"It's all right to aim for mediocrity"

[essentialsaltes]

Struggling with shrinking revenues and new federal mandates that focus on improving the test scores of the lowest-achieving pupils, Mountain Grove and many other school districts across the country have turned to cutting programs for their most promising students.

Time to read Harrison Bergeron again.

Comments

[dustchick.livejournal.com]

Sounds like what happened under Proposition 13. I remember my elementary school lost its gifted program when I was in 2nd grade, and I doubt it has ever been re-implemented.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

There was also a strange discontinuity right around that time. In 1980, Mentally Gifted Minors turned into GATE, which (among other things) broadened the idea of 'gifted'. Certainly Prop 13 had a lot of undesirable, if not unforeseen, effects on education.

[dustchick.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was in MGM, but GATE never was offered after MGM was ended, or if it was, it was shifted to the under-achieving student end. Gosh, elementary school was dull. (Even MGM, but still... it was something!)

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

About the only thing I remember about MGM was that they had the meetings (or whatever) at different schools in the district. My school was built like Army barracks, but this one school was some sort of 1960s futuristic learning academy, with big roundish buildings with sectored 'classrooms' without walls between them. It was so cool. That school still gets an 8/10 on greatschools, while my humble alma mater gets a 4.

[dustchick.livejournal.com]

That "greatschools" site was just a huge time-suck for me. My elementary school gets 3/10 and my re-imagined high school (now an "academy of arts and design") gets a 5/10. So scary!

[colleenky.livejournal.com]

Some of my colleagues (school choral directors) are getting pink slips this year. Between the state budget crunch and NCLB, school music programs are once again being cut from the curriculum.