ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO
ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO HOMESCHOOL USAT has a column up on how poorly the public schools serve extremely bright children. Middle schools can identify these kids but typically have no classes or programs advanced enough to satisfy them.
With all of the talk of failing schools these days, few consider that schools can shortchange their highest scorers, too. When I recently asked several former talent-search participants who scored more than 1,000 on the SAT what their schools did with their scores, most seemed puzzled by the question. A typical response: ”What could they do? I was already in honors math.” These bright students expected to be horribly bored, even in courses aimed at the top quarter of the class.
Their schools, flaunting honors English and maybe seventh-grade pre-algebra, were also blasé about providing more. Stephen Shueh did well enough on the SAT as a seventh-grader to be able to cover algebra and geometry during a talent-search program he took the next summer. He came back to eighth grade — and went right back into algebra class.