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    thx1138 Offline OP
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    My local public middle school is one of I think 100 pilot schools for this personalized learning curriculum. https://www.summitlearning.org/ Its still a bit new but Facebook lent the Summit program some programmers. My kid is not in the pilot (there was a lottery) so that is about all I know so far.

    This brings up for me the following opinion. Gifted is (slowly but surely) "losing". At least in California. Or the USA. That's my impression from reading the tea leaves in articles. That, if we're so gifted, why are gifted programs decreasing (would love to find some statistics on this). (Maybe if we were smart we wouldn't have used a polarizing term like gifted.)

    So its hard to advocate, or get results, for programs that (are perceived to) benefit only 1% of the population. So the idea is, personalized learning benefits 100% of the population. It may well be taking off. And the question is, how well do such programs benefit the gifted. Nominally, they would at least let our kids work ahead, find more material, and be less bored. Nominally, these programs teach to all 100 percentiles at once, as opposed to traditional day-one page-one schools that teach squarely to the 40th percentile.

    That said, they don't treat the unique social and emotional needs of the gifted. They don't help gifted kids find gifted peers. They may emphasize covering more material, instead of covering material in greater depth. It could help in gifted identification. The latter issues could be addressed within personalized learning. SEN is harder, but at least these programs could help identify some of the gifted.

    So what say ye? In terms of realpolitik, should we throw our weight behind personalized learning, as a movement for 100% of the students, and abandon the limited results we've had in promoting straight gifted programs that are perceived as polarizing or unfair, or having only 1% native constituency, in what is perceived as a zero-sum game of public education?

    Last edited by thx1138; 10/01/16 08:53 AM.
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    All the districts around here go on about "personalized learning" and it comes off as kind of a joke, considering they do nothing, or any efforts in terms of policies don't actually translate to much in the actual classroom. Our principal didn't even know what the policies were that the school board had approved for differentiation, acceleration, etc. Basically, it doesn't work in a traditional classroom. There is no way a teacher can plan a curriculum for 25 or even 35 (in our case) kids. So at the same time they are talking about "personalized learning" they are using cookie cutter curriculums that will raise their math and reading state scores.

    edited to add, I see this is an online program you are talking about. Not sure how that works, or the point of going to school, if they are going to be in front of the computer for hours each day.

    Last edited by blackcat; 10/01/16 02:50 PM.
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    We have the "modern learning environment" (it has a new similar name now but I have forgotten it). It works well if for gifted kids IF they have good EF, are self starting and motivated, work well with visual input (though it is you tube or khan academy not a learning platform), can handle noise and are not easily distracted. This seems to be a minority of HG kids but I suspect MG and bright kids do well but bright kids usually do and MG often do with some modufications. Ds9's teacher's stock answer to any question is "i don't know, google it" but since ds9 is fairly sure he must know at least some of the time he now mistrusts me when i genuinely don't know. I think 9 and 10 is too young and if it weren't for the fact most parents can afford tutoring this would be obvious but that is only my feeling. I changes ds7 to another school first term and ds9 is changing next week for the last term.

    I think the clear pathway in the article may help kids keep on track providing they have good support.

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    Val Offline
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    I'm skeptical. My kids go to a school that's pretty serious about individualizing education for each student, and they have to limit enrollment in order to be able to do this. Even so, it's not easy.

    I suspect that "personalized learning curriculum" means something like "watch videos and work online at your own pace." There are problems with an approach like this: first, it requires a lot of motivation from the student, which kids aren't exactly known for. Second, it requires that kids have an ability to be autodidacts, because you can't ask the video a question when you don't understand something. So you have to find the answer yourself. IMO, this is asking way too much. Note: Experience makes me dubious about claims that you can ask the teacher --- teacher is already answering someone else's question and another kid is waiting. Like I said, it's not easy, and yet my kids' school is very small.

    Third, students learn what the video decides they should learn, and not much else (barring high motivation). Fourth, you can't have a conversation with a video regarding your thoughts on whatever it was talking about. Class discussions led by a knowledgeable teacher are essential to learning. That can't happen if everyone is working on his own video and the teacher is running around answering a dozen different questions.

