But what do you do, functionally, to limit the phenomenon of parents who insist that Janey/Johnny be in the "top group" (whatever that means), but then complain bitterly until teachers/administrators water down content to make it "more accessible" to those students?
A great question, and one that many may have. There may also be many answers. What I'm aware of occurring is...
1) based on believing these students are indeed
cheetahs who've been contained and not previously able to run, they receive a bit of help before being released into the wild to run. This may be in the form of educational supports, an extra class for organizational skills, note-taking, study strategies. The support class, being held on the side, allows the rigorous academic class to continue on pace. Parents may also be required to sign an agreement which details duties of their role in supporting their student and attending progress meetings (things which other parents may have learned by observing what their own parents did a generation ago). Some students will benefit from this and really exert themselves, expending energy to learn every morsel, and dig deep within themselves to meet the challenge. Others will attend with a sense of entitlement to an easy grade.
2) based on believing it is mutually beneficial to cater to parents wanting extra credentials for their child, often especially those who are able to make donations to the school/district in support of various causes, an additional number of children may be enrolled in educational support classes. Some of these students may have a history of being hothoused. Again some students may rise to the challenge of earning their credential, while others may attend with a sense of entitlement to an easy grade.
How these scenarios may play out... ? In some cases, the students in an educational support program may have access to the redo opportunity, raising their grades. Meanwhile other students in the rigorous course (for example, possibly the gifted and hard-working middle students) may not have access to the redo opportunity. In the end, with support, the top GPAs may belong to the students having support to complete their rigorous course. This may not correspond to their scores on the AP exams. In the eyes of some, this helps to spread the credentials around to a broader bunch of students... some have their AP scores, others may have higher GPAs. Therefore some districts have no desire to limit this. It all depends upon what the district is trying to accomplish.
On a recent thread I have shared my personal view that a
redo opportunity ought to be offered to all, or to none.
The Cuckoo effect, as I like to think of it, is actually quite a problem here. It's the basis of that entire industry; the majority of parents pushing their kids through expensive and time-consuming prep prior to late high school are not parenting HG children, and in many cases not even MG ones.
But they want those seats (labels) for their kids either way.
Agreed! When supply=demand, there will be no prestige to the seat/label. That's when the gifted kids can soar.
