Anonymous wrote:So a young Bill Gates should be stuck learning at a pace designed to teach the entire 95% of the population? How exactly does this help him? I'm sure it'd be great for your kid though to be able to spend time with him...

Are you guys saying that the kids who score in the top 5% of the tests do not need a different curriculum?

Being "fine" and being properly educated are two different metrics.

Thankfully, the people in charge have some actually understanding of education to inform their decisions.

That's exactly what is NOT being said. There's been some agreement here that the top % (whether 5% or some other small number) of high scoring kids do need a different curriculum. The other 85-90% of kids? Not so much.

Anonymous wrote:If AAP were for the top 1%, wouldn't they need a new curriculum? It doesn't seem like the current curriculum would really cut it.

Absolutely, they would. And the Gen Ed curriculum would need to be beefed up as well. All of which seems doable, I just wish FCPS would do it.

So is your child Bill Gates, then?

So a young Bill Gates should be stuck learning at a pace designed to teach the entire 95% of the population? How exactly does this help him? I'm sure it'd be great for your kid though to be able to spend time with him...

Are you guys saying that the kids who score in the top 5% of the tests do not need a different curriculum?

Being "fine" and being properly educated are two different metrics.

Thankfully, the people in charge have some actually understanding of education to inform their decisions.

Anonymous wrote:If AAP were for the top 1%, wouldn't they need a new curriculum? It doesn't seem like the current curriculum would really cut it.

I think the current curriculum could work but it would be even more accelerated. The teachers would also likely add more project-based work (done during school time vs. as homework).

Anonymous wrote:

The very fact that a 99% child is an anomaly is the reason many of us are saying AAP needs to comprise a much smaller % of FCPS kids in general. These are the kids AAP was designed for; not the run-of-the-mill average/above-average children who make up most of the AAP population and who are indistinguishable from most Gen Ed kids. Taking these kids out of Gen Ed depletes the GE population; and isn't their peer group just as important?

And that's the issue -- it is!

Also to the PP who referred tracking. It is very difficult for me to see how taking kids out of their base school and putting them on an advanced track at age 8 is any different. I honestly don't know how FCPS can separate these kids each year with a clear conscience. Seems like going through a back door to me.

Putting the top 15 percent in one track does seem different from splitting everyone up into separate classes by 20 percent groupings and having it be known who is on the bottom rung. There isn't a stigma to being in the bottom 85 percent, but there probably would be if it were the bottom 20 percent. If you think Gen Ed kids are sometimes teased for not being in AAP, what would things be like for that bottom 20 percent?

The very fact that a 99% child is an anomaly is the reason many of us are saying AAP needs to comprise a much smaller % of FCPS kids in general. These are the kids AAP was designed for; not the run-of-the-mill average/above-average children who make up most of the AAP population and who are indistinguishable from most Gen Ed kids. Taking these kids out of Gen Ed depletes the GE population; and isn't their peer group just as important?

And that's the issue -- it is!

Also to the PP who referred tracking. It is very difficult for me to see how taking kids out of their base school and putting them on an advanced track at age 8 is any different. I honestly don't know how FCPS can separate these kids each year with a clear conscience. Seems like going through a back door to me.

If AAP were for the top 1%, wouldn't they need a new curriculum? It doesn't seem like the current curriculum would really cut it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:18:46 If you're going to go on about other parents saying wrong things about AAP, you also have to get away from the "gifted child" label too. FCPS has also said over and over that the program is AAP. Advanced Academic Placement. If you want a program truly only for the most gifted students, they will agree you have to look elsewhere.

I thought the "advanced academics" nomenclature was not so much to convey that the kids weren't gifted but to emphasize that the program was academic in nature and not for those whose gifts were in only art, music, or other nonacademic areas.

This is true. One of my children was in the program at the time they were changing the name from GT to AAP. We were told at the time that nothing about the program itself was changing, only the name would be different. The point was to signal that the program was meant for academically gifted children, not those who were gifted in other areas but not academics.

On a side note, at the time they were changing the name, for a brief time it was referred to as "AA," but it was quickly realized that that was not such a good idea.

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Anonymous wrote:Ok, so there's the snowflake person, and the person who has a kid in aap and gen ed. And they make sure to follow, post, and regurgitate on every thread. Or maybe more than once in the same thread.

Hi you two!

Catching up on this thread and have to chime in. I'm wondering why you (PP) assume there are only one or two other people here who disagree with you? You seem pretty insistent that you are right about who is posting here, but the reality is you have no idea who is who, as much as you pretend you do. One could say there are only one or two people here with your viewpoint who keep posting over and over. Pretty arrogant. From my experience, both on DCUM and in "real life," plenty of parents think AAP is overblown and needs to be reduced in size and scope. And they have every right to post on this thread, as well as all others, for that matter. Why don't you express your opinion, move along, and let others do the same.

