Why grade-skipping should be back in fashion
By Jay Mathews | September 22, 2010; 8:00 PM ET
As the second month of school nears, some parents wonder if their children are getting all that they need. The lessons seem too simple. Their kids are bored. If they have been designated gifted, there may be occasional pull-out lessons to enrich what they are learning, but that may not be enough.
I have seen no data to confirm this, but it seems to me that schools rarely consider skipping those students ahead anymore. I have talked to Washington area administrators about this. They are uncomfortable with the approach. They think students who are above grade level learn better--with some extras thrown in--if they stick with kids their age.
A generation or two ago the attitude was different. I run into far more people my age who skipped a grade than I meet friends of my children who did the same thing. My wife skipped second grade in the early 1950s. Her parents had nothing to do with it. Six weeks into the school year in California, after attending a hard-charging school in Kansas, her teacher said, “You can already do this stuff. This is a waste.” She was suddenly a third grader.
Parents these days appear reluctant to sanction such a jump. If anything, the fashionable move is to make sure your child is a bit old for her grade. People put their children in kindergarten a year late so her chances of both academic and social success are enhanced. That is fine for kids who are late developers. But in the long-running debate over what to do with students ready for more, acceleration deserves another look.
As the second month of school nears, some parents wonder if their children are getting all that they need. The lessons seem too simple. Their kids are bored. If they have been designated gifted, there may be occasional pull-out lessons to enrich what they are learning, but that may not be enough.
I have seen no data to confirm this, but it seems to me that schools rarely consider skipping those students ahead anymore. I have talked to Washington area administrators about this. They are uncomfortable with the approach. They think students who are above grade level learn better--with some extras thrown in--if they stick with kids their age.
A generation or two ago the attitude was different. I run into far more people my age who skipped a grade than I meet friends of my children who did the same thing. My wife skipped second grade in the early 1950s. Her parents had nothing to do with it. Six weeks into the school year in California, after attending a hard-charging school in Kansas, her teacher said, “You can already do this stuff. This is a waste.” She was suddenly a third grader.
Parents these days appear reluctant to sanction such a jump. If anything, the fashionable move is to make sure your child is a bit old for her grade. People put their children in kindergarten a year late so her chances of both academic and social success are enhanced. That is fine for kids who are late developers. But in the long-running debate over what to do with students ready for more, acceleration deserves another look.
In my experience, students are far more ready to adjust to age differences in their classes than we give them credit for. A 2004 study by the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa found that “an overwhelming majority” of students who had been accelerated endorsed the move when surveyed years later. They said they had been both academically challenged and socially accepted.
It can be both cheaper and more effective to move a child into a higher grade rather than hire an extra teacher to enrich his lessons where he is. I have argued, based on the complaints of many parents of gifted children, that they shouldn’t count on public schools to do a very good job with gifted education. It is difficult to find well-trained teachers with that specialty. Often that slot is one of the first to go in a budget crunch. Acceleration might solve the problem.
Last year Laura Vanderkam, who runs the Gifted Exchange blog, and education author Richard Whitmire of whyboysfail.com made many calls trying to find school districts that embraced grade skipping. There were very few, but the ones that did that had good ideas.
At Zumi Elementary School in Scottsdale, Ariz., all the math classes met in first period. Students went to whatever class they were ready for regardless of their age. In Lebanon, Penn., all children were screened for subject competency and offered a chance to take a higher grade version of that class, even if it meant a bus ride to another school.
My mother would never had allowed that. She was concerned about my social backwardness, and she had a point. But most children are not as immature as I was. We have fine schools in the Washington area. Why can’t they open the door to higher grades for kids ready for more than just an abridged version of the next logical step in their educations?
Jay Mathews is an education columnist for The Washington Post. You can contact him at mathewsj (at) washpost.com.
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