Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How asinine is the US educational system?

I'm finding a lot of useful information here. I've been drawing up comparison charts and trying to track exactly how much college DS11 can manage to get under his belt while the school is still paying for it, and I've come to the conclusion that we may have made a mistake in skipping 6th grade. If he could have done Algebra I this year as a 6th grader instead of a 7th grader, he'd be that much ahead of the game. But it's only one class (actually only 1/2 of a class, as he started at semester with the 2nd half), and I guess it will work out.

I'm looking at the classes at the e-school, at his regular school, and at the two colleges they work with, and trying to figure out a course of action that will get him the most paid-for college credits along the way. I thought he might still have two years' leeway because he'll be a senior at 16 and could still stay in, doing college classes, as long as he didn't let them graduate him, but I'm not sure now -- it looks like he can do one year of college after his senior year if he doesn't graduate, under the concurrent program, but possibly not two.

But the tossup is AP classes vs concurrent college classes, and the hangup is how many at which school are allowed, and in which order.

DS8 is on track to take AP Calc BC in 6th grade. We've been warned about some silly rules that he may not be able to graduate from high school because of this, but we're just not going to worry about it. We'll do what is pedagogically best (not too fast, not too slow, covering a wide range of topics, doing challenging problems). He'll take a bunch of college math courses before finishing high school. If a college would really reject such a student due to supposed lack of high school math credit, then they should not be taken seriously as an academic institution.

I have read several posts here on this site reporting how good grades on AP this or that allowed people to qualify out of course X in during the first year of college or that course Y in their first year was basically a replay of their AP class. Only now has the penny has finally dropped on why a bachelor's takes a full year longer year here than in England and Wales. The academic level of a typical US high school leaver at 18 is apparently a full year behind its peer, an exiting 6th former, in England and Wales.

I have been having unrealistic expectations of what a typical exiting high schooler in the US is supposed to have under their belt. Good to know, thanks!

22B, it isn't that the college would reject him for lack of math, but a HS might not let him graduate (need to check local rules). Do you have a decent four year college near you? Near the MS and HS so it is easy for him to get back and forth? If he is in third grade now, is he in Geometry? I found it more common around here for a third grade kid to be maybe two years accelerated in math, then the kid suddenly raced through the math around age 12. I think it has a lot to do with brain development of abstract thinking skills.

I have read that outside the U.S., students apply to college to study a specific subject. American colleges have distribution requirements requiring you to take classes outside your major, and you may not need to declare a major until the beginning of the sophomore year. These differences may explain why a BA takes 4 years in America. Quoting the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergraduate_education
In many other, particularly continental European systems, an "undergraduate" degree in the American sense does not exist. Because students are expected to have received a sound general education at the secondary level, in a school such as a gymnasium or lycee, students in Europe enroll in a specific course of studies they wish to pursue upon entry into a University. In the US, students only specialize in a "major" during the last years of college. Specializing in a field of study upon entry into a university means most students graduate after four to five years of study. The fields available include those only taught as graduate degrees in the US, such as law or medicine.

I think 22b is saying they will just apply for admission to college without a high school diploma citing extenuating circumstances of a stupid rule nature. You can always attend high school until senior year and then graduate as a homeschooler and apply as a homeschooler or some other creative approach.

Just to note, in our district, I know kids that took only college math courses from 8th grade on, and there was no problem with HS graduation. They just needed to take three years of math while in HS - it was fine if those were graduate level math courses. I also have reservations about kids taking courses such as Algebra II, Geometry and Pre-Calc before age 11 - while they might get an A in those courses as an eight or nine year old, I also think that they would have a better, deeper understanding if they waited until age 11 or so. I truly think an 11 year old gets more out of rigorous proofs than an eight year old. Just my opinion, as I know others would disagree.

And there are potential issues with homeschooling in senior year, especially if the kid is involved in HS activities. In our state, the public schools must let homeschooled kids participate in ECs (sports teams, academic clubs, music programs). However, it is not this way everywhere.

With respect, I think it's not helpful, on this board of all places, to have opinions on what works for "kids", "an eight year old" etc. We of all people should know the damage that can be done by people who don't know our kids pronouncing on what's best for them on the basis of what works for other kids.

FWIW, the way it's currently working for my kid is that the maths he's done for the last year or two hasn't taken him forwards by a year or two in school syllabus terms, and at 10.5 he still has some school maths left to do. (Still, he did Alg 2 a long time ago, and he's more than happy with rigorous proof, thank you very much.) Most of his effort lately has gone into improvement in his ability to solve harder problems, rather than learning more syllabus. That's been right for him. But I have had to decide year by year, and perhaps small differences in him might have led to me deciding differently.

As I said, just my opinion. And my opinion often runs counter to others everywhere I go - from this forum, to forums on medical conditions my kids have, to Township committees I serve on. I suppose this should give me a clue.

And my kids are not advanced in math, or really anything else...just my observations of the smart kids I know (I certainly don't count my own among them - in fact we are trying to use athletics to give middle kid a leg up on college admissions). I have seen some smart kids rushed through various subjects, only to find it has hurt them later on (for US college admissions). The ones that have been successful (of course, I'm only considering kids I have seen) waited for Geometry until around age 11 - then blew through Algebra II, Pre-Calc & Calc BC in a year.

I'm not very smart and yet someone taught me how to do derivatives when I was 10. I could certainly get the right answer but I did not fully understand the applications. Just my opinion that kids will more fully appreciate/understand the concepts when they are a bit older. And I didn't have the chance to see those applications until I took a Physics course - but the school wouldn't let me take Physics when I was 10.

Also, the OP asked how asinine the US system was. College admissions are different in the US than elsewhere - just having really rigorous coursework and perfect standardized test scores doesn't guarantee admission. I know kids with perfect scores that were rejected at a number of colleges.

Maybe I'll stick to the athletic forums, even though my kids have no natural athletic talent. I'll be vilified there too.

The thing is that gifted kids (especially highly gifted ones) are very, very different from other kids (even moderately gifted ones). Kids with very high IQs can learn in ways that seem impossible to people who haven't spent time around them or learned about them. These kids are also very rare, and most teachers either aren't gifted or haven't had classes on gifted students. All this makes it very difficult for us as parents to convince the schools that our kids really did start to read when they were 2 or 3, or that they really can do algebra when they're 7 or 8 or 9, or whatever. Even harder is to convince others that our kids enjoy doing this stuff and get a lot out of it.

Also, when only looking at the surface, it's very easy to see "high achiever" as "gifted." Sometimes kids are both, but they often aren't. This table has a lot of information about the differences. Some high achieving kids may indeed be pushed into classes they aren't ready for, which may be what you've seen. I don't know.


That's up to you, but if you look for vilification wherever you go, you'll probably find it.