{"id":13850,"date":"2011-01-19T08:15:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T13:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=13850"},"modified":"2011-01-19T10:56:51","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T15:56:51","slug":"excerpt-from-challenging-the-gifted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2011\/01\/19\/excerpt-from-challenging-the-gifted\/","title":{"rendered":"Excerpt from &#8220;Challenging the Gifted&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from <a href=\"http:\/\/educationnext.org\/challenging-the-gifted\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>&#8220;Challenging the Gifted&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> &#8212; from EducationNext.org by June Kronholz<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I asked Davidson teachers and staffers what lessons public schools  could take away from the academy. Their answers struck me a lot like the  idea of getting rid of seat-time laws: logical, good for kids, and  political showstoppers.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Allow youngsters to accelerate by subject. Colleen Harsin, the  academy\u2019s longtime director, proposed that a school group its core  classes\u2014hold all math classes during 2nd period, say; all English during  3rd\u2014so students can move up or down according to their ability.<\/li>\n<li>Promote dual enrollment so youngsters can take classes in both  elementary and middle school, middle and high school, high school and  college. That may strain transportation budgets, but students will  graduate sooner, offsetting the costs.<\/li>\n<li>Individualize learning. Davidson students each have a learning plan  that\u2019s refined during weekly meetings with their advisors, semester  meetings with Garcia, and yearly what\u2019s-next meetings with Harsin. That  might strain a school of 2,000, but so do discipline problems caused by  bored or out-of-their depth youngsters.<\/li>\n<li>Group students by ability, not age. \u201cYou can\u2019t teach to the  middle,\u201d Ripley said. \u201cTo say we\u2019re all at an Algebra 2 level just isn\u2019t  accurate.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">That\u2019s Bob Davidson\u2019s mantra: Ability grouping \u201cmay fly in the face  of closing the achievement gap,\u201d but neglecting the country\u2019s brightest  kids flies in the face of logic. \u201cDon\u2019t stop them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Also see:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/educationnext.org\/what-were-watching-davidson-academy-on-nightline\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/educationnext.org\/files\/DavidsonNightline_Vid.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">An <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Video\/playerIndex?id=3244598\">episode of ABC\u2019s Nightline<\/a> from 2007 takes a look at the Davidson Academy, a public school for  profoundly gifted students in Reno, Nev.\u00a0 June Kronholz writes about the  Davidson Academy in \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/educationnext.org\/challenging-the-gifted\/\">Challenging the Gifted<\/a>,\u201d which appears in the Spring 2011 issue of Ed Next.\u00a0 A promotional video produced by the school appears <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vOfnqQtr0PY&amp;feature=related\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from &#8220;Challenging the Gifted&#8221; &#8212; from EducationNext.org by June Kronholz I asked Davidson teachers and staffers what lessons public schools could take away from the academy. Their answers struck me a lot like the idea of getting rid of seat-time laws: logical, good for kids, and political showstoppers. Allow youngsters to accelerate by subject. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[456,4],"class_list":["post-13850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-k-12-related","tag-gifted","tag-k-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13850"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13861,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850\/revisions\/13861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}