DS7 took MAPs in Spring 2012, end of first grade. He received a score of 229. There is a once a month g&t program, for 40 minutes and differentiation in class. He receives the extension sheet for third grade math ( he is in 2nd) and 4 the grade word problems. Instruction only happens when he has a question.

so the question is...

do I test him for CTY and pay out of pocket for math at his level, pushing him even further ahead of his grade? The school is not willing to subject accelerate, differentiation is their mantra and they are sticking with it. I have no problem pushing him ahead, I just don't know what future problems I will be creating?

thanks,
Callie

Welcome, Callie, I don't know anything abou the MAP so I can't address that. I would think about going deeper and wider rather than accelerating. For example, he could dabble a bit in geometry or looking at how to find the square root of numbers (mine loved this when we did it), or even working in Roman numberals instead of integers. Like, what is IV + II, without converting it to what is 4 + 2. We did that for a while as well.

Sorry I don't have much more to offer. I"m sure someone else will have words of wisdom for you.

One question you will want to ask before doing anything re: math is whether your DS's scores continue to go up. Are they doing fall MAP testing? If he is progressing in math and the scores stay high, he is probably learning new things, right? And if he is not progressing, you can bring that up with the school. He deserves to be taught new things so that he can progress.

Another thing to think about is whether there are other kids at his MAP levels, and if so, I would ask if he be placed with them. If these kids are pretty much all in higher grades, I suggest you keep pushing for placement with them, despite the school's mantra. Play Columbo and tell them how confused you are about why your kiddo cannot be placed with kids learning at his level.

In the meantime, if your kiddo is complaining and unhappy, I would seek out other outlets. There are more online options besides CTY. There is a pretty good description of them here (though it's a little dated): http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10642.aspx
Some schools have allowed kids to work at their own pace on these online math options during regular math class, but you probably will have to do a lot of advocacy to get that.

You can look at the MAP scores here, appendix B, to see that the 229 falls in the 97th/98th percentile for 3rd graders in spring:
http://www.nwea.org/sites/www.nwea.org/files/resources/NWEA_2011_RIT_Scale_Norms.pdf

my ds6 (first grade) scored 223 in math for fall this year. One thing we did was look at the breakdown of that score. He scored extremely high in number sense and computation (250's) and relatively lower in geometry and measurement (low 200's). What we decided to do was to focus on his shortcomings and bring this numbers higher. (His spring score was "only" a 206).

Our school is also against acceleration of any kind. They really believe they will be able to continue to differentiate for him.