Seattle Schools Community Forum

Let us presume that Spectrum is dead. Nevermind if you think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Our views on that topic simply don't matter. What does matter, however, are students working beyond Standards in need of an appropriate academic opportunity. So let's hear the ideas for how to provide an appropriate academic opportunity for students working beyond Standards if ability grouping is off the menu. A number of solutions have been proposed over the years: differentiated instruction, project-based learning, individualized instruction on computers, MTSS, parallel curricula, and grade skipping - just to name a few. Which of these work and can be reliably implemented? Let's hear your answers. The only answers that are not allowed are ability grouping and doing nothing. The District and the majority of the schools - for whatever reason - are opposed to ability grouping so don't suggest that. Please don't pretend that the general education classroom reli...

The New York Times has an excellent series of articles called Room for Debate where they have various experts write an essay for or against a subject.  Their latest is about gifted education .  I didn't read each article thoroughly but two things did stand out. Professor Bruce Sacerdote had this to say: My paper with fellow economists James West and Scott Carrell examines peer effects among students at the Air Force Academy. We found that students benefit from their peers, but that these peer effects disappear if the group is comprised of the highest ability and lowest ability cadets. My work with economists Scott Imberman and Adriana Kugler examines peer effects from the arrival of Hurricane Katrina refugees in receiving schools. We discovered that high ability students benefit the most from high ability peers. And an experiment in primary schools in Kenya, researchers found that grouping students into classrooms based on prior achievement benefits al...