Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Where is gifted education the best in the country?

Here's my opinion: you're asking a simple question but the problem is complex. With a HG+ child, everything depends. There are no simple answers. There is no part of the country where gifted education is "best" because the problem is too complex.

Did you notice how different every reply here is? Each approach works as much as it can for individual kids, and they're all very different: homeschool, gifted public, online school. Dig around the forum and you'll find umpteen other options (very small private, high-profile prep school, bilingual school, unschooling, etc. etc.).

It wouldn't surprise me if many or most of the people here got to where they are after a lot of difficult decisions. This certainly describes our situation. Plus, we currently have different school options for our different kids. Their needs change with time. What HowlerKarma mentioned about schools only working for a while is very common for HG+ kids. Perfect School may only be perfect for 2 or 3 years. That's just how it is.

So maybe you're just doing a survey to get ideas, which is great. But I'm concerned that the way you're asking the question isn't going to get you any information that will be meaningful/helpful to your situation. But it might look that way, and that could put you (really, your child) in a bad place later.

If the hope is to be in a class of actual peers, then a large metro area is likely needed. There is about 1.5% of the population at any given elementary school age. The HG tail is around 0.1%. So, the general number in an area of 1 million people would be 15 HG students in 2nd grade.

Long Island,

White Plains

Greater (N) Boston area.

Again, though-- we didn't MOVE there.

We're also limited by profession to some areas more than others.

Another poster mentioned the reason why we didn't go to the Research Triangle; there are a lot of little 'gotcha' things about accessing the programs.

YES.

Plus, as strongly hinted at by Val, the thing to remember is that among those 15 kids, you may still lack a "good fit" for YOUR kid by virtue of things that aren't directly related to cognitive ability-- like religious practices, ethnicity, sense of humor, likes/dislikes, etc.

This is a huge reason why we have not moved to the east coast, (which would also offer us better medical options related to our DD's disability)-- culturally, we "fit" here. We live among one of the highest concentrations of agnostics/atheists anywhere in the U.S., and we're politically in synch with the locals, etc. etc.

Yes

Avoid Jersey. Don't get me wrong--I'm a Jersey girl about 6 generations going and there are a lot of things to love about the state. However, my own experience in a gifted program was lame, my sister's was lame, my husband's and sister-in-law's was a step above lame, and our current district's program is literally nonexistent, with the principal asserting that in-class differentiation meets the legal requirements for a gifted program.

I would hesitate to move far from home base for the schools. It seems like a lot of pressure to put on a school and on a child.

Having said that, I think St. Louis is the place to be for gifted education.

Also, a kid who is DYS-level plus a bit may have a hard time in most gifted programs. Programs serving the HG+ kids might be a better fit, but there are fewer of those. There is a good concentration of them in the Twin Cities area, but I still know several families from there who've chosen to homeschool because they can't get a good school fit.

Long ago, I heard someone on some HG+ forum say that one should never move for a school. The idea was that a good school fit for these kids is just too tenuous and too temporary to make disrupting a whole family worthwhile. It's really hard to figure out how well a school will work for your child until he or she is really a student there, and basing a move on such an unknown can be pretty risky.

I wouldn't judge the premise of the question, myself. Some people enjoy relocating to new areas (and see it as an adventure/fun vs. disruptive) and if you can do that and have one kid and are flexible, then some areas are going to be better fits. Size of area, funding, specific programs, and state+local philosophy on gifted all add together.

We toured the local HG program this week. Discovered the typical class size is around 8, met a number of highly motivated, high energy teachers and administrators. In the process of applying for the HG program, with the testing, the local school TD coordinator on her own initiative got DS7 TD certified. So even if the HG program does not work out we get an IDEP and services for the rest of his school career.

Another option often mentioned here is, if it works, any area you'd like to live, supplemented with private tutoring or mentorship, enriched by gifted summercamps in their early teens.

here's a list of gifted schools
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/School_Choices/choices.htm

there's other lists for hg elementary schools, or high schools listed by the amount of National Merit kids that came out of there, there's magnet schools for all ages, and interests from computer science to performing arts. There's strict boarding schools, and boarding schools like summerhill, there's dual enrollment at the community college or early, or standard, or late enrollment in a top university.