Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Virginia eliminating accelerated math before 11th

I'm going to forward this policy document to a friend who completed her doctoral work with a Nobel prize winner in the skills area, and who leads research on the nexus between education policy and future employment. It would be good to get some heavyweights ahead of this kind of misguided policy that will, ultimately, have regressive consequences. Let me chat with some policy friends in the US.

I'm a Canadian, and we're seeing similar trends toward integration in math, as well, and to a greater degree. Compound that with the fact that students aren't allowed to test out of high school classes - unless they are mature students reaching back to complete high school - and it's a stultifying morass of non-mathiness.

Who did not see this coming...?

- Manning Johnson, an African American defector from the Communist Party, risked everything to warn America in 1958 about changes in education (Chapter 7, "Creating Hate", find "education"), as part of the plan to take down America by exacerbating tensions between the races,

- C.S. Lewis fictionalized changes in education for "parity" in Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959),

- Frattura & Capper promoted one-size-fits-some education (beginning in 2007),

- I shared my dread when Common Core State Standards (2010) appeared to create a ceiling, capping the growth of students at the top.

- This approach removes the supply-and-demand aspect of economics from American taxpayer-funded public school education opportunities.

Parents and students need to remain alert as to whether this actually means the implementation of differentiated task demands.

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UPDATE: As of March 2022, Manning Johnson's website is no longer active, however it has been archived many times over the years.
1) Read his book online, FREE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220205041255/http://manningjohnson.org/book/CCCS_Contents.html
Reprints of his book are also widely available.

2) Listen to his farewell address posted online:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220206095915/http://manningjohnson.org/speech/Manning_Johnson--Farewell_Address-32k.mp3 (36:18)

3) Follow along with transcript of Manning Johnson's "Farewell Address"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210731144351/http://www.manningjohnson.org/speech/transcript.html
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Yes, IMO, these families need to be identified, assured of ongoing support from the community, and encouraged to use their voice to advocate for their children and against the non-acceleration plan. The non-acceleration plan appears to be based on overall statistics... which do not apply to individuals... applying aggregated statistics to individuals is a form of stereotyping and/or racism.

Yes, unfortunately, an ill-advised program or policy can spread unchecked like wildfire. People are wise not to shrug this off, saying, "Luckily, I do not live in Virginia." People in every state need to begin research and outreach to raise awareness and prepare for advocacy.

A more flexible implementation of grouping by ability and readiness in each subject, may be helpful.

Yes. Private schools, homeschooling, co-ops may be options to alleviate government school pressure to stunt the growth of pupils at the top.

There has already been a major push by Harvard to eliminate homeschooling. A pincer strategy.
Concerned citizens need to keep their finger on the pulse of homeschooling legislation, to preserve, protect, and defend the right of the people to choose to homeschool.
Some ways to do that:
1) Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) -
. . https://hslda.org/
2) Legiscan -
. . https://legiscan.com/
. . To see current bills for any given state, append the two-character state abbreviation
. . (For example, California - https://legiscan.com/CA)

To the degree that for some students there may be an effort gap, and to the degree that new way of thinking is that the system is responsible for student achievement and the student has no personal accountability, gaps may continue to widen by virtue of exonerating the pupil from the effort of learning. For example, when considering teaching/learning, if a student does not perform well, the teacher gets the mark or grade of D, the child does not get the mark or grade of D.

Pivot, new thought on the knowledge gap, new thread: Natalie Wexler, author: The Knowledge Gap

I agree with you wrt the possibility of increasing effort gaps. Would there not also be potential equity gaps, wrt opportunity, if this policy only applies to public schools, whilst private schools can continue to offer acceleration pathways?

Which suggests that this isn’t just a misguided but benign policy, but rather first steps in a much bigger strategic plan.

Some may say that the existence of any potential opportunity gaps may depend upon WHAT one wants equal opportunity for:
- equal opportunity to have a student's needs met?
- equal opportunity to have an option of acceleration?

I'm using a simple definition of student's NEEDS as:
1) appropriately challenging curriculum in the student's zone of proximal development (ZPD)
2) intellectual peers

Upthread it has been suggested theoretically that:
- students who need or would benefit from advanced academics enroll in the private school program (or homeschool or co-op), which allows acceleration,
- students who need or would benefit from on-grade-level academics enroll in the public school program, which does not offer acceleration.

If needs are being met, then does one consider this fair, just, equitable?
In the following oversimplified chart,
- school disallowing acceleration is the public school; school allowing acceleration is private, homeschool, or co-op,
- "fit" designates needs being met, "poor fit" indicates needs not being met.
The existence of schools which allow acceleration provides opportunity for more students' needs to be met.
Therefore, fewer opportunity gaps, increased equity.

To further reduce opportunity gaps and increase equity, especially wrt pupils whose families cannot afford private school, "school choice" may fill the gap, although some consider the concept to be controversial and/or political.

Circling back to the idea of WHAT one wants equal opportunity for, I'll use a comparison to handing out school uniforms.
- does one want to choose the uniform which fits (meets student's needs)?
- does one want the largest size uniform possible (although it may be too large, therefore unusable)?
- does one want the same one-size-fits-some uniforms to be handed out to all pupils without regard to whether it fits (or meets students' needs)?

Yes, this is big. Did you also notice aeh's post upthread?