Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
If you are a smart person, you should have multiple children. They’ll probably increase the number of smart people in the world just by you having some romantic evenings.
I think we're doing a poorer job of engaging the the children of smart people.
We have 4 children. They're all smart, but my middle son has tested as > 99.9% in math and taught himself to read somewhere between ages 3 and 4. Despite being in one of the more affluent districts in our state in the Northeast there are no services for gifted children. As long as children are performing at grade level asking for more academic rigor is met with shrugs. This is partially why we're homeschooling now.
In 80's California our class sizes were bigger but there was a GATE program and divided start to better group the class into reading groups by ability / level. I'm sure there are lots of 'studies' but the couple I've dug into seem like bullshit.
In all seriousness: find a private tutor that works with gifted kids. It won't be cheap -- you can expect to spend somewhere in the $50-$200 per lesson range -- but it will be cheaper than an actually good private school, and while he won't have the peer group, at least he'll have someone who is capable of working with his educational needs. (Though it sounds like you personally may have this covered with homeschooling -- and that's awesome if you do.)
My wife actually does some of this (she also works with struggling kids too, since there's a lot more demand for that kind of tutoring), and for a while had a student in almost exactly your situation (down to the region of the country) -- a second (?) grader doing roughly sixth grade level math (though of course they were not using a normal curriculum). Unfortunately the student had to quit because something happened and the family could no longer afford it, I think.
The main reason that most schools are not willing to do anything for gifted kids is that there's so little real demand for it that they can just not bother. Even most parents of gifted kids are not willing to really invest, and are satisfied with the kid getting As and being in a million activities. Or they are more concerned with their kids maxing out the metrics in the system they are in -- grades, test scores, impressive sounding extracurriculars -- than with actually getting them the best education. Either way, accommodating the real needs of gifted kids is not on the schools' radar because it's not the parents' priority.
PS: If anyone reading this has an elementary or middle school age kid who is gifted in math, can meet before 7 PM eastern time, and is able to handle doing tutoring lessons over Zoom, DM me -- my wife might be interested. (Yes, Zoom is not as good as in person, but she's had a lot of experience with it at this point and can make it work surprisingly well.)
PPS: If you are homeschooling an elementary aged kid who is gifted in math and are not using Beast Academy, do yourself a favor and look into it. My wife swears by it as a gifted curriculum, and you can either (a) just buy the books and use them for homeschooling, (b) enroll in an online class through Art of Problem Solving, or (c) find a private tutor (like my wife) who is familiar with it to work with your kid.
The peer group at the Russian School of Math is a benefit.
This was our first year homeschooling. My wife is happy with the progress they're making.
Before being a FT SAHM / homemaker, she was MD/PhD.
The lack of support for gifted kids is part of it. The lack of rigor in the curriculum in general is surprising. There are no letter grades. Seldom / rarely any homework. Spelling is typically not corrected on any submitted work, students are not expected to correct / revise their own work for resubmission. The concept of penmenship seems to have disappeared entirely. There's no copy work. No spelling / writing from dictation. Rarely any reading aloud. No deficiency notices. Yet there's still somehow less time for recess.
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One of my kids is like this. He taught himself to read at age 5 and he's about 3 grades ahead in math ability. He's supposed to start first grade in the fall but we're homeschooling him instead because, among other things, the public schools have no resources for gifted kids. We're in the PNW and not the Northeast. I'd try a private school here but they're all either religious or some woo woo hippie shit.
(I also think he'd go through a misanthrope period if he was forced to hang out with kids that much slower than him, like I did)
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to the religious schools unfortunately many are sponsored by denominations that have embraced idpol or alphabetism. Also my wife would likely need to return to work to pay the tuition.
We're supplementing homeschooling with weekly foreign language (my wife's native language) in a classroom environment and The Russian School of Math.
I was identified as gifted in elementary school, the GATE program in the district as kooky as it was made school much more engaging.
Just to let you know- my memory of Catholic schools was there was no gifted and talented available at all. There was honors/AP classes available in high school for some subjects, and that was it.
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It's a real shame. Some students are far more effective consumers of education than others, so with limited educational resources we really ought to be focusing on them, but this goes against the equity dogma of the day.
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