Blog 1-Reaching advacned students

I know every teacher has said that their goal is reach all learners and engage their students but I ask, are we really doing our best job reaching this goal? With recent push from No Child Left Behind I feel that I need to work with my lower students to improve test scores. I constantly prepare extra lessons and materials for my lower students to practice skills that they are struggling with. I usually think I’m doing the right thing because the students who score low need my help, my job is to teach them and I’m willing to take the extra effort but after reading “Susan Goodkin and David G. Gold: In Focus on Proficiency, Bright Kids Lose,” I am reminded that I am doing so much for only a fraction of my students. I have a handful of students every year that are advanced and score very well on their tests and I rarely take extra time to prepare something special for them. I easily can challenge them by offering higher leveled reading books or suggesting more challenging writing assignments but I should be preparing special projects to meet their abilities and interests. The authors of this article are hoping to change that. Having advanced students sit in the classroom while we do repetitive lessons for my lower to average students is only causing the advanced to be bored and act up. I have read and learned in the past that differentiated instruction is the best solution but I struggle with pulling this off properly. I am only one person and I can’t be with four groups of students at the same time.
The article states that current educators need to find solutions to meet advanced learners needs and I couldn’t agree more. The advanced learners have every right to learn to their full potential. They are important to our future too, they can easily be our next doctors and engineers. The article suggested that students should be able to be grouped with students of similar abilities and spend at least half the day with those groups. I think that would be a great idea for all learners but how does one pull this off and who makes the decisions of the groups and curriculum that each group focuses on? Last year my grade level tried this with three different reading levels and it was difficult because one teacher ended up with 25 students while another teacher had 12 students. I also felt that I was not in control of my student’s learning and had trouble discussing student’s growth with parents that quarter. The authors also urge for educators to forget the scary myths of allowing students to move up a grade. Most teachers I know frown upon this but I have not been in a situation to investigate this opportunity. I do believe that it depends on the student’s age and maturity level because a student grows drastically between kindergarten and second grade. I would love to hear anyone’s stories or advice on students advancing grade levels or spitting students into groups based on their ability.