The after-school solution

Long ago when I was writing about education, and the idea of separation of church and state, someone made an interesting point to me. What people got most up in arms about, he said, were the core school hours of 9 to 3. Outside that, people were a lot less doctrinaire. So people might be absolutely against vouchers that would send kids to religious schools at taxpayer expense from 9 to 3. But they were far more willing to subsidize an after-school program run by a church. Districts happily provided busing, snacks, workbooks, etc. Some even paid some chunk of the cost. That was all fine. So were summer programs, before school programs, weekend programs, etc. It was the hours of 9 to 3 that required lines in the sand. (Or 8 to 2, or whenever the local schools held core classes).

I thought of that as I read a story about the Clarkdale-Jerome school in Arizona starting an after-school gifted program. The school didn't have anything for gifted kids. One of the teachers earned an endorsement in gifted education. So they decided to start an after school program to serve kids' needs.

From the perspective of those of us who think gifted kids have educational differences that deserve to be accommodated, this story can invite some smacks on the forehead. Why after school? Why not decide that we're not doing anything for gifted kids now, so let's identify them and see if some acceleration might be in order? Or maybe we decide to do self-contained multi-grade classes for these kids. Or even a twice a week pull-out. But something during the school day, when kids are supposed to be doing the bulk of their learning. Gifted kids should be challenged to the extent of their abilities in an environment with their intellectual peers.

But viewed from the perspective of "core hours" vs. other hours, this makes some sort of sense. Gifted education is a controversial thing. So it needs to be done outside of school hours, just like letting a religious group run an after school program.

I'm not sure how this will play out from a practical perspective. On one hand, many families of young kids have two working parents (or a single working parent) and hence need to do something with the kids after school anyway. A gifted program probably beats a lot of after school options. Unfortunately, it might also pit gifted education against art, music, sports, etc., which plenty of kids would also like to do. It's nice to do something for gifted kids, as opposed to nothing for them. But the decision to use an after-school solution says loads about how gifted education is often viewed.

Do AP exams prepare kids for college? Should colleges "count" them?

The concept of Advanced Placement classes and tests is a good one. Some high school students are ready for college-level work. However, there's little that's standardized across high schools. Advanced level classes with standardized syllabi and exams can give high school students a way to show colleges what they know, and hopefully place out of entry-level classes as well.

However, this ideal isn't always achieved in practice. An article in the Deseret News looks at some colleges shying away from accepting high scores on AP exams as evidence that a student has done the equivalent of college level work. Some let students get elective credit, but not credit for the classes themselves (which might help you graduate early if you major in that particular subject).

There are various ways to look at this. Cynical sorts might note that colleges often get paid by the credit hour, so not giving credit for courses is one way to ensure students don't get too much of a break on tuition.

But there are other factors at play too. For starters, different universities have different expectations, even in entry-level courses. I earned a 5 on the AP Chemistry exam my senior year of high school, so Princeton allowed me to place into organic chemistry. Let's just say it was not my most shining academic moment of college. There are various reasons for that (I took it as a "freshman seminar" which meant instead of 3 1-hour lectures, I got 1 3-hour lecture -- which I just couldn't focus for) but it's also quite possible that Princeton's general chemistry class was more advanced than the AP version. Likewise, my 5 on the BC Calculus exam allowed me to place into a math class that was over my head. I passed it and orgo, but I'm pretty sure I was not as well prepared as I could be.

Second, it's really hard to standardize. The exam helps on this quite a bit. A school can call a class "AP Physics" but if most students score 1s or 2s on the exam, then it's pretty clear it's not covering what it's supposed to cover, and colleges will not view those students as prepared. There is some accountability, though I'm not sure how many schools do anything about it. Nonetheless, it's possible that a student in a generally poor quality class could score a 3 or possibly even a 4 on a fluke (or if he/she crammed before with some independent study). Over time, if colleges see enough of this, it starts to water down the AP concept.

