Yes, I agree that it is probably a great school for most. I think I posted to get some perspective and yours and everyone's responses have helped so much.

Ouch! We have a high-performing lottery school in our district. When DS12 was 4, I was thinking of putting his name in for the drawing, and I called them to ask about the school. The woman I spoke to admitted to me that "We don't take special ed. students. They are better-served in the other schools in this district."

Thanks MON,

You're correct that I need to be a supporter, then ask for the tweaks. I like this board. It is helping me keep everything in perspective.

It's a game. Student learning is incidental to winning the high-stakes testing rounds, and lack of learning is irrelevant unless it directly affects scores on high-stakes tests.

IMO, most of the US K-12 education system should be pillaged of anything of value in it, with the rest being burned to the ground and buried under a two-foot layer of salt.

It could easily be true that 10% or even 20 or 30% of the kids are over 130 FSIQ. In these small towns with 'great schools' it's not a random sample, but one selected for high income and interest in education. So it could be that because of the skewed population 30% of the kids are over 130 and 2 or 3% are PG. But instead of having more than one level of enrichment they are so caught up in how well they cater to 'the gifted' that they forget kids are on a spectrum.

Exactly, Tallulah. The result is such myopic rigidity that the schools really DO NOT work for the HG+ kids in them. Which can be, as you note, a fairly sizeable percentage of the kids.

Our town's district ID's a full 30% as "gifted." I don't know that it's wrong, since the major employers in town are a fortune 25 hi-tech company, a regional medical complex, and a state flagship uni. So yeah, there ARE a lot of ideally bright and probably MG kids in town. No question.

But what gets aimed at that group doesn't suffice for the kids who are actually EG or PG, and it's all the more maddening to listen to the administrators, teachers, and school board patting themselves on the back for doing such a bang-up job of it all when you ask them questions ABOUT that minority group of students.

It's as though it doesn't compute, your question-- as though you couldn't POSSIBLY have actually asked it, because you don't understand how Super Awesome their program is.

So this reminds me of the old rule of thumb in education (plastered all over RTI/MTSS guides, for those of you up on educational fads/buzzwords): no matter what you do, as long as you do it consistently, it will work for 80-85% of your population...be "meh" for 10-15%...and fail for 5-10%. Regardless of the composition of your student body, 15-20% will need something other than/in addition to your regular programming. And that last 5-10 will need something really different.

That sounds like someone patting themselves on the back. The reality is some educational practices are a failure for the overwhelming majority of students.

On the other hand, they shouldn't dismiss 10-15% of students as inevitably unservable (as if to say, why bother anyway).

Well, it all depends on how you define "it works." If they don't complain and can pass the high-stakes test, it works!

Oh dear, I'm feeling extra cynical today. Or maybe I'm just filling the void created by lack of JonLaw.