In defense of my son's teacher this year (who's not the greatest, most passionate teacher in the world) - she has 26 1st graders. Some who can barely recognize a handfull of sight words or add 2 single digit numbers (despite the fact we're at a high achieving school). She is trying somewhat with the high end kids. But I don't think she has nearly the resources, support, or understanding (no GT training is required at our school, unlike some other schools in our district) to make it really work. And no child left behind just accencuates this. I'm not making excuses for her. But I think the whole "system" is broke and doesn't make it easy to reach kids at the end of the spectrum.
We are probably going to stick it out for this year (socially, my son loves school and I'm about to start "hot housing" his math a bit (which he is excited about) with Singapore - thanks for the permission Trinity! ;-) ), but we're probably going to have to make some kind of change next year.
