My SO and I are torn If we should look at grade skipping or not.
A great place to start may be reading up on the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS). Hoagies has a page on the
IAS, and Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA) has information on both
IAS and "
A Nation Deceived".
1. How did you make the decision on pushing for acceleration vs just trying to create accommodation or accelerate through other means.
The IAS is a helpful tool.
Note while their teachers strongly discourage grade skipping they are more than happy to work on IEPs.
Some teachers/schools/districts may oppose acceleration for a variety of reasons, including:
- loss of tuition (private schools) and/or state funding (public schools) for the year by which the child's time at that school is shortened by whole-grade acceleration.
- teacher may be evaluated on student performance, therefore desire to keep the top students. The
DoE factsheet requires statewide longitudinal datasystems to include "
7.A way to identify teachers and to match teachers to their students".
- teacher/school/district may be evaluated in part on maintaining statistical quotas by demographic (gender, ethnicity).
- desire to have top students raise the average grade-level score on standardized tests.
Note that the above reasoning does not consider what is best for the child, but rather considers that which may be most beneficial to the teacher/school/district.
2. have heard that kids who grade skip in most cases end up repeating grades in senior years of school anyway since they hit a wall academically or socially.
I'm not familiar with this, which would essentially be a 5th year of high school.
3. In retrospect any other trade offs ?
An accelerated child may be driving later than grade mates. This may matter to some, and not matter to others.
More examples in this article from the Davidson Database,
Tips for Parents: Acceleration.
More discussion in this recent thread,
Radical acceleration....
4. Finally if we do go ahead I am assuming the best time to do so is at the beginning of the new school year.
The best time may be when the child's needs may be better met with acceleration. The end of any grade-reporting period can work.
Does your child want acceleration? The IAS places importance on the child's desire to accelerate or not.
