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What's Best for the Brightest: A look at Mt. Lebanon and North Allegheny
Monday, June 11, 2001
Students like Katherine Kunkel in the North Allegheny School District lead an academic life that is substantially different from that of students outside the gifted track.
What is the best way for our schools to work with exceptionally bright children? In this three-part series, Staff Writer Mackenzie Carpenter examines the debate about the way society should nurture gifted students.
Mt. Lebanon school district believes students of all abilities learn best together
Her district provides its gifted students with one of the more elaborate programs in the region: they can take advanced classes in math or reading; work at an accelerated pace or skip grades; tackle a "compacted" curriculum that would allow them to complete a course in two months instead of a year; go on special field trips; and congregate in a resource room created for them.
Some parents in Mt. Lebanon would like to see the same for their children, but their district pursues a diametrically opposed policy: all children, regardless of ability, are educated in the same classrooms.
Gifted students may be given more challenging assignments, but they are not separated from their classmates.
The district and a well-organized group of parents have been battling on the issue for the past 18 months.
The two approaches are case studies in the clashing theories of what to do with gifted students.
In the second of a three-part series, staff writer Mackenzie Carpenter examines the programs of the two districts.
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