Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Johns Hopkins - How can so many kids be invisible?

"I also see this as a belief that the role of gifted students or those who've demonstrated prior knowledge of the upcoming year's curriculum is to function as cash cows being milked for their government funding allocation so that these funds may be spent on others while ignoring their own educational needs. I find this demeaning and dehumanizing to the gifted population and those who've demonstrated prior knowledge of the upcoming year's curriculum."

^this.

A gifted student that NEEDS no instruction on a subject, is one that shouldn't be "paying" to occupy a seat. If the funds are reduced to special needs kids, because the amount of kids the were there, are no longer... it means that a group was disproportionately using funds, and a population that SHOULD also have resources at it's disposal is not receiving them.

I do not believe any kid should not get what they need. But I think it's disingenuous to argue for gifted kids' butts in seats (asking them to pay double, sometimes triple+) simply to get the money.

I think she was saying what would be said not necessarily what she believed.

I have had it claimed that gifted children should be 'shared' among the teachers as tbey make it easier for the teacher by providing someone for the teacher to 'spark' off so I find it easy to imagine an objection for them spending fewer years at school.

The used bright not gifted - after all there is no such thing as gifted.

Parents are advised to always advocate based on student need.
- Advocacy roundup here.
- Roundup of acceleration-specific threads here.

The policy think-tanks are the ones who can wrangle about issues such as costs.

That being said, this article mentions that acceleration may save costs. IMO, not a point for advocacy, but interesting nonetheless. I suppose one could track down the individual quoted and inquire of the source of the cost information.

Yes.

I whole heartedly believe that school districts should do what's best for the kids regardless of cost, unfortunately they only have so much money to work with. I would never want to put saving money at the top of my list of why advanced learners should be accelerated, but if I were to use that as one of many reasons, I would have to know that it is true. I don't know the answer, but one thing I've learned working with school districts is that there is a lot I don't know.

I genuinely want to know the answer.

Parents are advised to always advocate based on student need.

Additionally, you may be confused about "who" would be saving money; It may not be the public school district (as your posts seem to be concerned with)... It may be the American Taxpayer who is saving money by not footing the average bill of $10K+ per pupil per school year.

Your State Department of Education would have information available (often found online) regarding cost-per-pupil expenditures per public school district. Your local public school district budget would also have this information available.

Just think of it from an aggregate standpoint. If it costs the state an average of $10,000 to educate a child per year, it would cost the state a total of $130,000 per child for his entire K-12 education. If a child graduates in 11 years, that same child would only cost the taxpayers $110,000. That's a $20,000 saving for the state per child.

And actually what you pointed out may be one incentive why schools want to hold back these kids, because they get to keep the extra $10,000 per year by keeping them in the system for all 13 years, which to me is just unconscionable.

I'm thinking about this... wouldn't the "more expensive to educate" students be there either way and wouldn't there perhaps be the same total number any given year, just at different age distributions? (Maybe even more, if fewer parents felt they had to go to private schools or homeschool for the right educational pace.) I may be missing something as it is late.

I don't know that the solutions all involve oodles of kids graduating early. I suspect that there may be many who could easily be ahead in some subjects but not others. There has to be a model that work around all of this, though, if as a system, education let go of this fixation on age-based averages.

Exactly. Ideas on this discussion thread have included:
- single subject acceleration (SSA),
- cluster grouping by readiness and ability without regard to chronological age,
- one or more grade skips.
Any of these may be facilitated by research showing 15-45% of students may be performing at least one grade level above.

In any of these occurrences, the money may be considered to be more efficiently used than it is today: This may include spending the money on curriculum and pacing appropriate to the child... or not allocating/spending the tax dollars if a child has moved through the system more quickly.

There are a number of kids who already graduate early... some through alternative schools... some after much advocacy. Wouldn't it be lovely if their paths to high school graduation were treated as "normal", mainstream, accepted... and were not so fraught with being marked as an outlier or outsider? With test results showing 15-45% of kids performing one or more grade levels ahead, this type of flexibility and affirmation seems within reach.

Yes, unfortunately there may be several reasons (including financial) why teachers/schools/districts may not want to accelerate a child... as discussed in this old post.

In our school they told us the teachers are not allowed to teach above grade level. So even if they can cluster group the kids they can only do extensions on the current material.

Someone actually codified that rule into the district's rules. Why?

It seems even where things would be fairly cheap (give kids that are ready some advanced worksheets on the side, etc) there are rules to prevent it. Very frustrating.

Kids are far smarter than we give them credit for. Even those considered average. Thats all I have to say.