Crisc's thread on goals inspired me to consider goals for DS9 (4th grade) and this morning I called his teacher to schedule a conference to discuss them. While we were on the phone, I asked her for his MAP scores from last month. They are horrible! His *highest* was only 78th percentile!

The goals I listed are as follows:
- DS realizes value of organization
- DS realizes value of memorization/practice
- DS realizes value of study, forms good habits, retains info
- DS's MAP growth meets expectation (originally this referred to last year's scores, which only increased by a couple of points, instead of whatever the NWEA expected growth was)

This teacher's styles could not be more opposite than DS's, which has made some things difficult, but there is much he can learn from her, especially organizational skills. She does not, however, understand giftedness beyond "he's really smart" and she gets frustrated easily (understandably!) with his overexcitabilities and his selective performance. She also seems unfamiliar with visual-spatial characteristics.

I guess I don't really have a question, but if anyone has advice or stories to share I'd love to read them.

I would share this information about negative growth with your son and see if any of the reasons apply in his case. It sounds like there's some underachievement going on. Are you seeing this in other school assessments too?
http://www.nwea.org/support/article/554

Great info, inky, thank you! DH and I suspect he bombed the test intentionally, but haven't yet discussed it with him or his teacher. DS is just starting to learn about giftedness, and his initial assessment is "giftedness only makes my life harder."

The cherry picking described in your link is a strong possibility too. DS has developed an "easy or impossible" dichotomy when it comes to work - his resistance to anything requiring effort is getting stronger.