Posted on 06/06/2006 11:23:28 AM PDT by freespirited
There they were, parents and students from the New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math school, banging drums and shaking maracas in front of Cipriani Wall Street to disrupt the black-tie benefit where Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein was speaking.
There they were again, hundreds representing NEST, as the school is known, passionately chanting "Save the NEST" in front of City Hall. And there they were, hoisting "Don't Tread on Our School" signs on a wooded patch of East Hampton near the Ross School, a private school founded by Courtney Sale Ross, the wealthy widow of a former Time Warner chairman.
In the two months since parents at NEST learned of the city's plans to place the Ross Global Academy, a new charter school also founded by Ms. Ross, in their building on the Lower East Side, they have filed a lawsuit, hired a publicist and printed buttons and postcards. The city has not budged.
Now the battle over NEST, which has about 730 students, has become a tale about the intersection of class, race, parents, politicians and philanthropists in the New York City public schools. It pits the mostly middle-class parents who have nurtured NEST, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school for gifted and talented children, against Ms. Ross, a multimillionaire with homes in the Hamptons and on the Upper East Side whose supporters say she is creating a school to help the poor.
"They're trying to destroy our school," cried Arianna Gil, 12, a NEST seventh grader, at the Cipriani rally, as she handed out gift bags embossed in silver lettering with the NEST logo and filled with publicity materials. She warned of "complete chaos" if the Ross charter school moves in.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Brilliance is in the eye of the beholder.
IQ is not.
Calculus is standard 12th grade math for kids who aren't GT.
9th grade, Algebra I, 10th grade, Geometry, 11th grade, Algebra II and Trig, 12th grade, Calculus.
GT kids take Algebra I in 7th or 8th grade, but any student can place into Algebra I when they're ready by taking a placement test.
Some kids are really good at math without having a really high IQ, just superior.
You mean the math?
If you take Algebra I in 7th grade you can take two higher level math classes after Calculus, and go straight to even higher level math in college. Why wait?
I realize that other school districts compromise. That's why I started the discussion by saying we live in Fairfax County, VA, widely recognized as an exemplary school district for all children, as well as GT.
In Fairfax, all children take the standard Otis-Lennon IQ test in 2nd grade, or a similar test. If they score 150 or above, they are placed into GT centers (only GT) in 3rd grade. The kids who don't score as high can take GT classes or enrichment classes, based on ability.
The standards are lowered for 7th grade, 130 and above, and also "talented" (which is pretty squishy and malleable). GT runs from 3rd - 8th grade. In 9th grade, they go into differentiated (accelerated) learning classes, such as International Baccalaureate or AP.
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