Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Acceleration - negative effects

Let's ask the state of New Jersey what they say:

In N.J.A.C. 6A: 8, Standards and Assessment for Student Achievement...


That's something perhaps.

IMO, this looks very good - the key word is 'appropriate'. (And the whole phrase is actually bolded in the original - the author(s) must have known of plenty of parents banging their heads against the wall.)

(In our state the statement for gifted education is applicable only in SOME cases, AND it is so weak that really anything (no matter how irrelevant/useless) would satisfy it.)

But who gets to decide what the term 'appropriate' means?

In other words, who has the final say in which adaptions and services are appropriate?

I don't know who makes the final decision, but you could use the Iowa scale as an indication of what would be appropriate.
At our school gifted EPs are talked about the same as IEPs in terms of the law, so we were able to really push on what "the data" was telling us.

Also, I don't remember who was playing devil's advocate about the yearly progress, but you would be surprised how many gifted kids don't actually make AYP because they have given up on academics and according to the test scores they have not increased their scores enough to be classified as having made a year's worth of progress. I would agree thought that a gifted kid's year's worth of progress is not the same as other students. We actually used that very argument in our meeting with the school last fall to get DD placed into algebra 1. They were saying her test scores from the previous year didn't qualify her to take the placement test into the class (it is considered an honors class in our middle school and counts for high school credit), let alone show she had made enough progress in math. Our response was that it was partially due to her lack of interest in the level of math being taught and her understanding that the test scores didn't really show whether or not she had learned everything taught during the year.
We successfully argues that she was ready for algebra based on what we know to be her rate of learning and that if she were not placed in a more challenging math class she would again not make the gains she is capable of in a year because of inappropriate placement rather than inability.
Good luck!

Thanks Kerry.

I tried to introduce the Iowa scale as a proven and objective tool for selecting the most appropriate instructional adjustments but have encountered major bias so far. It is not over yet...

My primary motivation is that I do not want my DD get so bored that she shuts down and then starts to underachieve making any kind of special placement after that impossible.

I'm not a big advocate of the IOWA scale. The IOWA scale tests knowledge; in many cases it has material that your child would only know through experiential learning, not intuitively. It is not capability-based testing. I really don't find it useful for the purpose it was intended. In our case, the IOWA scale was administered, but not by a qualified person, and this person was dead set against accelerating my son. We were able to convince another school to accelerate him one year, and it made a world of difference. He was much happier. There were a few speed bumps in that his handwriting was a atrocious, and he had to deal with a few areas where he missed some of the steps in math/English, but he caught up very, very quickly on those things. Just because a child is gifted doesn't mean he can gloss over certain topics and never have to learn them at all. For example, my son was able to do advanced math but was horrible at basic math concepts...sounds strange, but true. I think he did much better socially as well. He's now 15 and very well-adjusted. Much more mature emotionally and socially than his peers, but one grade skip was better than nothing at all...

I think you are mixing up the ITBS (Iowa test of Basic Skills given for various grade levels) with the Iowa Scale used in Gifted education meetings as a means of gathering all sorts of various data into a form (scale) to determine if someone is a good candidate for a skip or subject acceleration. It has all sorts of data points from achievement testing to questions such as does the child want to skip or is there a sibling in the next grade up. They are different things totally.

Some kids who skip have bad outcomes as do some kids who don't skip. It does not necessarily follow that the bad outcome was caused by the skip.

There is very little good research on accelerated children vs unaccelerated. Most of what gets presented as research is anecdote or hopelessly outdated. Whether skipping helped children in 1990 has little utility today when college courses are available free online and there are so many resources outside of school or to be used within a school setting.

I could tell you about many accelerations that have had negative consequences, but these would also be anecdotal and not that helpful. Whether acceleration could be negative for your child depends on your options and your child. Skipping one year seems pretty easy for most kids, but multi-year skips can lead to mismatches that can be challenging. These are easily negotiated by some kids and massive stumbling blocks for others. The social fit can be harder with more age mismatch. Kids who do well and finish college early sometimes struggle to find a path. For kids with clear plans for grad school in STEM, early can be great and save time on an arduous journey. For kids trying to go to med school or psych grad school, acceptances for 18 yo are quite rare. It can be challenging for kids who are 18 or 19 and out of college to find jobs. It can be even harder for them to figure out what they want to do. I know one very young graduate who ended up working for a few years while trying to get admitted into med school. I'd rather my kids spend that time at home with me paying the bills than working themselves.

I can assure you that we've chosen to pursue higher level learning without changing the actual grade level and have seen no crash and burn or "dysfunctional husk" (like that phrase!). Things that I like about acceleration -- getting closer to the right level, better social maturity of peers, faster access to wider circles (high school changing classes makes taking APs in 9th easier than a 2nd grader getting access to appropriate work), and fewer years of big misfit. Things I don't like -- my kids are in no hurry and higher level work takes more time so they have less free time which they use to grow and learn and explore, skipping one or two or three grades would not be helpful or fix the educational mismatch, uncertainty about whether a 15 yo would be ready to leave home for college, and a massive hassle every year trying to make things work in the age grade. Competitions that depend on grade level may be fun and children are more competitive without skips.

I agree that it's hard to blame poor outcomes on skips or vice versa. There are just too many variables and skipping is just one factor that affects outcome.

Exactly-- the ONLY information is by its very nature going to be a collection of anecdotes.