In general, you want to ask if there’s “tracking” and at what grade level. Most often schools start tracking in 6th grade, but they hate the word because it means some kids are “smarter” than others. And that’s not PC nowadays.
Many teachers are afraid of “math acceleration” which means kids taking math earlier than “normal”. Normal is Algebra I in 9th grade. Being on track for Geometry in 9th grade is what I would consider a good school. Not that some kids can’t handle it earlier, but if a school will do that, great. You will hear the phrase “We don’t like to accelerate because kids look like they’re ahead, but don’t really know what they’re doing.” This is a BS way of saying “your child really isn’t as smart as they appear.”
The phrase “math at stage, not age” means that a school will place your kid according to their abilities. This is a very positive thing.
“Flipping the classroom” means that a kid watches lectures as homework and does their problem sets with the teacher going throughout the classroom to help. Los Altos is doing something like this using Khan Academy.
“Differentiated instruction” means that different kids are given different difficulties of homework according to their abilities. Good for a classroom with 25%-95%ile kids, but if you have a 99%thile kid, this is actually a bad thing because the teacher is promising to challenge your kid but is unlikely to actually give them anything that is a grade level or two or three higher. Occasionally you’ll find a teacher that really will challenge the 99th %ile kid, but most of the time they won’t.
Gifted & Talented programs depend on the district. Some are full-time programs (ie, your kid is in a different track, building, or even school), and some are “pull-out” which means occasionally your kid will get challenging material, but generally will be with the rest of the kids bored. Gifted is actually different from High Achieving. If your kid is in the 99%ile, there is a whole new level of comparison ranging from “moderately gifted” to “profoundly gifted” (one person’s opinions of the levels is here: https://eleanormunsonphd.com/2011/01/the-five-levels-of-giftedness/) which is measured in the idea that your kid is 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, 1 in 10,000, 1 in 100,000, … in their abilities. Kids in that range need a school that caters to their abilities and are often homeschooled. There are two schools that I know of that will do this K-12: Nueva and Harker, and a third school does this for math–Proof School (6-12). Basis Independent may or may not be appropriate for gifted kids–I don’t know enough about that school. Most public schools can help the kids that are 90-98%ile, but if your kid is in the 1 in 1000 and up range they may still be bored. But they will probably have a peer group they can identify with at least.
Testing for the programs varies by schools. You can find a list of tests here for people serious about testing giftedness:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/Young-Scholars/How-to-Apply/Qualification-Criteria
Sometimes the Cogat is used as well by schools.
I will still maintain that private school $$s are best spent grade 6-12 unless you’ve got a kid who is more than two years ahead in math or reading. I find that elementary schools are better at breaking up classes for reading, than math.
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so really don’t think should focus on academic.
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