If acceleration is such a good idea, why isn’t it easier to get it? Part 3

If acceleration is such a good idea, why isn’t it easier to get for gifted children?

In his 2015 Acceleration article (Skip A Grade? Start Kindergarten Early? It’s Not So Easy) for National Public Radio (NPR), Owen Phillips writes, “Identifying gifted kids for acceleration isn’t easy, says Eboni Howard, an early childhood specialist at the American Institutes for Research. While she herself was a grade-skipper, she says it’s very difficult to determine for a particular child whether, say, entering kindergarten early will pay off. Dr. Howard adds:

“There are a lot of different indicators, but they all vary by the age of the child.”

It’s true that the children’s readiness to start school early or accelerate along the way certainly does vary. The ‘indicators” vary, too. Why then, does it make more sense to simply group students by age and grade level when all that variation is built into the age-and-grade system? And to say that it’s too tricky to do doesn’t mean we shouldn’t develop systems to do it. In my opinion, age-and-grade grouping in schools makes it incredibly more difficult to effectively meet the learning and social needs of most students, not only for the gifted children.