There is no solution that is a panacea. As long as the educational cultural expectations of our society are tied to age-locked cohorts, every solution inside the system will be a compromise of some sort. Like any other solution, grade-skipping done well can be appropriate for some families, but not (even done well) for others.
And sending a 16-year-old to college is sometimes the better option--for example, than having a 16-year-old disengaged from high school due to instructional underplacement, or having a 16-year-old drop out of high school after years of meaningless classwork, or a 16-year-old turning to "self-medicating" by misusing substances.
(Full disclosure: every one of the five members of my extended family who entered college at 16 or younger would do it again. The apparent social tradeoffs were well worth the benefits in having a critical part of oneself recognized and fed.)
The key, though, is grade-skipping well and appropriately. I would agree that placement based on demonstrating mastery of the actual curriculum used in the district has a higher likelihood of success than decisions made in a vacuum. My parents started an approach with us which included placing below instructional level when grade-skipping, where a child would skip into instruction that was about 1-1.5 grades below their actual instructional level, so that a significant amount of mental energy could be devoted to the increase in executive functions that usually accompanies grade acceleration. Obviously, this means that only students already functioning at least two years ahead would be considered for skipping.
Well thought out grade or subject acceleration decisions can be very successful, which is one reason the Iowa Acceleration Scale is so frequently cited here.
Last edited by aeh; 06/07/18 03:47 PM.