    It might work as a system for imparting discrete skills, such as performing mathematical algorithms or identifying linking verbs. But as a tool for providing a meaningful education that includes problem-solving skills? I doubt it.

    Not to mention that personalized learning systems risk becoming excuses for cutting teaching jobs. I may be critical of the overall poor quality of the US teacher corps, but the solution is to improve the teaching corps, not to buy software licenses.

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    thx1138 Offline OP
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    Perhaps "personalized learning" is the latest buzzword. And as with many curriculums, the devil is in the details. I or we should really give Summit a fair shake, they don't just plunk the kids in front of a list of Khan academy videos.

    True, the questions we raised are valid. But its just possible it can be better than many alternatives. Like schools with no gifted programs, that teach day-one page-one to the 40th percentile. In principle at least a gifted student can work their way through the material. Though, what happens when they get too many years ahead and finish out the 12th grade material in 9th grade.

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    It is my understanding (and I may be wrong, that is to say, it may not be the same everywhere) that public school districts are issuing laptops or i-pads to support personalized learning, and the curriculum is largely online making books nearly obsolete.

    While there is good and bad in everything, I am wary of "Personalized Learning" and understand it is a new means of data collection, which may include:
    - turning on camera or microphone to observe the student
    - collecting keystrokes
    - recording how many minutes the student spends on each screen page
    - biometric data:
    -- watching the eyes as they scan the screen page
    -- capturing student finger print

    Learning from a pre-selected subset of lessons contained in one's device (typically a laptop or i-pad) seems to me to be a type of censorship... getting students to willingly forsake books and the vast stores of knowledge found in their pages (including differing perspectives over time)... as "old fashioned".

    Kids may be more drawn into the "virtual" world, and be interacting less with the "real" world.

    Additionally, because each student may be graded according to different criteria on assignments of varying complexity (differentiated task demands), concepts such as grades and class rank become rather meaningless.

    Not a fan.

    Originally Posted by thx1138
    gifted... having only 1% native constituency
    Without using the word "gifted", I believe the study here is illustrating that 15%-45% of students are not well served under current grade-level standard curriculum and pacing.

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    Our district is doing something they are calling Mass Customized Learning. When discussing it with other parents, and even teachers, we often laugh at the title itself. A lot of eye-rolling, etc. And I feel it is primarily a move to a more electronic system, an amount of screen time that cannot be healthy, and could also just be a bunch of buzz-words and hot air.

    However, like everything else in life, I don't believe it's either all good or all bad. I am skeptical, and am curious to see how the pendulum swings, and what trend comes next. The good that I have seen come out of this, at least for our family, is not just a willingness but a push (from the district) for acceleration. There are so many threads here and elsewhere in which the parents are fighting and pushing for acceleration, but we never even had to ask. DD7 is currently going to 3rd grade for math. 4th grade is in a different building 15+ minutes away, and they have already voiced intention to bus her there next year in order to continue the acceleration. So, at least in our case, they are not just having the gifted kids work ahead on their iPads individually (though that does happen to an extent) but are also being flexible in grouping children by ability and not just by age.

    State law still mandates that she have a GIEP and the differentiation that goes along with it (which is never enough!) and she has a separate document for her acceleration plan. So I suppose my overall stance on the individualized learning movement is that it's probably good for gifted kids, as they're less likely to be stuck working so far below their ability. If it leads to states no longer requiring IEP/GIEPs for the gifted, then I would probably reconsider. If you live in a state that already doesn't require differentiation, then that's a whole other problem, I guess.

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    "Mass Customized Learning." LOL. In my more cynical moments it seems hopeless to me, and I think that the vast majority of people working in education have no critical thinking ability whatsoever. I think the kids in the middle will do well even with poor curriculums and disorganized schools but it's those at the top or the bottom that really suffer due to all the chaos and reforms and trends which are based on basically nothing. "Equity" is all the rage around here, but no one seems to know what it actually means. Our district now wants to bus kids right past a middle school to a different one that is about 30 min. away, citing "race issues" even though the vast majority of students at all of the schools are white and middle or upper middle class.