The Deseret News story covers some of this. As more and more students have AP classes on their transcripts, it becomes less of a marker for selective colleges. Though I do think that the advice one person gives in the article -- that getting a low grade can be a black mark, and may not be worth it -- must be taken with a grain of salt. If you're applying to selective colleges, you need to be taking the most rigorous classes your high school offers -- and getting good grades in them. This is not a question of choosing one or the other.

Have your children gotten credit for AP exams?

Clusters vs. Pull-out

The best approaches to gifted education are self-contained classes and acceleration. But given that neither approach seems to win popularity contests with education authorities, what other approaches might work?

In the Humboldt Unified School District (in Arizona) elementary schools had been using a pull-out approach. This usually means that kids identified as gifted are pulled out of their classrooms once or twice a week for a short period of time for accelerated or enriched material. According to a recent article in the Prescott Valley Tribune, Lake Valley Elementary School will be moving to a cluster model. The students identified as gifted in a particular grade will be placed together -- or "clustered" -- in a classroom (with other kids).

Is this a better approach? It's not perfect. You could "cluster" 2-3 grades worth of gifted kids in their own self-contained classroom and do better by these children. Even in a class with a cluster, such kids won't be the norm, and classes are almost always taught to the middle. So the kids will be bored.

But clustering has its benefits. For starters, kids like to learn in an environment with their intellectual peers. Having at least a few other kids in your classroom with similar readiness levels can make more engaging interactions possible.

Second, a cluster allows for more ability grouping as these kids can be easily grouped together for math or reading instruction, or for projects. If kids have to switch classrooms, that's one more barrier to ability grouping happening.

Many teachers find it tough to find time to differentiate for advanced students. Having 6-8 such children in your classroom might make you more likely to find time, vs. viewing it as something that's nice to do, but not a top priority.

In addition, since only one teacher will have the cluster at a grade level, schools can concentrate training on that one teacher. Since funds are always low for such things, it's better not to need to spread it around.

Does your school district use clusters? Does it work, or at least does it work better than other approaches?

Parenting blogs and resources you enjoy?

It's summer and I seem to have more time available to read. Partly that's because I'm taking some vacation time, and partly that's because I don't feel like working as much when I can sit on the porch reading!

I'd like to add some new parenting blogs, websites, and maybe magazines to the mix. What have you found interesting and useful? What do you read daily, or at least weekly? What useful ideas have you gotten from these resources? They don't have to be focused on gifted kids, though they can be.

Please share your favorites in the comments so others can check them out too.

It's all in the details

I have no particular fondness for pull-out gifted programs. They're of limited duration -- an hour a week, or 45 minutes twice a week. They are often the result of a district's desire to do something to meet a state requirement of serving gifted students without actually devoting many resources to it. One teacher can wind up covering a vast number of students, often at vast numbers of schools, which is cheaper than having a teacher teaching a self-contained class.

But at least pull-out programs are visibly there. Something is happening. It's a step above the idea of simply attempting to differentiate in the regular classroom and hoping that happens. Indeed, an interesting question could be this: If your individual education plan for gifted kids is to serve them in the regular classroom, do you actually have a gifted program?

I was pondering this while reading a story about a controversy in the Norwalk City Schools (in Ohio). An article in the Norwalk Reflector noted that -- contrary to rumors! -- the district was not ending its gifted program (known as ABLE). It was changing how it was delivered. According to an official, "This means students will not be pulled from the classroom, but serviced in the classroom with a differentiated curriculum that will provide additional assignments and projects with alternatives based on a student's individual needs. Students will continue to have W.E.P.s (written education plans) and assessments of their progress provided to parents."

In other words, we'll try to individualize work in the classroom. Which is hopefully what teachers are doing for all kids anyway.

Some parents were calling this a subterfuge. If you scroll down to the first comment on the article, you see this assertion: "Despite what the school board may be saying, the reality is that, after the levy was passed, they made a last-minute decision to eliminate a teaching position. One fourth grade teacher was leaving, and rather than replace that teacher, they chose to reassign the gifted intervention specialist to fill that position. That is an undeniable fact. They ARE ending the ABLE program. They may try to cover the situation up by saying that gifted education will be 'delivered differently', but who is going to oversee their curriculums and make sure that the needs of these children are met when the school will not be employing anyone to do so?"

