G&T or lack thereof...

A group of West High parents have filed a complaint concerning the perceived lack of sufficient gifted and talented programming as mandated by state statute.

A group of 50 parents in the West High School attendance area has asked state education officials to investigate whether the Madison School District is violating state law by denying high-achieving students access to the "talented and gifted" programming parents say they deserve.


In a Sept. 20 complaint to the state Department of Public Instruction made public Tuesday, the parent group argued that freshmen and sophomores at West have limited opportunities for advanced English, biology and social studies classes

I have heard similar complaints expressed by MG parents.  (Some of which are addressed by recent changes to the high school science curriculum for freshman and sophomores. )

But school districts are in a bind:  NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation requires getting all students over a minimum "proficient" level rather than considering average student performance or growth.  Since passage of NCLB school districts have been focusing on (or in Texas eliminating) those students who can be moved from below the bar to just above it, as  no credit is given to improving the scores of those already proficient.  The unintended side effect is that resources have been shifted to under performing students, in an era of limited resources this inevitably reduces resources available for other groups. 

I will posit that not challenging top students (or ANY student) is just as bad as under serving lower performing students.  Each student needs to be challenged appropriately, and we need to maximize the potential of everyone.

News Link:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/article_0b363c3e-d0b0-11df-8157-001cc4c002e0.html