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    Originally Posted by Lanie
    Our district is doing something they are calling Mass Customized Learning.
    In 2010, a book was published on this subject: Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning. Although this was just 6 years ago, the widespread use of technology for education was a radical new concept at the time. Common Core wasn't widely known, and hadn't yet been widely adopted. This was prior to the proliferation of using technology for data capture and collection, when it seemed to be widely believed that technology would be exclusively used for presenting information to students, not for collecting information on students.

    Originally Posted by Lanie
    grouping children by ability and not just by age
    This is a good thing. smile

    Originally Posted by Lanie
    differentiation that goes along with it (which is never enough!)
    Once "differentiation" meant differentiated instruction, curriculum and pacing... now it can mean anything that is different (and not necessarily better suited to meeting a child's educational needs in their zone of proximal development (ZPD))... therefore beware the meaningless buzzword. I mention this rather frequently because there are always new parents joining who may not have heard the buzzword warning. smile

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    Val Offline
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    Well! If you want to talk about buzzwords, Summit learning certainly piles them on:

    Originally Posted by Summit Learning
    Empowering students to be self-directed learners
    Students work through playlists of content at their own pace and take assessments on demand. They also work with teachers to set short-term and long-term goals and connect these back to their daily actions.

    Quote
    Engaging students in deeper learning projects
    Students build and demonstrate cognitive skills and apply the content they're learning by working through authentic, meaningful projects. The Summit Personalized Learning Platform gives teachers access to over 200 projects, along with tools to customize projects or create new ones.

    Self-directed empowered deep learners building authentic meaningful cognitive skills on demand! Who could say no to that?

    (And yes, they collect data: it's not just a feature, it's a benefit.)

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    Originally Posted by Val
    Self-directed empowered deep learners building authentic meaningful cognitive skills on demand! Who could say no to that?
    Indeed! smile

    Unless of course the description is designed to get us to see one thing when we think we may actually be seeing another: dis-empowered, shallow skim-the-surface learners memorizing on demand and engaging in group-think rather than learning to appreciate resources which are outside of current mainstream thought.

    Originally Posted by Val
    (And yes, they collect data: it's not just a feature, it's a benefit.)
    Possibly a good question to ask may be: A benefit to whom? Like peeling an onion, there may be layers of answers to this.

    The sale of collected data is big business. Some may benefit financially.

    Researchers may delve into collected data to examine trends, as well as specific performance by demographic, benefiting their institutions with grant funding and possible scoops on breaking news of patterns found in the data.

    While there may be the potential to benefit some children depending upon the influence of research in bringing about certain changes in strategy, policy, or practice... there is also the potential to limit future opportunities for many children, by applying an ideology which seeks to "ration" opportunities (such as the opportunity for human interaction), creating equal outcomes for all.

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    When DS9 was in fourth grade, they offered participation in a pilot program to the high achieving kids in the class. His teacher was very surprised when I refused, after all I had been the one pushing for SSA and more differentiation for him - so why refuse?
    I tried to explain that
    a) I did not want him to spend more time in front of a screen than he already did, which was hard enough to limit as it was, that
    b) I wanted him to interact with people in school, being taught or discussing, that c) there wasn't much value in his being offered the regular 5th grade math curriculum in fourth grade since while it would have been better than nothing to be able to go to a fifth grade classroom, truly customised math instruction for him would have been way beyond the fifth grade curriculum, that
    d) if I desperately wanted fifth grade instruction for him, I could have opted for another grade skip, that
    e) I did not see why one ought to sign up for an online fifth grade instructor based in another state if there were loads of perfectly fine fifth grade math teachers in the middle school right next door, and one excellent one who happens to be his own father, and
    f) I did not want my kid to be a guinea pig for a movement to take control over curricula and modes of instruction away from a (generally excellent) state system and from teachers and put it in the hand of corporations.