The truth is, differentiating in a classroom is incredibly hard. It's hard even for excellent teachers with tons of experience. Even if you do manage to provide some challenge, you don't hit the other half of what gifted kids need, which is the chance to learn in an environment with their intellectual peers.

Gifted education is never going to be the top priority for many districts. Many of us have wondered if creating state mandates or even national mandates for identifying and serving gifted kids will push districts to offer better programming. But the problem is that when districts don't want to do something, they can come up with a way not to. Officially, this district in Ohio still has a gifted program. It is identifying and serving gifted kids. That it probably won't happen in practice -- that it is set up to fail to give kids what they need -- is just a detail.

Challenge -- it's a good thing

Long time Gifted Exchange readers know I write about time management for lots of places. As I've looked at the data and research, I've been fascinated to see that, for all adults claim to be overworked, most people aren't. The average number of hours worked per year has fallen by about 200 hours since 1950 (for Americans). Some of sociologist John Robinson's studies, looking at "extreme" work weeks, have found that people claiming 75-hour workweeks are often overestimating by 25 hours or so.

So I'm always a bit skeptical of stories about how American school children are overworked, or under too much pressure, too. Most children don't have that much homework, and most aren't in that many activities either. Looking back on much of my own school career, I know I could have worked much harder than I did, and I would have been a lot happier if I'd had to.

So I enjoyed reading Jay Mathews column on how "Kids Can Learn the Rewards of Pressure." After writing about the usual worry of extra-curriculars crowding out academics, Mathews heard from a number of parents pointing out that, guess what? Kids can handle a lot. Indeed, kids who learn the time management skills and discipline required to balance school work with extra-curricular activities sometimes do better in school. There's less time to get in trouble, and they have to be more organized.

As with adults, I think it's important to look at total numbers. A week has 168 hours. If children are in school or on the bus around 35 hours per week, and have 10 hours of homework per week (more than most), and sleep 10 hours per night (which my kids barely do!) that leaves 53 hours for other things. That's enough time to devote a few hours to a handful of activities as well. And since activities can sometimes stretch the brain and challenge kids in ways that school doesn't, it's nice to have this mix.

What activities do your kids devote time to? Does it help or hurt their school work?

Does a "good" school need a gifted program?

New York City has long built gifted education into the structure of its schools. A few entrance-by-exam schools (Hunter, Stuyvesant) have long offered gifted kids the chance at an education that challenges them to the extent of their abilities, in an environment with their intellectual peers. The system is far from perfect, but at least gifted education exists in a way that hasn't been easy to get rid of.

Since I left New York City three years ago, I've been paying somewhat less attention to the schools. But it turns out the new schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, has an interesting track record and thoughts on gifted education. Namely, "As principal of P.S. 6, Fariña famously eliminated the school's gifted and talented program," a recent article in Capital New York noted, "initially alarming parents who wanted their children in high-level classes but who were, according to a parent at the time, eventually reassured by Fariña."

Why did she do that? According to the article, "Fariña has not spoken in detail about her philosophy on gifted and talented, but on Monday alluded to the issue of inequality within schools that caused her to toss out the gifted program at P.S. 6 in the first place. 'How do you tell a child that he is gifted but his brother or sister isn't?' she asked."

Since people tell one child that he/she qualifies for special education services, while another child in the same family does not fairly frequently, if gifted education were viewed as what it is -- an intervention for children who need it -- this would seem fairly straightforward. But many educators do not view gifted education this way, Fariña included, it seems. The meeting discussed in this article was held in Manhattan District 2. This is widely perceived as a "good" district with "good" schools. It's in a relatively wealthy part of the city that includes the Upper East Side and midtown. When "a suit-clad father of a district 2 student complained to Fariña that his daughter didn't test into a gifted and talented program, Fariña was not overly sympathetic. 'If you're in district 2, the feeling is that every school is one that's gifted and talented,' she said."

