math in virtual school is on the screen. It's typed only this year. Most of class is spent with kids explaining how they figured out the sum of 7+4 or how they determined the hundreds place in 321. Think 15 minutes per problem. Soooooooo slow.

Anonymous wrote:I went to an excellent public school system in New England, and we had no differentiation or G&T in elementary school. Honors classes (for a couple of subjects) started in middle school (7th grade), with expanded honors/AP options in high school. I graduated in 2002.

However, the parent population was pretty well educated and kept tabs on their kids. Not many behavioral issues or disruptions to distract the teachers. And class sizes were ~22 kids. Everyone was taught the same lesson though. I felt I received a good education (later went to HYP for undergrad)

Teaching to one level works great when the kids are generally above average upper middle class kids. Many private schools work on exactly that model, where the median kid is solidly above average, they're teaching at an above average level, and there are relatively few outliers on either end.

You're comparing apples to oranges in any DC area publics, where there are a lot of kids with IEPs, kids who don't speak English, kids who are far below grade level, kids who are very advanced, etc. all in the same class. The median in many DC area publics is much lower than what you had in your neighborhood school, and the variance is so much larger that there is no reasonable way to teach to the median without leaving the bottom kids behind and doing nothing at all for the top kids. Last year, my kid's 6th grade gen ed FCPS class had 28 kids crammed in a classroom, including several ESOL kids who still were struggling with English, a couple kids with behavioral issues, non-ESOL kids who were still years below grade level, all the way through a handful of LIV eligible kids who chose to remain in gen ed. There was no feasible way for the teacher to teach to the median without losing over half of the class from both the top and bottom.

I had 2 children in a “mid-high” FARMS elementary. (40% living below poverty line)
My older one did fine. He didn’t want to be challenged, was happy to get his work done in a fraction of the time it took other kids, and would spend the rest of his time doodling. We kept him in this school as he was happy there.
Younger child was bored. Bored to the point of behavior issues. First grade, he ended up in the vice principals office three times in one day so they sent him home. Prior to this, we had begged the teacher numerous times to challenge him. She sent home a packet so he could do “homeschool”. Meetings followed, they placed him in self paced learning at school (he sat in the classroom but they gave him a tablet to do his own thing). We were able to get him in a charter school the following year. FWIW - before people jump on with behavioral problems = poor parenting - he picked up those behaviors at school. He had 4 mainstreamed extremely autistic children in the room, 2 that had no verbal skills and violent outbursts to the point that one was sat in the corner at all times for safety, and once a week or so the children would be ushered into the hallway to deal with a violent outburst.
Differentiation is necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm, maybe there isn’t much differentiation needed when all of the students are more or less at the same level, in addition to having small class sizes.

In many APS elementary schools, students from all sorts of backgrounds are in classes together. There are bright kids, not-so-bright kids, kids living in poverty, kids from affluent homes, and kids that speak little to no English all in the same (overcrowded) classroom together. Of course many of them aren’t at the same reading and/or math levels.

Why is it wrong to want instruction based on the needs of each child?

It would be much better to separate classes into different levels, but nooooo... equity rules! (Even if that means limiting some students’ potential and growth. Gotta give all the teacher’s time and effort to the low performers!)

TRANSLATION: the PPs all want to keep their precious babies away from the poors and brown people.

That is legit the reason why parents push for "gifted" in this area. AAP = bunch of racists

I had someone say this to me, though not as boldly. Leaving ES to go to MS and her son was AAP (and a strong student, by all accounts). She was going on about how nervous she was for MS but, since he was AAP, he could just stay away from the "GEN ED" kids. I think she thought my child was AAP. When I explained that DC was not AAP, she fumbled and stuttered that "well, AAP kids will bring up the academics for all the kids."

Anonymous wrote:I went to an excellent public school system in New England, and we had no differentiation or G&T in elementary school. Honors classes (for a couple of subjects) started in middle school (7th grade), with expanded honors/AP options in high school. I graduated in 2002.

However, the parent population was pretty well educated and kept tabs on their kids. Not many behavioral issues or disruptions to distract the teachers. And class sizes were ~22 kids. Everyone was taught the same lesson though. I felt I received a good education (later went to HYP for undergrad)

I completely agree. I think AAP is ridiculous and over utilized. I have a good friend who is an AAP teacher and she put it this way, which I agree with: an AAP/GT program is not for the truly advanced when half of the grade level is in that program. Then it's just to brag that "my kid is advanced." Most are not, and that's in her experience in a highly rated AAP center school. There are so many ways to press your way into AAP, at this point. I know people who've done it.

My kid did not do AAP. DC was not selected for advanced math in ES (but should have been, but I didn't complain). DC is in 8th. All honors 7th and 8th. Straight A's. And our principal says that the kids taking all honors are taking the same curriculum as AAP kids. So DC is successfully doing AAP work.

I have no gripe with my kid not doing AAP in ES as DC didn't want to do it. I didn't care to push hard. DC was succeeding. And now exceeding most of DC's peers. Hopefully that will continue, but who knows?

