Parenting Question About Elementary Gifted Programs

[REDREAD]

I think it's more important for your kid to stay in a stable environment than to go to a gifted school program.

I'm not sure what the benefit would really be. Maybe he'd be a little bit more ahead in math in high school.
My daughter took both Calculus 1 and 2 in high school and placed out of it.
BUT.. and this is a huge BUT..
Colleges are now making AP credits a lot less valuable than they used to be.

Let me explain.. My son went to a state school in ohio, I assumed his AP credits would at least mark off some elective slots for him.. But unlike when I went to college, there's no electives left, at least at his school and his major.. He had to take 128 hours (I think that was it), and every class had to count for some requirement.
So while the university gave him transfer credit for his AP classes, they didn't really help him that much. I think less than half of them actually helped him graduate. So the lesson here is , when your kid is in high school, the kid needs to think about what universities he wants to go to, what he wants to major in , and what the requirements are, so he can strategically pick his AP classes.

Hang with me, there's a point at the end of all this.. My daughter went to a private college out of state. They only gave her credit for 2 AP classes period. So she chose Calculus 1 and 2 for the 2 credits to transfer.. But it gets worse.. Since she had a lot of credit for Spanish, but didn't chose to use them for her 2 credits, she had to take harder spanish courses to meet her language requirement. Her roommate was a native speaker of Spanish and even her roommate did not know all the vocabulary words in her classes. So that was completely brutal. My daughter was basically punished for getting AP credit in Spanish. In hindsight, she should have not taken the AP test, so that could have just taken a lower level Spanish class.

So here's the point to all this.. This system is set up now so that what you do in high school can only get you so much "ahead" in your college career. If your son goes to accelerated class now, maybe when he's in high school, he'll be able to take Calc 3 or Linear algebra at a community college (some high schools in Ohio have programs like that).. but is it really going to help him that much? IMO, no. So if it was my kid, I would not pull him out of the school that he's in. It's not really going to help him in the future. I think small kids need the stability more. It's ok that your son breezes through his homework, esp since he doesn't act up. That's great that he's learned to cope with going to class where the pace is slow for him.. That's a good life skill.

Anyhow, if someone else on this thread disagrees, I respect their opinion, but I"m not going to argue. I Wish the best for your son.

[RFS62]

Just curious...

What does HE want to do?

[RedTeamGo!]

Just curious...

What does HE want to do?

We wanted to learn as much as possible before talking to him. We talked to him about it on Wednesday evening and he seems intrigued, but we all want to learn more at the open house on Monday before making a final decision. I think we are leaning towards doing it.

[ShyGuy]

I related a little to the OP's son at that age. Something about that post made me think of how I got to where I am today. So I'll expand

In grade school math was always like my best subject as well. I would always get in the 99th percentile on CAT tests in math then or pretty close to it. Otherwise though I was your average student. But our township back then used to have a gifted and talented program. I think I would always score so high in math stuff I got into it. We would go on a bus to the local middle school every Friday where they would have more "enlightened" activities for us kids. I don't know if that's the best way to describe it. I remember learning to write in Calligraphy there, filming a commercial, and having activities like Jeopardy. Was all right I guess. Every Friday morning I would do it.

Up until high school I was still strong in math. Took AP Calculus my senior year in high school and got a 650 on the math part of the SAT's. My verbal score wasn't as high. haha

But once I got to trying to study Math at the University level I had a lot of trouble. Math at that level seemed way too abstract for me. I still gravitate to work in my adult life such as Accounting. However, I don't really love it anymore. Even with baseball becoming more and more analytic/number driven it really doesn't interest me at all to try to follow all the advanced statistics with it.


I think the Op's wife as a legit concern about only having really one close friend. By the time I was going to middle school, even at that age I could see a good amount of my peers were already starting to go down some not good paths in life. An advanced middle school would have been out of the question but I had one friend who sold me on going the Catholic school route. And ironically this kid wasn't even Catholic. He thought the education there was better and discipline of having uniforms as well. I followed suit. I guess it was a wash. I didn't really enjoy it. Actually I hated it. But I suppose the discipline there was a good thing.

But yeah when I went to this Catholic school my friend from my public school days was like really my only close friend at this new school. And him and his parents would wind up moving anyway in the middle of that stay. I mean parents are ultimately going to do what's best for them right? I know at the time I was gutted. I left that Catholic school and went to another to Catholic school to finish my middle school. So yeah to me that is a legit concern GoRedTeam's wife has. As I got older though I saw it was a good lesson to actually learn early on about being too tied to another person like that. It wasn't smart. I could have probably stuck out that school if I wanted. But in retrospect I'm glad I learned that lesson early as I've seen plenty of adults get burned by this in their adult working life. In retrospect Catholic vs public school was wash for me.


I would lean toward public school for GoRedTeam's son. But that is just my own experience. Perhaps if he wants his son to get into a prestigious high school, this school he's considering would look good on the resume.

Anyway good luck.