Herman said: > Frankly, the public school system does not believe in > giving anyone of an IQ above 80 an education appropriate > to that.
While this is sadly true in too many cases it is not universally true. There are many in public education who would welcome the opportunity to offer exceptional children a more appropriate education. Nor is the problem limited to educationists. Virtually all legislation is aimed not at helping all children, but at ensuring certain (very) minimum levels of achievment. No Child Left Behind is very clearly designed to force schools to ignore the needs of the gifted and very bright in favor of children who are struggling. All resources must be targeted to achieving minimum achivement for all children. Those children who score well on the required tests are mandated to be ignored unless/until the low end are all minimally proficient. > Frankly, the public school system does not believe in > giving anyone of an IQ above 80 an education appropriate > to that. One can get something done (sometimes) for > highly gifted, but the educationists will not accept > anything under 130 as even being gifted. There is no money in providing an education for anyone who is bright. Put some money into it and there will be plenty of school districts ready to provide education to high end kids. But like I said, all the money is for low end kids. All the laws provide for the education of low end kids. There is no money and there are no laws intended to serve the bright. Put some money into programs targeting the bright and gifted kids and programs will appear almost instantly. > Anyone who > thinks that children should be educated at the same rate > and in the same manner regardless of ability should be > considered as an enemy of decent education. Agreed. Unfortunately this makes most of congress and most serving in state legislatures the enemy of decent education. I wish I knew how to change this. > Why do you > think that the present "honors" or "AP" courses are below > the level of the old college preparatory program? > Ummm, because parents and many others in society have forced the dumbing down of eduction. For at least a generation we have had parents, in increasing numbers each year, more concerned with grades than with education. The public schools have just been serving this market. If parents would demand that schools crack down it would happen. Instead they complain that Jimmy or Jane has too much homework and that the homework is interfering with the kid's extra curricular activities!? Watch the news, the "too much homework story" is running at least once/year. Until parental attitudes change the schools are powerless. Michael **************************************************** Michael Granaas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Assoc. Prof. Phone: 605 677 5295 Dept. of Psychology FAX: 605 677 3195 University of South Dakota 414 E. Clark St. Vermillion, SD 57069 ***************************************************** > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= > . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