Note this quick mental jump. Programs for gifted kids are basically just "good" schools -- so if a school is "good" gifted kids don't need anything else.

I'm not surprised to hear this, in the sense that many people hold this belief. Gifted education programs are just sops for well-to-do, reasonably smart kids in lousy systems. Once you've solved the lousy system part, then gifted kids in this "good" district don't need anything because their schools are "good." Isn't that just what parents wanted?

Unfortunately, a number of gifted programs set themselves up for this sort of criticism by employing various questionable strategies: forcing parents to request testing (meaning only the connected or in-the-know parents do so), putting the cut-off low enough that it includes kids whose needs probably could be met decently in the regular classroom, or being about fun stuff (trips to science museums!) that all kids can do.

I tend to think that even "good" schools need gifted programs because it's not just about discipline and challenging grade-level work. It's about challenging kids whose brains are far enough ahead of their peers that even the best teacher will have trouble meeting their needs in class. It's about putting kids with others who will show that they are not the brightest kids in the room.

Since NYC is so big, even 1 in 1000 kids can have 1000 kids like them. It's been a bright spot in the system that the city has tried to recognize this and put these kids together as much as possible. So it's unfortunate that the people in charge have a different conception of what gifted education is about.

"If you're always the smartest person in the room, you need to find another room."

That's a quote from Art of Problem Solving founder Richard Rusczyk, on what he tells gifted kids. The quote is in an excellent article on the online resources available to gifted kids that ran at Mind/Shift today.

One of the biggest problems facing gifted kids is that too many come to think that life should be easy. School work is boring, easily finished, not too taxing. Other kids in their grade-level classes aren't raising critiques of their ideas that would force them to rethink and argue. Then when life and work do get difficult -- as they certainly will at the high reaches of college -- they don't know how to cope. People change majors or even drop out. That's a waste.

So how do you find another room? AoPS aims to be one, as do online courses from EPGY and other places. The article has a list of options. Finding another room is slightly easier now when the other room can be virtual. If you live in a small community, it's just going to be difficult to create another room right around you.

What is the other room for you and your children? Where do you go to find places where there are lots of smarter people?

Reading between the lines: A principal on gifted children

I'm always happy to see gifted education covered in the press, especially when not under the headline "the myth of giftedness" (or some such). But reading how people write about giftedness is sometimes a reminder of all the narratives that are out there, and that may or may not be true.

That was my thought while reading the "Your gifted child" column from Lenore Hirsch in the Napa Valley Register. (Curiously, I was actually in Napa in California when the column ran, though I read it later, not at the time. I certainly would have clipped it if I'd seen it!)

Hirsch writes that gifted children often have difficulty if they're intellectually years older than they are, but sometimes behave like their real age. This can indeed be frustrating for parents and teachers (not to mention the kids themselves). But then that sage observation is followed with this: "I have known children who were so far beyond their age-mates academically that they were bored in school and their parents wanted them to skip a grade. But parents and staff must consider the social ramifications before making such a move."

Here we have someone who is profoundly sympathetic to the issues of gifted education writing in a way that implies that skipping a grade is a risky and drastic move -- as opposed to one of the best (and cheapest!) ways available to challenge gifted kids. The reason it's risky? The "social ramifications." Except that one of the best summaries of the research (the A Nation Deceived report) found that social worries were widely overblown. Most kids who've been accelerated turn out fine.

Hirsch's preferred solution is this: "Sometimes the best route for the gifted child is to stay in class with others his own age, but have the curriculum and teacher expectations tweaked to give him an academic challenge. He can read a harder book or write a longer report, while still exploring the same topic as his classmates."

I'm not sure that assigning a child a 7-page report instead of a 4-pager is all that's required to meet a child's needs. But unfortunately this mindset is quite prevalent. I don't know why acceleration gets such a bad reputation. But given how even people who support gifted education write about it, there's no doubt that it does.

