Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
Because in districts like mine, where every parent is vying for their kids to be ID-ed as "GT" early on... and some 25-30% of the district IS thus labeled, it tends to water the programs down so significantly for MG+ kids that the entire system just becomes pretty broad 'tracking' for college-bound kids. The vast majority are ideally intelligent (probably NOT gifted, in other words, but close) and advantaged by any definition of the term. Most of those come from the top 25% of incomes locally, and just anecdotally, a lot of them are fairly Tiger-like households.

It also means that anyone asking to have a truly HG+ child's needs met is initially met with scorn and derision, because everyone here has had a run-in with "that" parent. The entitled helicopter parent from hell, whose special snowflake deserves only the very very bestest of everything...

I'm interested in others' thoughts here. I have even suspected that IQ testing is starting to be viewed by some educators/administrators as proof positive that parents have jumped on that bandwagon. It explains a LOT of why parents are increasingly getting pushback re: outside testing and high scores.

you have just described my district. And even though I am only at the beginning of advocating for dd6, and the school knows that dd12's one-yr. skip is successful (socially and academically) I can already sense the eye-rolling etc. (Thankfully I think the assistant principal does somewhat get it and could potentially be an ally). Anyway, off to read the article now. These issues certainly inspire me to get off my butt and finally finish my master's in education and get my state teaching certificate. Although it is pretty depressing to think how little difference one teacher can make (except to the individual student...)