This was already posted, but I'll repeat it. Discussion and discourse is fine. But assuming because you have a kid in AAP and one in Gen Ed allows you to become an authority and say thst based on your observations other AAP kids in your childs class would be fine in Gen Ed is ridiculous. Repeating if time and again becomes tiresome.

And what if it is the teachers who are saying it? I suppose you'd have a beef with them too. But the truth is plenty of teachers, both AAP and Gen Ed, say the same thing. As do several school board members, members of the Fairfax County Association and even, on occasion, AAP Coordinator Carol Horn. Hearing this repeated by different posters is no more tiresome than a constant refrain of "my kid needs AAP because he/she's bored in Gen Ed."

Amen to that.

AAP child could do fine with Gen Ed curriculum and possibly vice versa. But there is an advantage for an advanced child to be with advanced peers. Children feed off of what their peers are doing, making the peer group just as important as, if not more important than, the curriculum itself. AAP child could aim higher surrounded by like peers. Conversely, Gen Ed child at 80 percentile may be able to shine and get a truer sense of his/her capabilities without constantly being overshadowed by the anomaly 99 percentile child.

The very fact that a 99% child is an anomaly is the reason many of us are saying AAP needs to comprise a much smaller % of FCPS kids in general. These are the kids AAP was designed for; not the run-of-the-mill average/above-average children who make up most of the AAP population and who are indistinguishable from most Gen Ed kids. Taking these kids out of Gen Ed depletes the GE population; and isn't their peer group just as important?

I think that the vast majority of AAP kids have scored in the 98th or 99th percentile of nationally normed tests. All the AAP kids I personally know are in this range. Do you know of any different numbers? There may seem to be a lot of these kids, but our area is skewed with a highly educated and high-achieving population.

To me it is good to have the differentiation to avoid Gen Ed teachers needing to teach to so many different levels. I think that splitting off even the highest-scoring 15 percentile (of FCPS scores, not national) helps everyone.

In the past on this board I had advocated for differentiation according to scores for Gen Ed classes but have been educated by other posters that tracking is now frowned upon because it can look like segregation: Unfortunately a higher percentage in the lower-scoring groups might be from certain minority groups, I was told. So I have accepted that the best compromise found so far is to split off the top scorers (saying something positive about this group and not labeling anyone as the lowest) and then keeping everyone else together. Also posters have said that the lowest-scoring kids don't do as well if they are grouped only with each other.

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Anonymous wrote:Ok, so there's the snowflake person, and the person who has a kid in aap and gen ed. And they make sure to follow, post, and regurgitate on every thread. Or maybe more than once in the same thread.

Hi you two!

Catching up on this thread and have to chime in. I'm wondering why you (PP) assume there are only one or two other people here who disagree with you? You seem pretty insistent that you are right about who is posting here, but the reality is you have no idea who is who, as much as you pretend you do. One could say there are only one or two people here with your viewpoint who keep posting over and over. Pretty arrogant. From my experience, both on DCUM and in "real life," plenty of parents think AAP is overblown and needs to be reduced in size and scope. And they have every right to post on this thread, as well as all others, for that matter. Why don't you express your opinion, move along, and let others do the same.

This was already posted, but I'll repeat it. Discussion and discourse is fine. But assuming because you have a kid in AAP and one in Gen Ed allows you to become an authority and say thst based on your observations other AAP kids in your childs class would be fine in Gen Ed is ridiculous. Repeating if time and again becomes tiresome.

And what if it is the teachers who are saying it? I suppose you'd have a beef with them too. But the truth is plenty of teachers, both AAP and Gen Ed, say the same thing. As do several school board members, members of the Fairfax County Association and even, on occasion, AAP Coordinator Carol Horn. Hearing this repeated by different posters is no more tiresome than a constant refrain of "my kid needs AAP because he/she's bored in Gen Ed."

Amen to that.

AAP child could do fine with Gen Ed curriculum and possibly vice versa. But there is an advantage for an advanced child to be with advanced peers. Children feed off of what their peers are doing, making the peer group just as important as, if not more important than, the curriculum itself. AAP child could aim higher surrounded by like peers. Conversely, Gen Ed child at 80 percentile may be able to shine and get a truer sense of his/her capabilities without constantly being overshadowed by the anomaly 99 percentile child.