Learning new words

My oldest son -- who turns 7 today -- loves making his own books. Part of writing is knowing the right words to use, and a great way to learn new words is to read other people's writing. You expand your vocabulary as you see words that are unfamiliar, and figure out what they might mean from the context.

My kid loves a challenge, so as he's been thinking about learning new words, he thought maybe he should figure out the hardest, longest words possible, and make a word wall for himself of these new monstrosities. We also figured he could look through books with lots of unfamiliar words -- a dinosaur encyclopedia, for instance -- and choose new words as he came across them. This method produced "determine" and "intimidated," among others.

This seems to me to be a more natural method of learning new words than flash cards or, as I once saw, a novel written around the frequent usage of SAT-type vocab words. Of course, it's probably still more forced than simply having conversations and learning new words as part of that.

The last method has something going for it from a writing perspective. I do the occasional editing job, and often wish people stuck more to words they'd use while talking to someone. Often, a simple word is best. It's good to know a lot of words...and then not use all of them.

Do you and your children have conversations about words and how they're used? Have you ever been surprised to hear them use words (nice words!) you didn't think they'd know?

Baltimore's Ingenuity Project: who should pay?

Back in 2008, I wrote about Baltimore's Ingenuity Project for USA Today. A number of specialized high schools, or famous suburban ones, have research programs that link students with scientist mentors and lab space. These students then produce amazing research projects that win them awards, get them into great colleges, etc. The cool thing about Ingenuity is that it is part of the Baltimore City Schools, and so taps scientific talent that too many urban public schools fail to nurture.

Of course, special programs that target the most academically capable students cost money and are easy to cut. Baltimore's schools have myriad other problems and funding isn't infinite. So according to this recent article from the Baltimore Sun, the Ingenuity program (and the IB program) are facing district cuts.

To be sure, it's not that the district doesn't want these programs. It does. But the idea is that they should be school supported or self-sustaining through fundraising.

It's hard to know what to think of this idea. The district isn't wrong that something like Ingenuity might be attractive to donors. The Sun article starts with the tale of a young man who's got a Gates Millennium scholarship that will pay his way to Harvard and through getting a doctorate. The cost of that would likely cover a big chunk of the Ingenuity cost, and that's just one person! Baltimore may be thinking hey, we are shouldering the cost of creating extremely competitive college applicants that other people are excited about. It would be nice to see some of that cost spread.

But the whole point of public education is shouldering the cost of creating extremely competitive college applicants (or career-ready citizens). Other parts of education don't necessarily have to pay their own way, and it's frustrating that programs targeting bright, ambitious, hard-working students need to think about that.

What do you think?

Teaching and reteaching

One of the big criticisms of American education is that the curriculum covers topics, and then goes back and covers them again the next year. I assume the philosophy is that constant revisiting of topics cements them in people’s minds, and shores up any holes people might have. But it can also be mind-numbingly boring. One study I recently came across found that this revisitation might be almost ridiculously widespread.

Some 95 percent of children entering kindergarten can do basic counting and can recognize basic geometric shapes. This is a good thing -- early childhood programs and parents are doing their jobs. Yet kindergarten teachers reported spending nearly 13 days per month working on basic counting and shapes. They spent very few days per month on the topics that children were less proficient in (addition and subtraction, for instance). The more time teachers spent on the basic topics that kids already knew, the more negative were the outcomes on end-of-year kindergarten assessments.

Boredom isn’t good. Being bored is part of life to be sure (I wrote this in a hotel room during a conference, taking a break because I was bored with the panels). But constant repetition on things you already know doesn’t make you more confident in a subject. It makes you dislike the subject. This is a shame -- and not just for gifted kids. When 95 percent of kids know something, it’s time to move on.

What do you remember from school being revisited too many times?

What to do this summer?

There's a certain story that schools are so academically-focused these days that it's necessary to preserve summer as open, non-academic time. I think there are a few problems with this story -- first, that most schools still aren't that challenging, and second, this is not an either/or prospect. Summer is a long time, and you can do some academic oriented camps and some s'mores type camps too, and still have space for hanging out in the backyard.

