Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Are gifted education programs a waste of money?

I don't think so either. The progress of the kids in that program also would show up on achievement tests, coincidentally (again, I'm not saying that that is necessarily the only way of measuring success).

I believe that you find what your looking for, If the author of this study wanted to find it was a waste of money, he would pull information that supported his idea. My experience leads me to believe that gifted education can be effective if the school supports it with a teacher that wants to teach these children and an adminstrator that values and believes that these children need appropriate education. I have not seen great results with pullout programs. There is just not enough time to address the children's needs in a half hour three times a week and too much repetition in the general ed. classes. The only way to provide effective education is a self contained gifted class targeting the needs of the children in the program.

The graph is pretty interesting.

Looking at the plots for math, I see that the non-GT program kids cluster along the line, but for the kids in GT-program, quite a few have developed a .1 to .2 SD separation from the line and the other kids, which suggests that for them - the GT program has had quite an effect.

Another explanation for the continuity between the two groups and which explains the high-achievers is that some kids are already being pushed to their limit and this sets the curve in both - and these kids will not accelerate their learning because they are already saturated. For kids who are not at the edge of their ability to learn, they will "bump up" after being in a tougher program - hence the outliers.

It should be easy to set up a "gate" to cut out the kids who are saturated to make the one who benefit stand out. You could then do a regression test on some other aspects to then come up with a way to find those who will benefit the most.

That program is typical of the well run school districts in the DFW area for "honors" track students. IMHO a truly accelerated program would see Calculus done in the 10th grade, with Diff-EQ+Multiavariate Calculus/Real Analysis in the 11th and Linear Algebra/Abstract Algebra in the 12th. I'd add in a Logic class in the 10th as a prep class.

For physics, we'd get the normal HS stuff out of the way by the 10th, then jump into statics/kinematics in the 11th and a full electromag in the 12th.

You could teach stats in a good physcial chem class in the 11th then do organic chem in the 12th.

Round it out with lit and history classes that have a heavy literary criticism, public speaking, and essay part.

Add a third year with summers, and the students could have a BS out of the way then be ready to get certs in a given field, finish up upper division specific classes at the U, ie Engineering or Accounting degree, or go into grad school.

I tend to agree with you. A gifted math student has wasted a lot of time if they only find themselves in Calc I or Calc II by high school graduation. I think a good, compacted math curriculum would teach pre-algebra and algebra in 1 year. The next year would cover geometry and trigonometry. Followed by algebra II and pre-calculus in one year. This puts the student in calculus in 10th grade assuming they covered algebra in 7th grade. If they do a B/C curriculum, they're ready for Calc 3, linear algebra, or diff-eq as a Junior. A properly motivated, gifted math student may even want to take more than 1 math course a semester, and why not accommodate them? As I recall, Calc III, differential equations, linear algebra, and probability/statistics are not prerequisites for each other.

I find the science sequence at the high school dd12 is set to enter a bit frustrating for the same reason. You can't take AP bio until you've taken pre-AP bio; you can't take AP chem until you've taken pre-AP chem, etc. Basically, you have to take 2-3 periods of science every year in order to get into the higher level science classes.

Dd is signed up for pre-AP bio and earth systems science her freshman year but worries, in looking @ the books, that they'll be quantity over learning anything new. She had hoped to test out of the earth systems science course, which they used to allow, but they no longer allow that. It leaves very, very little time for other electives to take so many full year science classes in order to reach the higher level courses.

If she is just interested in learning the material and taking the exam for college credit, she can study AP Bio and AP Environmental Science for free any time here:

The Hippocampus

It might free up some room in her schedule for electives.