    I do not think she got it.

    They are trying to put one over on us - as if the only solution to kid needing differentiated instruction, or readiness grouping, or "working at their own pace" is having one huge corporation deliver instruction via screens.
    For instance - not a huge Montessori fan here, but it does work, has worked for a hundred years, with actual people, manipulatives and books. Go figure.

    Last edited by Tigerle; 10/05/16 12:28 AM.
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    Originally Posted by Tigerle
    I did not want my kid to be a guinea pig for a movement to take control over curricula and modes of instruction away from a (generally excellent) state system and from teachers and put it in the hand of corporations.

    I do not think she got it.

    They are trying to put one over on us - as if the only solution to kid needing differentiated instruction, or readiness grouping, or "working at their own pace" is having one huge corporation deliver instruction via screens.
    Well said! smile

    Without getting political, but merely trying to name the economic system which may be emerging or re-emerging through recent handshake agreements between government and the education industry: Corporatocracy? Fascism?

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    thx1138 Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by Tigerle
    I did not want my kid to be a guinea pig for a movement to take control over curricula and modes of instruction away from a (generally excellent) state system and from teachers and put it in the hand of corporations.

    In my district, and in yours, participation was optional. I agree there are dangers, but I may try to opt in next year, reasoning "are matches dangerous, when the house is already on fire." Maybe you live in New York state, I don't think most people would describe California as "a (generally excellent) state system". Though it depends on your district.

    Perhaps our benefactors the Davidsons would have an informed opinion on this notion (is personalized learning helpful to gifted... is gifted "losing" and is personalized learning then a pragmatic fallback strategy for our movement), having developed learning software last century, and then becoming philanthropists for gifted.

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    I got a rapid and informative reply from a state official viz.

    Thank you for contacting the California Department of Education (CDE) with your question about the GATE funding. With the current Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) which took effect in 2014, GATE in California is under local control and all California Education Code related to GATE has been repealed http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/gt/lw/. It is now up to local governing school boards to set all policies related to gifted education including whether to offer a GATE program and how to allocate funding to support it. The CDE plays no role in monitoring or compliance for gifted education. Nor do we keep records about which school districts offer GATE programs.


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    Are GATE programs really meaningful in a serious way? We have no experience of them in our house, not having sent our kids to public schools until the eldest reached high school and joined a wonderful dual enrollment program.

    That said, most of what I've read here and heard locally about these programs is that they're pullouts that run for a couple to a few hours per week, with content that's mainly extra stuff, rather than a focused program that's moving in a cohesive way, such as, "We're going to read books like Robinson Crusoe and The Arabian Nights. We'll discuss them in class and you'll learn how to write a short paper."

    So if my information is correct, how well do these programs actually serve very intelligent children, compared to a program that moves more quickly or delves deeper? Or one for older kids that allows access to college classes?

    I'm not saying that it's a good thing that California is dumping gifted programs. I'm just questioning the way the current ones are structured.

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    I think gate means different things in different places. My DS is in a gate program and everyone has cognitive ability over 98th percentile and it's full time. The district buses kids from all over the district to the elementary that houses the program.

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    thx1138 Offline OP
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    I followed up and California government continued to be helpful, noting that we... can access numbers of GATE students in DataQuest for 1998-99 through 2008-09, the last year that CDE collected such statistics. Here is the link http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ and the subject for the search would be “enrollment”.

    This would really only be to draw a graph proving or disproving my hypothesis or interpretation that gifted is "losing" in California.

    Yes, even when GATE programs were funded, were they based on native potential or on achievement. Some districts still have them, there are still a couple magnet schools (e.g. Merman) but it will be harder to collect statistics going forward, since there is no centralized source.

    Personally, I'd like to at least have a GATE program. Only then can we start second-guessing it.

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    Val Offline
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    Originally Posted by blackcat
    I think gate means different things in different places. My DS is in a gate program and everyone has cognitive ability over 98th percentile and it's full time. The district buses kids from all over the district to the elementary that houses the program.