We're doing 2 weeks of YMCA-type camp, and 2 weeks of an outdoor program. Then we have some relaxed time at the beach and at home. But I imagine as my kids get older, we'll start looking at academic programs too. Gifted kids really like to learn, and often summer presents an opportunity to learn a new subject, perhaps in an environment with your intellectual peers. If a kid isn't challenged enough at school, then summer programs can be a lifesaver. I have very fond memories of the 3 weeks I spent during 3 summers at Northwestern University's CTD program. I learned a lot about geometry, computer science, and modern world literature, and I was around people who really liked to learn too. It's a fun combination.

There are all kinds of programs if you know where to look. The Davidson Institute has pulled together a list of resources and links for me to share with you. The NAGC, for instance, has an article on How to Choose a Summer Program. The Davidson Institute produced its own article on Tips for Parents: Finding a Summer Program. You can find a list of links to summer programs sorted by topic, and residential vs. day camp by following this link. And finally, the Davidson Institute hosts its own summer THINK Summer Institute for highly gifted kids ages 13-16. They can earn college credits in programs during this time. Here's the THINK home page, and the deadline for applications is now April 30.

What are you doing with your children this summer? I'd love to hear about people's experiences with various summer programs too.

Ready for kindergarten?

Different districts have extremely different cut-offs for kindergarten. If we still lived in New York City, my 4-year-old would be starting kindergarten next fall, and he wouldn’t even be among the youngest in his class. He’s got a late September birthday, and the NYC cut-off is December 31. But out here in my suburban PA district, the cut-off is September 1.

Of course, kindergarten here isn’t exactly a huge step from nursery school. It’s only a half-day program. Because of that, most of the preschools in the area also offer kindergarten options. The school he’s been attending has a full-day kindergarten program that accepts slightly younger students. So he’ll be doing that this coming year, and then we’ll see what we do.

It’s hard to know how children will develop. But I’m not sure that repeating kindergarten will seem like a particularly great idea in another year. Which means I may have to find a private 1st grade that will accept him, or create a case that he is ready for 1st grade work in the public school. I have some hope -- one of the children in my older son’s first grade class turns out to have a September birthday. But it probably won’t be easy.

What makes this all interesting for me is that many parents have told me how fortunate we are that his birthday is in September -- because he’ll always be one of the oldest kids in the class. I guess for sports that might be good but for gifted kids being the oldest can just make you feel even more bored. It’s also interesting to me that if he’d been born a few weeks earlier (before September 1st which, given how much past his due date he arrived, totally could have happened), and I elected to keep him back, that would have been OK. Parents are given much latitude to hold their children back. They aren’t given as much latitude to accelerate their children.

What age were your children when they started kindergarten? Does your district allow early enrollment? What has convinced your school that it would be OK?

How busy students get it all done

I had a fun mash-up of my different worlds this past week or so when I interviewed several of the top finishers in the Intel Science Talent Search for my Fast Company blog on time management. You can read 7 Time Management Strategies From Some Brilliant Teenage Prodigies by following that link.

I've got a pretty full schedule now, but I certainly remember feeling about the most busy I ever have in my life during my senior year at the Indiana Academy, when I was taking various tough classes and applying to college and still trying to look like the sort of well-rounded kid colleges would like. I don't really remember how I got it all done. Some times I probably didn't.

Eric and Zarin had some great strategies that adults can use too. If we want to get big things done, we need to block in time for those priorities. Even if you don't know exactly what you'll need to do, blocking in 30-60 minutes for a big project every day guarantees that you will spend a lot of time on it. I'm kind of doing that right now as I'm working on a new novel. I don't know all of the plot or characters yet, but by forcing myself to produce 2000 words a week, I wind up spending time and mental energy on it, and as I do that, I figure it out.

They also pointed out that big projects can be broken into manageable chunks. And those chunks can often be done in bits of time. Eric would do his homework in the waiting time he'd have in the lab. Consequently, he didn't have a lot of work waiting for him in the evening or on weekends.

