Education Dive

Dive Brief:

• Researchers from Johns Hopkins University analyzed student test scores in Florida, Washington and California — three states across the spectrum of Common Core adoption — and found that 25-45% of students were performing above grade level in English and math.
• District Administration reports more students perform either above or below grade level than on it, and, generally, the number of students performing above grade level increases the longer students are in school.
• The San Antonio Independent School District opened a new advanced learning academy this year for students in pre-K through 10th grade, and it will expand as students age toward graduation, as its nontraditional approach gives students interdisciplinary, inter-grade-level collaboration opportunities while eschewing standard grading systems in favor of progress reports.

Dive Insight:

Teachers face the difficult challenge of educating students cross a wide spectrum of achievement in a single classroom. Personalized learning technology has given schools new tools with which to serve students at the appropriate level, and it offers great promise for the future of education.

English learners are often a difficult population to identify as gifted because language barriers interfere with their ability to prove their intellectual capacity to teachers who often are not looking for it. Students with dyslexia, too, can be easily overlooked. Their trouble reading and writing can mask proof that they are actually “twice exceptional,” with a learning disability as well as evidence of being gifted. Along with expanding personalized learning opportunities, schools should work to better identify the full range of gifted students among them.