I don't understand the point of two classes that cover the same conceptual type of material, so maybe I'm missing something here? Is the English class possibly more about writing and the reading class more about understanding through reading literature? I honestly think the reading class might be ok - because your dd will be reading and analyzing specific works of literature.. which I'm guessing isn't duplicated (the specific works) in the "English class". It's obviously not the best ideal solution, because she's most likely ahead of the game with the literature she's capable of understanding and analyzing, but I don't think that it's necessarily a total waste of time either.
She has scored advanced on her PSSA every year (that is the state test that our school thinks is the standard every child should be compared to ).
When you approach the school to advocate to get her out of the class, I suspect it would be helpful to use some other type of standard measure rather than the state testing. I don't know anything about your state testing, but our state testing doesn't really separate out HG+ kids from average IQ kids who are performing well in school, and at most schools that are doing "ok" in our district, at least 25% of the students are scoring "advanced" - so it's not a distinction that sets one child apart and if you argued that one child should be able to skip the class based on that, then you'd also be suggesting that quite a few students should be getting out of the class (if you were *here*). I don't know what the same stats look like in your state, but if you haven't looked at them yet, I'd recommend looking at them for at least your school before using it as the main reason to let her opt out of the course.
What I think would possibly work well to advocate (based on what you've said about the course) is a list of literature your dd has read independently and possibly some of her work samples from last year's class. If you've got other types of achievement testing that are normed in a way you can compare your dd to a national group (things like Terra Nova, ERB etc) or a talent search test where she's clearly scored in the upper 90th percentiles, then I'd use that too.
Just my thoughts - they might be totally meaningless in your situation.
Good luck advocating!
polarbear
ps - another thought - one thing you might consider is suggesting she opt out of the regular reading class and replace it with an independent study class - either a talent search online literature class or guided independent study - just something that is similar in content but at a higher intellectual and challenge level. So that way - it's not like you're requesting she doesn't study "reading" - but you are offering her the opportunity of studying "reading" at her level.
