Did you know that gifted education is part of my beat, too? In the world of Education Week, gifted students and students with disabilities are all kids with “special needs.”
So I liked seeing this story from Emily Alpert at Voice of San Diego about a California middle school’s attempt to blend gifted students and students in regular education. Some of the concerns sound very familiar:
Parents were the toughest sell, especially parents of gifted children, who feared that teachers would just teach to the middle, dumbing down classes for their kids. Yet Correia has won them over. "It's a tall order to work with kids who can barely write and gifted kids," said Katie Anderson, a parent who sits on a district committee on gifted students. "I'm not crazy about the idea in general. I think it asks too much of teachers. But what they've done at Correia is really good." Educators and scholars have long debated whether to divide kids up into classes based on their abilities. Critics of tracking like Ladd say it sets the bar too low for struggling students. But other experts raise the same worries as Anderson: If all students are in same classes, how will schools meet each at their level?
Read more to find out of this middle school might be on to something.