Thank you all for your inputs. I realized, when re-reading, that my post perhaps seems like I was hoping that there was contradictory evidence. This is absolutely not the case, I am finding the book wonderful, particularly as we are in Australia. My concern was to make sure I did not find myself caught out, when talking to schools or professionals, by counter evidence I was not aware of.


Originally Posted by Alannc44
The argument that it being "ratio" based instead of "deviation" based as a reason it shouldn't be used kind of bothers me when I read about the advantages of grade acceleration.

I don't think that there is any need for the SBLM to be used in order to ascertain the usefulness of acceleration. As AEH points out, there are far better ways of determining appropriate placement. There is only the same problem that the children in this book faced: most schools are very resistant and are not making evidence based decisions.

I personally know children who's schools have tested them up with nationally normed end of year tests up to 4yrs in advance of their grade, which they topped out. In one case the school called the parents in to tell them this, and then when the parents asked "Great! So what are we going to do?" the school said "Well nothing, we just thought you would like to know the outcome of testing..." The parents were of course already well aware that the child was learning nothing in school. And the school had just demonstrated that they knew this too, but did not consider this a cause to DO anything for the child. The problem is not lack of ways of assessing whether a child is advanced enough to be accelerated.