Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Subject acceleration done right

Check out Tamara's blog entry on subject acceleration and be sure to read the comments section.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/unwrapping_the_gifted/2009/09/subject_acceleration.html#comments

That sounds great, but I don't know how we could work out the logistics in our school district. We have 3, K-5th grade elementary schools. The one GS10 attends is 8 miles from home, and another 10 miles to the middle school. The other two are a bit closer to the middle school. The high school is another few miles from the middle school, 15 minutes drive time due to driving through the town.
When money runs short for the school district(and when do they ever have enough!?), the first thing they threaten is to cut out bussing for high school students. There would be a huge ruckus if we had bussing between schools for accelerated students, but no bussing to get kids to school in the first place.

They did it once, I guess to show us they meant business. Of course that got all of us back in submission to get them what they wanted, which was really money for every thing but bussing! Those of us who live up to 15 miles away from the high school were between a rock and a hard place; take your kid, or let him ride with another kid! Those in town were swamped with extra cars, crazy kids driving, all the parking spots used up.

This method,or something very similar,has been a godsend for our son. He goes to a central school (public) which are all K-12.He was offered grade skipping but did not want to go down that path, preferring subject acceleration instead.

They also use the method of subject grading of kids according to ability.Subjects timetabled concurrently are english,maths and science extending over Yrs 5-8.He is now 16 and in year 10,doing year 11 physics and is also enrolled at university in a Bachelor of Science majoring in Mathematics and Applied Physics via distance education(he was accelerated 3 years in maths).

I don't know how the school system works in the US and I am new to this forum, but this pathway isn't very common here either and that's probably understatement!

Cheers,
matmum