Originally Posted by Val
the success of the district was due to the parents more than to supposedly exceptional schools.

My experience very much agrees with this. When open enrolling to a neighboring district for middle school, 3 of the six middle schools were "full" and not accepting out of district students. Of course, those were the three schools with the highest test scores. So my daughter ended up at one of the "failing" schools, yet she absolutely thrived while there.

From our observations, and comparing notes with friends who have kids in other schools, the curriculum, class opportunities, quality of teachers, and passion of the teachers were pretty much all the same. The biggest difference between the populations of the schools was parental involvement. At the failing schools, some parents don't even care if their kid goes to school.

--S.F.

For gifted children, doing nothing is the wrong choice.