Here's an
article which appeared in the Buffalo News paper. They are actually talking about serving the best and the brightest!!! WOW!!
Item: The proportion of students who leave high school with 12th-grade proficiency in math stands at 3 percent for African-Americans, 4 percent for Hispanics, 10 percent for Native Americans, 20 percent for whites and 34 percent for Asian-Americans.
Consider what most American schools provide their best students in math. Identified in sixth grade, these students combine seventh-and eighth-grade math in one year, not a difficult task as this content is essentially a repeat of elementary school arithmetic. Then each subsequent school course is taught a year early, making room for the Advanced Placement equivalent of a semester of calculus in 12th grade.
Not only is there no challenge in simply teaching a course a year early, but the entire program is wasted for most of these students. To lighten their freshman college course load, they repeat the calculus as a �gut� course.
Yep, that's what my district does.
Most importantly, this failure to serve our best and brightest is not recognized. As the film points out, 70 percent of parents are satisfied with their schools and, still worse, 79 percent of high school principals believe that their schools are doing a good job.
Item: Some years ago a New York governor proposed the establishment of four state schools for gifted high school students, like the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Almost unanimously, school administrators fought his proposal. A local suburban principal argued that such schools would �just train scientists and engineers to give us more Challenger accidents.�
As the film points out, the one area in which we Americans outscore those from other countries is in self-confidence.
While a few states have followed the lead of North Carolina, most bright students are left to their own devices. The old refrain, �They�re so smart, let them take care of themselves,� remains a sad reflection on how we overestimate the motivation of adolescents.
Every high school student, every math and science teacher, every school administrator and every parent should not only see �Two Million Minutes� but follow it up with action.