One thing I didn't put in the article, though, is also the importance of space in your normal schedule. Eric got to go to the lab during school hours frequently, which means it wasn't added time. When I was at the Indiana Academy, we had classes M-W-F, mostly, with more open time on Tues and Thurs. So there was time for studying and projects that just wouldn't be available with 5 full days of classes. Schools can arrange to make big projects possible if they want, and a lot of the schools that send people to Intel STS finals every year have just this sort of option available.

Bedtime math is back!

My kids loved the first Bedtime Math book (by Laura Overdeck) when it came out last year. We read through the whole book multiple times, and it was fun to see my then 3-year-old and 6-year-old work through the book together. So we made sure to pre-order the sequel, Bedtime Math 2: This Time It's Personal. It just came out this week.

If you liked the first installment, there are even more reasons to like this one. For starters, there are 4 problems, instead of 3, for each story. The fourth is labeled a "bonus," but basically it's a new level that is just a little trickier than the "big kids" problems. So that extends the readership to kids who might be just a bit beyond the big kids level. It's also a nice development, in general, to have more problems per story, as it makes each individual story more satisfying and gets kids thinking about the topic longer.

I've also found that some of the "wee ones" problems in the second book are more accessible to the very earliest mathematicians. For instance, some problems involve counting things in the pictures. This makes Bedtime Math even more of a family activity, as you can potentially involve a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old. Whether they're going to bed at the same time is, of course, a different matter, but bedtime math doesn't just have to be done at bedtime!

Of course, while Bedtime Math is like a bedtime story, I was informed by my 4-year-old the other night that it couldn't take a story's place. "Bedtime math is just math!" he told me. "I need a story too!" Anything to stay up later, right?

On a side note, I wrote about Bedtime Math from the lean start-up angle over at Fast Company. The title is a little misleading (it's a non-profit, not a business) but there you go.

The Perfect Score (or not)

I've been fascinated to read the media coverage of Debbie Stier's new book, The Perfect Score. As her teenage son prepared to apply to college, Stier decided to uncover the secrets of the SAT, and took it 7 times herself in the course of a year. She went through lots of coaching and SAT prep too in her quest for (as the title notes) the perfect score.

What's most fascinating to me, though, in light of the debate about the role of the SAT in college admissions, and hence society, is that she didn't actually succeed.

The SAT began to be used, many decades ago, as a way to compare students from various backgrounds. In some ways, such a standardized test was supposed to be an equalizer. A kid from a rough background could still score well on a test of intelligence, and hence could open up elite colleges to students not from the Andovers and Exeters of the world.

Of course, the idea of testing intelligence has gone in and out of favor over the years. The SAT has broadly been changed to test more of the material covered in high school. In theory, it can still be a way to compare kids from different backgrounds. Some high schools are much harder than others. Straight A's at one school may mean little in terms of how prepared for college you are, whereas straight A's at another school may mean a great deal. I experienced this myself in my two different high schools. A good college admissions test should be able to show this.

But people can prepare for tests. And so, one widespread criticism of the SAT is that well-to-do kids can spend thousands of dollars on test prep. They can be coached to higher scores, and take the test numerous times, and hence appear more prepared than they are.

Which may be true. But stories like Stier's also show that the SAT may still mean something. After her year of coaching and prep, she did manage to get a perfect score on the writing component. And guess what? Having worked in publishing for years, and as a published author of a book, she probably is quite competent at writing!

On the other hand, she never managed to boost her math SAT score higher than 560 (out of 800). This is after a year of studying the high school math covered on the SAT and taking the test numerous times. Given that, isn't it possible to believe that a high schooler scoring in the 700s on the math section is, in fact, showing serious mathematical promise? Whether she's been coached or not?

If the SAT were perfectly "coachable," you'd see a lot more perfect scores. As it is, only a few hundred students per year score perfect 2400s. It's fashionable to trash the SAT, but it may mean something despite its flaws.

Does America hate its gifted kids?