    Wow! That's great. Really super. Around here, it's one one of those pullout things. Though that's better than where I went to school, where they tested us, welcomed us to the program, and then gave all the money they got for gifted students to another program. Which seems to bring us back to the thread about 1000 school districts in California and using the GATE money for band uniforms.


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    Originally Posted by Val
    Are GATE programs really meaningful in a serious way? We have no experience of them in our house, not having sent our kids to public schools until the eldest reached high school and joined a wonderful dual enrollment program.

    I think it really depends on the teacher in these programs.

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    Originally Posted by indigo
    Without getting political, but merely trying to name the economic system which may be emerging or re-emerging through recent handshake agreements between government and the education industry: Corporatocracy? Fascism?

    It's not really political. It's the same general economic system that's generally been in place since about 1996-2000-ish.

    Short-sighted cooperative looting enabled by massive credit bubbles in the context of cheap energy.

    It's what generally happens when you poof a bunch of credit into existence that has no business existing.

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    I spoke with a gifted expert recently, and they raised the concern that personalized (computer based) learning, how deep does it go. This is a valid question, and it remains to be seen both how long and how deep automated education can go.

    While I would like to see every gifted child given 1:1 tutoring or 8:1 classrooms, I reiterate that my position is one of pragmatism. There are about 50 million school age children in the USA in 2016. (1.) I calculate 1.14 million gifted kids with IQ 130+ in grades 1-12 in the USA. (2.) They are being underserved day in, day out, year in, year out, as we debate. What is the total seat capacity of gifted private schools in the USA? Add then any public school gifted programs, and some home schooled gifted. This is harder to tabulate, but I am confident it is a single digit percent of the 1.14 million 130+ IQ gifted children in the USA.

    I further posit that this single digit percentage, of gifted children served by any US schools, has been falling steadily over the past few decades. We are losing because its hard to sell something that serves only 2% of the children, and parents view scarce public education funds as a zero-sum game. Therefore, in terms of realpolitik, personalized education may be the best hope to reach more of the deeply underserved gifted community. While imperfect, it can be sold far more easily as something that serves 100% of the students.



    1.


    2. Using Python…
    import scipy.stats as st
    50000000*st.norm.cdf(-2)
    1137506.5974089596

    3. Using a z-score of -3 tells us that nominally, there are 67,494 students who could qualify for Davidson Young Scholars. Here http://www.davidsongifted.org/About-Us/Annual-Report it is reported that 3,063 (or 4.5%) have been recruited.

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    Val Offline
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    I sympathize with your idea. The thing is, moving gifted kids to automated learning systems would just trade one serious deficiency for another.

    Automated systems require that students be able to self-teach. If a student doesn't understand something, he can't ask a question of the video. So he has to find his answer himself, which would require significant motivation PLUS the skills required to find the answer. It's easy to say, "No, he can ask the teacher," but the teacher will be busy with other kids, because they all need help. My kids attend a school using online learning for math, and the teacher is usually busy with someone else.

    I have a PhD and am adept at self-teaching (in part because a major goal of a PhD is to teach a student how to figure stuff out systematically). A lesson I've learned is that 1) success in self-teaching takes a long time and multiple focused information sources, and 2) that the skills required to succeed aren't trivial. By focused information source, I mean 2-3 other textbooks on the subject minimum (including a solutions manual and a teacher's edition with explanatory notes in it). Each source emphasizes different ideas, which is what you need when you don't have a teacher who can explain things. While the web has lots of information, it isn't focused, and you can easily end up going down a rabbit hole and getting lost.

    IMO, it isn't reasonable to expect an elementary through middle school aged kid to be even marginally capable of succeeding at this process. Even high school kids would have a) trouble and b) not enough time.

    As an example, Khan Academy videos can teach an individual skill, but they don't (and can't) provide the kind of subtleties and connections that a knowledgeable teacher provides. So while I agree that a motivated kid with a high IQ will get through Khan stuff quickly, IMO, the learning will be superficial and algorithm based. Also, in many areas, there's no substitute for a discussion in class.

