Are we in the US, as a nation, neglecting our gifted youth?

Hello everyone, I wonder if someone here can shed some light on something for me. Recently I’ve been doing a great deal of personal interest research and reading on the topic of special-needs programs and services throughout the United States in our public school system. In my studies, I’ve found a great deal of information, resources and programs to help and serve the needs of children with physical or learning disabilities, as well as those with cultural and linguistic needs. I whole heartedly agree that such programs are important, and such efforts are well deserving of funding, and support. Yet, what I haven’t found in abundance are programs that address our nation’s gifted youth.

Now maybe my research skills are in need of honing, or I am simply not looking in the right places. Yet, most of the information and resources I’ve found are the product of private individuals, groups and organizations. If this is indeed the case, I find this an alarming trend. I have read various sources advocating the “home-schooling” of gifted children as a preferable option to public education. To me this signals a crucial area of neglect (if true) in our public education system. To develop and fund programs for most, but not implement and support programs that develop, nurture and foster the potential of our nation’s best and brightest seems a negligent prospect to me.

How can we stay competitive globally if we do not place a high value on those with the highest potential? Would that not be tantamount to striving to be a nation of mediocrity in some aspects, where striving for excellence at the highest levels, or in some areas, is an anomaly not a goal?

I ask that those who read this pardon my ignorance. I realize these are strong words and that I may be factually in error. I just couldn’t conceive that we publicly and formally offer so little to (what seems to me) a vital segment of our youth.

Could someone please educate me and show that I’m misinformed, assumptive or incorrect? I’d prefer to believe that my analysis of this is in error, than believe that I am either factually, perceptually or conceptually right.

 

Some Blame the No Child Left Behind Act

I wrote a posting about this in my oft-ignored slashdot journal around the beginning of the year after seeing a newspaper article about it. I'll do the cut and paste thing here.

I was reading an old Wall Street Journal at lunch today, specifically a front-page story about how the unfunded mandates in the No Child Left Behind Act have caused some school districts to gut, and in some cases entirely eliminate, funding for programs for gifted and talented children.

This is a tragedy that will shortchange America in the years to come. We as a nation must take positive steps to cultivate and nuture tomorrow's great thinkers and leaders, not assume the job is done as long as everyone in the classroom has risen to the lowest common denominator.

I don't mean to suggest that it's not desirable to help underperforming students and schools reach national minimum standards. But I have to protest strongly when these gains are made at the expense of our best and brightest. Tomorrow's world will be even more competitive than today's, and making sure that our scientists and technologists remain at the forefront is paramount in ensuring our future national security and prosperity.

What we need is not more student testing. We need to identify and track students earlier. Lower-performing students need to be tracked into classrooms where there is the opportunity to provide them with individualized attention. High achievers need to be presented with challenges that cause them to expand their minds. In the middle, students on a vocational education track need to be prepared for their careers, while college bound students need to be prepared for college - exposed to the types of academic rigor they will see on campus. When I got to college in 1993, I had never written a doublespaced paper before. I had never had a discussion where I was expected to address my teacher as my intellectual equal. This is a crime - it creates students who are sponges - they absorb enough material to pass the exams, then squeeze it all out and get ready for the next soaking.

When I was young, "mainstreaming" was all the rage. Mentallly, emotionally, and physically handicapped students were placed into a common classroom with average students. As a "gifted" student, I remember being frustrated with the slow pace and constant reiteration of material already covered. Even as a sixth grader, we would begin the school year with a "review" that covered single digit addition! 1 + 1 = 2 as a freaking sixth grader. Not at all challenging.

I have to admit, I was lucky in high school. I had a great principal, Dr. Casebolt, who encouraged the development of a rigorous AP/Honors curriculum. I got the opportunity to earn 24 hours of college credit before I graduated from high school. But my senior year, Dr. Casebolt left my high school, and several planned AP classes were cut. The year after I left, AP Psychology was cut. All this happened at the same time as UNC Chapel Hill announced that it would not consider applications for incoming freshman that did not have at least one AP course on their transcripts.