In the internet era, everyone loves provocative titles. So Newsweek obliged with a recent essay called "America Hates Its Gifted Kids." The piece offers up the usual arguments: the focus on bringing people up to minimal standards means bright kids get little attention. Teachers who try to differentiate face an uphill battle because, well, it's hard.

All this is true. But does America actually hate its gifted kids?

I'd say that hate is a strong word. I think the emotion is more nuanced. Certainly, we have our narratives. We like the story in which no one expects great things from someone -- and then that person goes on to succeed. Someone who shows a lot of potential from the get-go doesn't fit this narrative as well. We also have a very strong egalitarian impulse. While good in some ways, people are obviously more or less talented in many regards. The problem is that we also dislike the concept of people who think they're somehow more special and better than others. We tolerate this in athletic pursuits (usually -- though sometimes not judging by the reaction to Richard Sherman's NFC championship game rant). But the language of someone being gifted implies this specialness. And sometimes we like to see the tall poppies cut down.

But more I'd say it's just neglect and bad incentives. I was at a conference on educational philanthropy a few years when attendees were asked what they thought were the big issues people should focus on. Gifted children was an option, and got about 2% of responses (and I answered that, so I'm a chunk of that 2%). Teachers wind up with a huge range of academic levels in classes, and have to triage what to address. Weighing options, it's easiest to assume that gifted kids can fend for themselves.

The Newsweek essay does suggest that people be grouped by ability, not age, which is something many of us would love to see happen more broadly. The organization of schools has little to do with the reality of what people can handle. But changing the way 50 million school children are organized is not an easy thing to pull off. And so that's why many parents wind up doing what they can on their own.

Do you think America hates its gifted kids?

Snow day math

Like many other communities on the East Coast, we've had a large number of snow days this year. Yesterday (and today!) was another. Our sitter was snowed in and my husband was stuck in Europe, so I spent the day with the kids. We re-read Graeme Base's Uno's Garden, a book with a number of number games. The plants in the forest decrease in squares (100, 81, 64, 49...) and the number of buildings increase by the power of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64...) You can see how quickly numbers can change through different functions as opposed to basic counting sequences.

Uno's Garden starts with 10-squared, and goes down. My 6-year-old and I spent our afternoon working on the concept of "squares." We drew dots to show why these numbers are literally "squares." Then we realized that, hey! They go up from 10 squared. You can square 11, and 12 and so on. We also figured out that multiplying larger numbers is really about multiplying the tens place and the ones place -- that 12 x 12 can be figured out as 12 x 10, and then added to 12 x 2. I told my son I'd draw the correct number of dots in a square if he could figure out the squares and, sure enough, I wound up drawing 121 dots, 144 dots, 169 dots, etc. Once we'd figured them out, he decided to write his own book about Uno in a forest, with 225 plants and 15 buildings, and 196 plants and 14 buildings and he spent hours illustrating this thing.

It was a good way to pass the time (we even managed to talk through the concept of prime numbers) but what was a bit sobering to me was how happy he was about it. He was beaming the whole time and not insisting on playing Mario Kart. Eventually we lost steam as the 4-year-old and 2-year-old demanded attention. But we kept going for a good long time, and he was more excited about this project than I've seen him much lately.

So...what to do. We're not going to homeschool but I purchased Hard Math for Elementary School and I think we'll schedule a regular time to do it together. Extra-curricular homeschool as it were. I'm curious when other families make such enrichment work with their schedules.

More math challenge for early elementary?

The upside of the string of snow/ice days we've had recently is that I've gotten a chance to talk more with my 1st grader about school and what he's learning. He's quite enjoying the graphing unit they're in with math, but talking through some problems with him over lunch, I can see that we really need to be challenging him more.

So I've been looking for math resources to use at home with him. The idea is that he and I would do some math projects together. I'd really like them to be fun because getting him to do homework is occasionally like pulling teeth. I don't need more basic worksheets. But I'm not sure I'll come up with particularly fun or inventive things on my own.

Has anyone found such a book or online resource that's really good for gifted early elementary school aged children? We worked through Bedtime Math and are looking forward to the sequel coming out in March!