    I suspect that many/most educators are unaware of the challenges I described in the first part of this message, and that the enthusiasm over computer-based learning in coming in part from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

    The US has a tradition of looking for new solutions to problems, which is good. The thing is, though, sometimes the old-fashioned way really is better (especially when we've created the problem and don't want to admit it, which is the case with ignoring the needs of gifted kids). We pour resources into special needs kids. This proves that it can be done. So why can't we gifted kids too? (Answer: lack of will). Computers won't solve that problem.

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    Originally Posted by Val
    As an example, Khan Academy videos can teach an individual skill, but they don't (and can't) provide the kind of subtleties and connections that a knowledgeable teacher provides. So while I agree that a motivated kid with a high IQ will get through Khan stuff quickly, IMO, the learning will be superficial and algorithm based. Also, in many areas, there's no substitute for a discussion in class.

    Exactly. If anything, I would suggest the feat of gifted students being effective auto-didactic learners is actually a bigger challenge than for other students.

    Gifted students will face greater asynchrony between interest level and metacognitive skills than conventional peers, and the types of answers and feedback gifted students will need to learn at a high level will be harder to reach independently because of their complexity.

    If a gifted child has perfectionistic leanings--or if the classroom setting doesn't reward the child seeking out more complex information from learning facilitators (e.g. teachers, senior peers)--I fear an over-emphasis on autodidactic learning risks disenfranchising gifted students early in their academic careers.

    Now, that being said, I think there is a role for inculcating self-teaching skills in students gradually, so that they ultimately become self-sufficient learners in the way that Val describes. However, I would argue that executive function is the underlying cluster of skills being developed. Although conscious effort can train executive function, executive function still remains something that is developed through physical maturation.


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    My kids will obviously have to learn to self teach. I thought 8 was too young though. Kids that age usually don't have the EF and critical reading/analasis/thinking skills to self teach probably. They end up googling the topic and accepting whatever is at the top of the list or doing what the kid next to them does. Or for my kids becoming overwhelmed and panicking (ds7) or doing nothing (ds9). They then get blamed for lack of diligence and not asking for help - but there is one teacher for 30+ kids and they are not allowed to say "show me what to do" and don't know exactly what to ask. I moved both kids but I only had that option because I am Christian. There is one state funded Christian School (small fees but an added budget stress) and one Catholic. Both are oversubscribed so don't take non-church linked members.

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    thx1138 Offline OP
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    I agree that the devil is in the details. I don't see this as a black and white issue. I'm not proposing eliminating group discussions. The question is whether computer tools can, perhaps as an adjunct, make teaching more efficient. If a gifted kid can at least go at their own pace to more advanced material, that's better than having the class as a unit taught to the 40th percentile. Its not a total solution but I'm trying to get something to the 1 million gifted children stuck in that situation. Have you guys got any solutions to offer? We've been trying for decades to get gifted more resources, as special needs kids do. As far as I can tell we're losing ground steadily. Because its a zero sum game. Because gifted myths persist. Because people say "poor little rich kid" about "poor little gifted kid". Because we haven't faced squarely the realpolitik of public education.

    One problem though. if we could make learning more efficient, the teachers unions would oppose it out of job security concerns.

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    Originally Posted by thx1138
    Have you guys got any solutions to offer? We've been trying for decades to get gifted more resources, as special needs kids do.
    Whole-school cluster grouping by readiness and ability does not actually cost more. Kids attend the class at the appropriate level for each subject... mixing with other students of various chronological ages and "grade levels".

    If/when kids exceed the course material taught in their building, they may participate in higher level classes online or through skype, etc (technology cost) or commute to the nearest possible course offering (transportation cost).

    Originally Posted by thx1138
    As far as I can tell we're losing ground steadily. Because its a zero sum game. Because gifted myths persist. Because people say "poor little rich kid" about "poor little gifted kid". Because we haven't faced squarely the realpolitik of public education.
    Because of the focus on closing achievement gaps and closing excellence gaps, both of which mean capping the growth of children at the top.

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