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I avoided subjects I found difficult, padding my schedule with all English and Social Studies while skipping Math and Science. I stopped trying out for school plays, afraid of not being cast as a lead.

as for writing, supposedly my greatest “natural talent,” I hoarded everything I wrote and never managed to finish or submit a single manuscript for publication. Because even one rejection letter wouldn’t have just meant that my story wasn’t good enough; it would have meant that I, as a human being, was not good enough.

for me, the “Gifted & Talented” label unintentionally contributed to what psychologist Carol Dweck would call a “fixed mindset”:

The categories are not “smart” and “dumb”; they are “learned that already” and “haven’t learned that yet.”

As a fourth grader, I wasn’t more gifted or talented than anyone else; I had just learned a little more about theater, literature and writing, thanks to my parents, than many of my peers had.

That didn’t make me smart or talented any more than it made my peers stupid.

In another example, third grade math students in the hybrid learning program at Pennsylvania's Indiana Area School District outperformed students in traditional classes by 10 percentage points on the PSSA exams.

scored proficient or advanced on PSSA tests at a rate 23 percent higher than the previous year with gains in all subjects: reading (up 20 percent), math (up 24 percent) and science (up 27 percent).

"We use a rigorous accountability system that helps us measure and report on hybrid classroom outcomes," said Dellicker President and CEO Kevin Dellicker.

The cost of implementing hybrid learning through the Institute's model could be considered modest. During the 2013-2014 school year, according to the report, the schools spent an average of $220 per student (not including computing devices) to transform their learning models.

Studies of the effectiveness of online learning programs suggest that greater humility is in order. A 2010 meta-analysis commissioned by the Department of Education concluded that students whose teachers combined digital and face-to-face learning did somewhat better than students who were not exposed to digital tools, but there was a major caveat: the teachers who added digital tools were judged to be more effective educators in general.