1. Gifted children come from the rich and poor and from all ethnicities. The way to reduce income inequality is to take the brightest students from across these diverse groups and help them achieve their potential.
2. The alternative is equality of outcome, i.e. cut down the tall poppies. This isn't a solution. Keeping gifted children lockstep with their age-mates does them serious damage that can last a lifetime.
Regular students cannot benefit from compacting the K-5 curriculum into two or three years, whereas the gifted can. The reality is that these kids need to be surrounded by their ability peers if they are going to reach their potential.
For evidence, check out the work of Miraca Gross, who did her work in Australia. She has a book called Exceptionally Gifted Children, where she details the lives of several of these kids and shows how devastating the school system can be to them if extra accommodations are not made.
1. Children come from the rich and poor and from all ethnicities. The way to reduce income inequality is to take students from across these diverse groups and help them achieve their potential.
2. False dichotomy.
I've read the book you're referring to. It doesn't make any of the claims you're making, in particular:
> Regular students cannot benefit from compacting the K-5 curriculum.
If I'm wrong (and I may, it's been a while), feel free to reply with a quote and a page number. I have the book.
In any case, the "compacting" of the K-5 curriculum is just a hack. The real solution is to get rid of such constraints to begin with. That way, students who are "gifted" will naturally just go to the next level.
The reality is this: schools for "gifted" children just tend to be better schools. The same better schools that would lead to better outcomes, for everyone. Mind you, this isn't the same as putting, for example "special-ed" students in separate classrooms.
Case and point:
> The major finding of this study is that third and fourth grade classroom teachers make only minor modifications in the regular curriculum to meet the needs of gifted students. This result holds for all types of schools sampled. It also holds for classrooms in different parts of the country and for different types of communities. Implications of these findings for researchers and gifted education specialists are discussed. [1]
Ok, I better understand the point you're making. You're not arguing against special treatment for the gifted; you're saying that, in practice, we should raise the standards of regular students to what is normally provided to the gifted, since the gifted have better education provided to them. Then we'll see improvements across the board. Sure.
My point about regular students not being able to benefit from a compacted K-5 curriculum in two or three years comes from the fact that gifted student can move through academic material faster than a regular student. A regular student may be able to move faster than is currently being done, but not as fast as a gifted student.
> In any case, the "compacting" of the K-5 curriculum is just a hack. The real solution is to get rid of such constraints to begin with. That way, students who are "gifted" will naturally just go to the next level.
So ability grouping as opposed to age grouping? Yes, I agree it would help a lot, though as I'm sure you know, the gifted prefer to be around themselves rather than older regular children. Gross' book shows a trend that the more satisfied the kids are with their education, the better they do in life, which is why a separate school makes sense to me. The gifted population is small enough and funding is small enough that I think it will make a much greater positive impact on gifted students than a negative impact on regular students.
2. The alternative is equality of outcome, i.e. cut down the tall poppies. This isn't a solution. Keeping gifted children lockstep with their age-mates does them serious damage that can last a lifetime.
Regular students cannot benefit from compacting the K-5 curriculum into two or three years, whereas the gifted can. The reality is that these kids need to be surrounded by their ability peers if they are going to reach their potential.
For evidence, check out the work of Miraca Gross, who did her work in Australia. She has a book called Exceptionally Gifted Children, where she details the lives of several of these kids and shows how devastating the school system can be to them if extra accommodations are not made.