Yup-- it's how colleges and universities have tended to approach the same problem for centuries, of course.
Each unto his own abilities and all that-- but don't make everything revolve around "achievable" for the median.
it seems almost indecent to worry about the travails of a small minority of very smart children. Understandably, federal and state education policy has long focused on more obvious problems that education can help address—problems such as the yawning gaps between the test scores of rich and poor students and between different racial groups. Tax dollars disproportionately go to help kids with learning disabilities and other disadvantages, because society generally agrees that they are most in need of help.
I have to say, this simply DOES NOT make sense to me.
Our society
needs people who are capable of performing at "elite" levels intellectually as adults. It just does. Where the heck are they going to come from if we've elected to hobble them with mediocrity during their academically formative years, then?
From a societal perspective, it makes FAR more sense to me to be a little mercenary about where those tax $$ are going, and for which purposes. While it may not be a popular (or at least...
PC ) statement, if I have just $10 to spend, and I'm presented with two students, one of whom is working four grades BELOW cohort and cannot seem to learn to read.... and the other of whom is working four grades ABOVE cohort and is ready for advanced mathematics/etc... my impulse is to give that funding where it is an
investment for society, not just a momentary way of making myself feel awesome and charitable.
It's not that I'm against providing services at the level at which children are prepared to work-- because that is ultimately
exactly what I'd like. It just seems to me that if "gifted" is a status thing with parents, maybe someone ought to point out to them that, conversely, should the parents of kids with profound intellectual disabilities then experience....
shame?? Because that
is the logical extension there.
Make it all special ed outside of the central 2.5 sigma range, and maybe the status goes away. I don't know about the rest of you, but I really don't MIND if my daughter is in the "special education" population-- if her needs are being served academically, I'd ditch the GT label in a heartbeat.
IEP's make
so much sense to me. Do it for both sides of the distribution.
