Fast Learners Benefit From Skipping Grades, Report Concludes

Jay Matthews:

Few educators these days want to go back to the early 19th century, when often the only opportunities for learning were one-room schoolhouses or, if you were rich, private tutors. But a report from the University of Iowa says at least those students had no age and grade rules to hold them back.
What was lost in the 20th century was “an appreciation for individual differences,” scholars Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline and Miraca U.M. Gross conclude in the report, “A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students.” Now, the report says, “America’s school system keeps bright students in line by forcing them to learn in a lock-step manner with their classmates.”

Download the report here.

One thought on “Fast Learners Benefit From Skipping Grades, Report Concludes”

  1. FYI — Madison United for Academic Excellence gave a copy of this report to each member of our school board — as well as to each of our three superintendents — last fall. (I know that some of the District’s principals have also received copies from parents.) We also gave them copies of the Davidsons’ book “Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds” and the Wisconsin DPI’s 2005 “Gifted and Talented Resource Guide” (available at http://www.watg.org). Our Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools and several of our middle school principals have also received Cheri Pierson Yecke’s “The War Against Excellence: the Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America’s Middle Schools.”

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