I believe ES AAP is not necessary based on our experience and my interactions / knowledge with AAP at our ES. It's a waste of resources. It should be eliminated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I taught AAP last year. Was assigned to it... I had never heard of anything like it. I came from New England. One thing I noticed was the gen ed kids in fourth seemed to be doing things I saw second graders do up north. I believe they were capable of way more but the standards were wonky and lower. The AAP standards seemed to be common core for the grade level and a bit from the next grade level in common core.

The students ranged from being a grade level behind in math up to like 9th grade math. It was really hard and people assumed since it was AAP all the kids were at similar levels but I’ll just say that was NOT true at all!!

Why are kids who are below grade level or even on grade level being placed in full time AAP? I doubt people would complain as much if AAP only contained kids who were a year above grade level, and then the teachers only differentiated for 1 and 2 years above grade level. It would make much more sense to have 2 differentiation levels in a class than expecting the teacher to differentiate all the way from below grade level through way above grade level.

Really, gen ed teachers should be differentiating one year below grade level through on grade level, AAP should differentiate one and two years above grade level, the kids more than one year below grade level should be receiving pull outs with the resource teachers to address their needs, and the few kids more than 2 years above grade level should supplement on their own.

there are kids that are below grade level in AAP because the criteria for getting into AAP doesn't actually work.

Anonymous wrote:It is such a stupid idea to skip grades in elementary school

PP again. Unless they are of the truly gifted kind.

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

It's rare, but it does happen. remember we're talking about the kids who are truly advanced or gifted which is about 1 to 2% of the population.

It is such a stupid idea to skip grades in elementary school

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

My kid is a September birthday and thus very young for her grade. Skipping her a grade would put a 7 yo in with 9 yos. That seems like a bad idea socially--she's smart, not mature. The challenge is that the math being taught this year is remedial at best. So slow. So basic. So boring. No critical thinking required whatsoever. At least 2/3 of the class is bored out of their minds.

They can spend that time working on their numerals. At 7 kids need tons of exercise to get their hand muscles up to speed.

Thanks OP. I am not American and this annoys me so much. At first it was mildly amusing to watch friends complain about their smart kids being bored. Then it became seriously annoying when people kept complaining about how schools were not accommodating their geniuses.
Get over yourselves grade school parents. Your kids are not that much smarter than the rest. And they can survive the 30 mins of math they are given each day even if they are bored to tears.
I grew up in a former U.S.S.R. republic and have far better math knowledge than most Americans. No one ever held our hands because "we were bored." JFC. Exactly no one in my class was extra work to the teacher because his parents had to prove they were the bestest parents ever. Gawd.

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

My kid is a September birthday and thus very young for her grade. Skipping her a grade would put a 7 yo in with 9 yos. That seems like a bad idea socially--she's smart, not mature. The challenge is that the math being taught this year is remedial at best. So slow. So basic. So boring. No critical thinking required whatsoever. At least 2/3 of the class is bored out of their minds.

Anonymous wrote:

I taught AAP last year. Was assigned to it... I had never heard of anything like it. I came from New England. One thing I noticed was the gen ed kids in fourth seemed to be doing things I saw second graders do up north. I believe they were capable of way more but the standards were wonky and lower. The AAP standards seemed to be common core for the grade level and a bit from the next grade level in common core.

The students ranged from being a grade level behind in math up to like 9th grade math. It was really hard and people assumed since it was AAP all the kids were at similar levels but I’ll just say that was NOT true at all!!

Why are kids who are below grade level or even on grade level being placed in full time AAP? I doubt people would complain as much if AAP only contained kids who were a year above grade level, and then the teachers only differentiated for 1 and 2 years above grade level. It would make much more sense to have 2 differentiation levels in a class than expecting the teacher to differentiate all the way from below grade level through way above grade level.

Really, gen ed teachers should be differentiating one year below grade level through on grade level, AAP should differentiate one and two years above grade level, the kids more than one year below grade level should be receiving pull outs with the resource teachers to address their needs, and the few kids more than 2 years above grade level should supplement on their own.

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: why don’t some of the parents of the gifted/advanced kids look into skipping a grade if school is so boring for them? That’s what the truly advanced kids did when I was in school...

Skipping grades was the solution back when schools didn't have GT or AAP type programs. I was skipped and can tell you it impacted me social-emotionally for literally years. Academically you may be with your ahead of your new peers, but you're still young. High achieving doesn't translate 1:1 into advanced socially or emotionally. Not to mention, if kids realize you skipped they may ostracize you simply because kids can be mean.

IMO, much of differentiation isn't just about the base content but about the ability to think critically at a different level than average kids in subjects like language arts or social studies. The ability to read more complex texts and have discussions that are more in-depth or involve more rigorous critical thinking is what can differentiate reading a book at a grade-level versus diving deep at an advanced level. The Jacob's Ladder tool which is often used in APS seems to acknowledge that, but in our experience doesn't drive differentiated instruction.

Asking for differentiation is unrealistic, based on our expectations, because even in our low FARMS school the teachers must focus most of their time and attention on the lower performing kids. It sucks and is why we're exploring whether we can afford private.