I will say one more thing and don't mean to be confrontational at all. I agree that in many states and school districts that there are many problems with these programs and that pushy parents "get their kids in" in some way or another and I absolutely agree that a challenging and well rounded curriculum should be provided to every student.
But, I think that all that is being discussed here is the academic part of the story. This isn't about standardized tests or labeling kids. One thing that kept coming up when we were making our decision (and it wasn't an easy one, we thought long and hard about whether this program or keeping her in her old school would be the right option) is that if she had a learning disability we would be doing everything in our power to make sure she had every resource available to her to make sure she got the best education possible to help her with that. Why is this any different?
Most people only think about the school work and that they can easily just be given more challenging work by their teacher and be done with it. There is so much more to it than that. I found this article (provided to us by our program, but I just found a link to it online) very helpful.
ParentFurther - FamilyEducation.comWhile looking for the article, I also found this information that also seemed relevant to the discussion.
Link Removed
I also feel we are very fortunate that we live in a district that offers great services to all of it's students and that is highly supported by the community we live in, both financially and with parent involvement. We just lost our state highly capable funding and this was a major concern for parents coming into the program, but they actually said that it had no bearing on the program and this is just another classroom and costs no more than any other classroom. We are also very fortunate that our program is run by an amazing internationally known highly capable teacher who teaches seminars for teachers all over the world.
As far as social opportunities and exposure to all parts of life, this doesn't change because they are in a highly capable classroom. She is in a school full of all kinds of kids, including 2 additional 2nd grade non-HICAP classes which they are totally integrated for recess, lunch and all school activities out of the classroom. Also, it's not like all high-cap kids automatically come from from upper-middle class families and are pretty and popular, or in any way homogeneous (that's ridiculous), there are kids of many races, cultures and socioeconomic statuses in her class and from what I can see her exposure to different personality types has increased dramatically. They also heavily emphasize learning to accept their own strengths and weaknesses and those of others and learning how to appreciate and utilize someone else's strength to balance your weakness. They address this directly in this program because these kids can be less tolerant of others and/or be so critical of themselves that they don't see their own value.
My own experience as a kid labeled gifted was really hard. My mom didn't think that I should have anything extra or different for many of the reasons that you lay out here. She actually told me that I should try to fit in so the kids would like me, after all, should would say, you are pretty, they will like you if you just try hard enough. She even kept me from skipping a grade when it was suggested that I do so. The result was that I was bored and have never in my life felt like anyone really understood me. By the time I was a teenager, I started acting out and skipping school because I could show up on test day and maintain my gpa. I ended up in a lot of trouble that I feel could have been avoided if I had had the resources and support that I needed.
I have also talked to my dad about this. He grew up in foster care and readily admits that without the gifted programs he was offered he very likely would have ended up on the streets or dead, rather than a highly decorated marine.
This is not a poor me story, although I will say it did influenced my decision to put her in the program, just an example of how these kids can fall through the cracks just as easily as kids on the other end of the spectrum.
I certainly feel that this and education on the whole is a huge issue in this country and that it is a tragedy that educating our children and respecting our teachers is terribly undervalued. Even in her highcap classroom, there are 28 kids because there isn't enough money to hire more teachers district wide.
I know I say this all the time in many different ways, but my goal is a parent is to treat my children as the individuals that they are and provide each one of them what is best for each of them, in every part of their lives and to foster their individual passions and help them with their individual struggles.
This is what is right for my daughter and I know that all the great parents here are doing what's best for their kids every day. That's why we can have these meaningful conversations and disagree, yet still have great respect for one another.