Seventh grader, far ahead of her class, punished for taking too many courses

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: June 4, 2017 at 2:46:54 PM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Seventh grader, far ahead of her class, punished for taking too many courses
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Seventh grader, far ahead of her class, punished for taking too many courses
> By Jay Mathews
> Jun 2 2017
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/seventh-grader-far-ahead-of-her-class-punished-for-taking-too-many-courses/2017/06/02/d020099e-4705-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html>
>
> In a compelling piece for the Washington City Paper, D.C. high school teacher Rob Barnett has confessed his anguish 
> at passing students who haven’t mastered the content of his math courses, and described his radical solution.
>
> It’s called mastery learning. Barnett recorded all of his lessons, put them online and let each student move through 
> them at his or her own pace. “They must show they understand one topic before advancing to the next,” he said. “I 
> think of myself not so much as a teacher but as a facilitator of inquiry.”
>
> This method is not new. I remember a Virginia high school that tried it 20 years ago. Barnett identified charter 
> schools in Yuma, Ariz., and Chicago that are having success with it. It is a logical way to deepen the education of 
> our children and, as Barnett discovered in his classes, inspire initiative. “They learn to assess their own 
> understanding, to ask for help when they need it, and to teach themselves and their peers without my guidance,” he 
> said.
>
> But mastery learning is almost completely at odds with American school traditions. Barnett had difficulty, for 
> instance, dealing with the required annual D.C. tests that assume everyone learns at the same pace.
>
> A parent I know in Michigan found his public school system, after first being helpful, eventually reacted to his 
> daughter’s fast pace under a makeshift mastery program as if the child had violated the dress code.
>
> As Vipul Gupta tells the story, his daughter’s experience with mastery began innocently at the Grand Blanc school 
> district. When the girl entered fifth grade a test showed she was a year ahead of her class in math. She could take 
> sixth grade at the school or under Michigan law could do an online course.
>
> She chose online. When she completed sixth grade math in a few months she went ahead and did seventh grade math too. 
> She asked to do the same in science. The school resisted at first but eventually she was taking ninth grade science 
> as a sixth grader. She is now five years ahead of her grade in math and three years ahead in science. Her school also 
> let her take an entrepreneurship course full of 11th and 12th graders at the district’s Career Institute.
>
> Now, in seventh grade, she has been made to pay for the crime of getting too far ahead of her classmates. Almost 
> everyone in her middle school takes six courses. This school year she was only allowed to take five. Gupta said “they 
> refused to allow my daughter to take her second year Spanish foreign language class—a subject she adored and a fun 
> break in her day while we had a joy of speaking this at home—and instead make her sit in the library for one hour 
> doing homework.”
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>



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