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There's definitely some bureaucratic self-serving in the response. But this particular bit seems to raise some questions about the original article RE his coll
by roc 17y ago
There's definitely some bureaucratic self-serving in the response. But this particular bit seems to raise some questions about the original article RE his college and home-school courses: Credit will only be awarded if the student completes the college course.
Given that the district isn't allowed to just come out and give specifics about a student's test scores or grades, that line certainly casts the parent's claims in a new light.
While the district likely doesn't have any capability to properly serve truly extraordinary kids, I'm beginning to think the kid in question probably isn't.
And I'm not sure that the public school system ought to be required to serve such kids. At best, they just need a method to recommend a gifted student to the appropriate private or secondary educators who are capable and possibly work out some revenue agreement where state/federal funds for that student can be applied to the institution that does take that child.
- tokenadult 17y agoAt best, they just need a method to recommend a gifted student to the appropriate private or secondary educators who are capable and possibly work out some revenue agreement where state/federal funds for that student can be applied to the institution that does take that child. Here in Minnesota, most parents have some power to shop for schools, because all public school districts have open enrollment, with school funding (provided just about entirely by statewide taxation) following students to their districts of enrollment. There are also many charter schools here, although no charter school is allowed to have selective enrollment by student intellect. For eleventh and twelfth grade, Minnesota students may dual-enroll in colleges or universities, also with general state funding, in what is called the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program. http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/mPg.cfm?pageID=797 http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/mPg.cfm?pageID=797 My oldest son avails himself of this opportunity at the University of Minnesota http://www.cce.umn.edu/ahs/index.html http://www.cce.umn.edu/ahs/index.html allowing him to take upper-division math classes as a "high school junior" and upper-division computer science courses as a "high school senior," which would be impossible at any Minnesota high school. He was also able to take much more challenging foreign language and English writing courses through this channel. Not many other states are this flexible.
- pchristensen 17y agoHoly smokes, I might have to move to MN when my kids hit school age. I'd heard about how MN was generally more educated and progressive in education than other states, but that's really, really impressive.
- tokenadult 17y agoYes, agreeing with sister reply to yours, UMTYMP is a great program, and Minnesota in general has more power to shop for more parents than most states in the United States, which parents of gifted children are gradually learning to use to find more appropriate education for their children. The homeschooling statute here is quite workable too.
- tsuraan 17y agoAnd if your kids are math-oriented, there's UMTYMP (http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/ http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/), where starting in 7th grade or earlier, students basically cover two years of math per year, starting with algebra, geometry, stats, and then calculus and differential equations. By the time I graduated from high school, I had taken three years of calculus, along with a ton of various other college classes through PSEO. I entered college as sophomore, and due to the crushing homework load that I was used to from UMTYMP, college homework was a breeze :) Minnesota really is great for motivated students with supportive parents. It did take a lot of fighting between my parents and the school district to get them to actually accept my college classes for graduation though; some school administrations are very proud of their programs, and take UMTYMP and PSEO as personal insults to what they offer.