At this point my only hope for gifted and talented education is better AI tutors. In small schools/school disctricts there is no way that our existing schools can provide tracked education for the gifted students - who do not constitute a single homogeneous body. This is true, even if the school truly wanted to support such students, which is generally not the case. Thie dispersin in student subject mastery is particularily severe in subjects that are sequential, as the students are going to progress at different rates and the dispersion in accomplishment is going to be very large. We already have 4th and 5th graders with 12th grade reading levels, and 12th graders with 3rd and 4th grade reading levels. Math is subject to great dispersion, since it is cumulative. It is not hard to have 14 and 15 year olds doing college calculus while some of their peers have issues with simple arithmetic. Teachers can not accomodate too great a variation in mastery in a class - and smarter students learn and progress faster.
Just a note - while standardized tests have their limitations, they are the best instrument we have at this point - at least for classical academic skills. Frankly, you could probably supplement the standardized tests with any of the strongly g-loaded intelligence/aptitude tests. Artistic talents require a different measure.
Good stuff. I think advanced coursework is the right way to go (open enrollment, perhaps with prerequisites but not based on standardized test scores).
The problem with gifted and talented programs is always deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.
Gifted and talented programs are mostly a joke (or certainly have been in the past). I remember reviewing the curriculum for them and realizing that it was just fancier workbooks and some fatuous language. You have to have highly intellectual teachers to teach highly intellectual students. Generally speaking, American public schools lack the former, and do what they can to pull down the latter.
How about we just have parental choice in education and allow parents to use ALL the tax dollars associated with their student and start their own small schools.
At this point my only hope for gifted and talented education is better AI tutors. In small schools/school disctricts there is no way that our existing schools can provide tracked education for the gifted students - who do not constitute a single homogeneous body. This is true, even if the school truly wanted to support such students, which is generally not the case. Thie dispersin in student subject mastery is particularily severe in subjects that are sequential, as the students are going to progress at different rates and the dispersion in accomplishment is going to be very large. We already have 4th and 5th graders with 12th grade reading levels, and 12th graders with 3rd and 4th grade reading levels. Math is subject to great dispersion, since it is cumulative. It is not hard to have 14 and 15 year olds doing college calculus while some of their peers have issues with simple arithmetic. Teachers can not accomodate too great a variation in mastery in a class - and smarter students learn and progress faster.
Just a note - while standardized tests have their limitations, they are the best instrument we have at this point - at least for classical academic skills. Frankly, you could probably supplement the standardized tests with any of the strongly g-loaded intelligence/aptitude tests. Artistic talents require a different measure.
Good stuff. I think advanced coursework is the right way to go (open enrollment, perhaps with prerequisites but not based on standardized test scores).
The problem with gifted and talented programs is always deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.
Gifted and talented programs are mostly a joke (or certainly have been in the past). I remember reviewing the curriculum for them and realizing that it was just fancier workbooks and some fatuous language. You have to have highly intellectual teachers to teach highly intellectual students. Generally speaking, American public schools lack the former, and do what they can to pull down the latter.
How about we just have parental choice in education and allow parents to use ALL the tax dollars associated with their student and start their own small schools.