The very fact that a 99% child is an anomaly is the reason many of us are saying AAP needs to comprise a much smaller % of FCPS kids in general. These are the kids AAP was designed for; not the run-of-the-mill average/above-average children who make up most of the AAP population and who are indistinguishable from most Gen Ed kids. Taking these kids out of Gen Ed depletes the GE population; and isn't their peer group just as important?

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Ok, so there's the snowflake person, and the person who has a kid in aap and gen ed. And they make sure to follow, post, and regurgitate on every thread. Or maybe more than once in the same thread.

Hi you two!

Catching up on this thread and have to chime in. I'm wondering why you (PP) assume there are only one or two other people here who disagree with you? You seem pretty insistent that you are right about who is posting here, but the reality is you have no idea who is who, as much as you pretend you do. One could say there are only one or two people here with your viewpoint who keep posting over and over. Pretty arrogant. From my experience, both on DCUM and in "real life," plenty of parents think AAP is overblown and needs to be reduced in size and scope. And they have every right to post on this thread, as well as all others, for that matter. Why don't you express your opinion, move along, and let others do the same.

This was already posted, but I'll repeat it. Discussion and discourse is fine. But assuming because you have a kid in AAP and one in Gen Ed allows you to become an authority and say thst based on your observations other AAP kids in your childs class would be fine in Gen Ed is ridiculous. Repeating if time and again becomes tiresome.

And what if it is the teachers who are saying it? I suppose you'd have a beef with them too. But the truth is plenty of teachers, both AAP and Gen Ed, say the same thing. As do several school board members, members of the Fairfax County Association and even, on occasion, AAP Coordinator Carol Horn. Hearing this repeated by different posters is no more tiresome than a constant refrain of "my kid needs AAP because he/she's bored in Gen Ed."

Amen to that.

AAP child could do fine with Gen Ed curriculum and possibly vice versa. But there is an advantage for an advanced child to be with advanced peers. Children feed off of what their peers are doing, making the peer group just as important as, if not more important than, the curriculum itself. AAP child could aim higher surrounded by like peers. Conversely, Gen Ed child at 80 percentile may be able to shine and get a truer sense of his/her capabilities without constantly being overshadowed by the anomaly 99 percentile child.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so there's the snowflake person, and the person who has a kid in aap and gen ed. And they make sure to follow, post, and regurgitate on every thread. Or maybe more than once in the same thread.

Hi you two!

Catching up on this thread and have to chime in. I'm wondering why you (PP) assume there are only one or two other people here who disagree with you? You seem pretty insistent that you are right about who is posting here, but the reality is you have no idea who is who, as much as you pretend you do. One could say there are only one or two people here with your viewpoint who keep posting over and over. Pretty arrogant. From my experience, both on DCUM and in "real life," plenty of parents think AAP is overblown and needs to be reduced in size and scope. And they have every right to post on this thread, as well as all others, for that matter. Why don't you express your opinion, move along, and let others do the same.

This was already posted, but I'll repeat it. Discussion and discourse is fine. But assuming because you have a kid in AAP and one in Gen Ed allows you to become an authority and say thst based on your observations other AAP kids in your childs class would be fine in Gen Ed is ridiculous. Repeating if time and again becomes tiresome.

And what if it is the teachers who are saying it? I suppose you'd have a beef with them too. But the truth is plenty of teachers, both AAP and Gen Ed, say the same thing. As do several school board members, members of the Fairfax County Association and even, on occasion, AAP Coordinator Carol Horn. Hearing this repeated by different posters is no more tiresome than a constant refrain of "my kid needs AAP because he/she's bored in Gen Ed."

Amen to that.

Anonymous wrote:18:46 If you're going to go on about other parents saying wrong things about AAP, you also have to get away from the "gifted child" label too. FCPS has also said over and over that the program is AAP. Advanced Academic Placement. If you want a program truly only for the most gifted students, they will agree you have to look elsewhere.

I thought the "advanced academics" nomenclature was not so much to convey that the kids weren't gifted but to emphasize that the program was academic in nature and not for those whose gifts were in only art, music, or other nonacademic areas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:18:46 If you're going to go on about other parents saying wrong things about AAP, you also have to get away from the "gifted child" label too. FCPS has also said over and over that the program is AAP. Advanced Academic Placement. If you want a program truly only for the most gifted students, they will agree you have to look elsewhere.

+100 AAP is not a program for the gifted. It's just an accelerated version of the general curriculum. And yes, I am an AAP parent and know of what I speak.

The program is what the kids make of it. One child could work hard and fulfill the minimum requirements, whereas another child could take an assignment and run with it, going above and beyond to do something really startling.