...we also wondered whether the “exam school” could be a worthy response to the dilemma of how best to develop the talents of our nation’s high-performing and high-potential youth in a climate consumed with gap closing and leaving no child behind. Could the selective public high school play a larger role in educating our country’s high-achieving pupils?
That's the theory our county uses. A few high school magnets have admission requirements. Most obviously the IB program, which is the district's default option for kids coming out of the gifted programs, despite the fact that it really only serves a narrow segment of gifted kids overall.
One of the things our district does with 8th graders is sit down with them in spring and map out the classes they're required to take to graduate, in order to make sure they'll actually manage to do so. I think a better approach at least for gifted kids (who are mostly unlikely to fail and need a redo) would be to do this in the fall of 8th grade, before magnets and charters are applied to, so that they can see what's out there and what their options are. If you have a child who's a traditional scholar, she may be perfect for something like IB-- but her best friend, who is equally academic but is also a natural linguist and wants the latitude to take Spanish AND Chinese AND French AND German, might be better served in a traditional and less-elite high school with a really good world languages department.