I wish I was a better creative type, so I could write a fantastic letter to the Wall Street Journal and eloquently trash the administration and Congress for conspiring to undermine a generation of our best and brightest. The legacy of the No Child Left Behind Act may not be felt for years. But future historians may point to it as the beginning of the end of America's leadership in the world.

 

My experience as a mother of both a achoolage child with a speech and language disablility and a schoolage child performing significantly above grade level is that the whole process is glacial in both cases. The screening process for disability took weeks to schedule followed by weeks before an IEP was written and therapy was begun. I formally requested gifted screening for my other son before school started and was promised screening before the end of September which, if he passes, leads to full evalauation with 60 school days. And, assuming he passes all of this... the gifted program consists of pull-out "enrichment" not any kind of acceleration. They both get tracked along with everyone else at the beginning of 5th grade on the basis of testing done at the end of 4th grade.

I have homeschooled in the past and am considering it again in the future in order to challenge my more advanced child. I could go on for hours about all the ways that I think our school system is broken, but when it comes to gifted kids, even where programs exist, it really is up to the parents to keep their kids challenged. And with kids with disablities...it's up to parents to work with them at home, but supplemental tutoring or therapy or... the schools do not have the resources to provide true individualized intruction to anyone, let alone everyone who qualifies for an IEP.

Elizabeth

 

As a school psychologist I have been outraged for years regarding the disparity between programs for low achieving and disabled children (which are certainly necessary and beneficial) and programs for talented / gifted children. At least 10 times more is spent on programs at the low end. One small rural district I have worked in has 4 certified special education teachers and 7 full time special education teacher associates yet only 1 staff member to handle all the TAG student's needs. Many rural districts in Iowa have no one providing specialized services to TAG students.

 

There are special schools for gifted kids. In Worcester, where I used to work, there is the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science, a high school that's run in conjunction with Worcester Polytech, where the kids get college credit for their high school classes. Of course, admission is extremely competitive as slots are few in number. Other kids take courses at local community colleges while they're still in high school. They sometimes earn Associates degrees as they graduate from high school. Other kids get scholarships to private schools where more challenging curriculums are often provided. Still other kids float through public high school earning top grades and not being especially challenged. The ones you never hear about are the underachievers. These kids are bored after years of poor public schooling. They sleep through high school and still earn good grades. Even if they stay out of trouble they frequently don't do especially well in college because they're hip-deep in bad attitude and don't recognize a clean slate when they see it. As has been pointed out, the whole system is designed for those who have problems. Those who excel are on their own.
Jack

 

Don't know if this info is of any help, but:

Duke University has programs for youth to attend during the summer.

http://www.learnmore.duke.edu/Youth/

Johns Hopkins has online courses:

http://cty.jhu.edu/cde/

Jack you are absolutely correct. To excel you are on your own.

 

I spent most of the summer trying to find a psychologist to give my son the tests to qualify for the Johns Hopkins Math program. I could only find ones who do the whole learning disabilitiies battery, which is unnecessary for my son and extremely expensive.

In the end, I emailed back and forth with John's Hopkins and they will look at the school's screening results even though they aren't the specific tests asked for.

So again, society, even in the private sector, appears to be geared toward children with special needs rather than toward identifying and helping the brightest kids.

Elizabeth

 

Jack, that's my life to a T.

I was in the gifted stream for a couple years in our school board, but a wacky teacher caused my parents to pull me from the program. and put me back into the mainstream classroom in the middle of grade 6.

I remember visiting the classroom for the winter carnival, and seeing an excerpt from The Hobbit on the blackboard. I was so excited. We were reading The Hobbit in my "old" class, so I was relieved that things would be okay. I was wrong. They were actually reading an excerpt from the book that was in their reader (a collection of excerpts from books that I guess were too hard to read in their entirety). And it was worse. The spelling words for the first week at the new school included banana and kite. (In grade 5, we had made up our own spelling lists, which had included words like onomatopoeia, acetysalicylic acid, and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.) I basically sleepwalked through the rest of grade school.

There were smart kids in our class in grade school, but when you do the same math, spelling and grammar work each year, how are you possibly going to excel.

It is my personal opinion that even middle-of-the-road kids will do better when a) they are challenged and b) they have the supports to help them to meet those challenges. When the classroom has to be geared to the lowest-performing child in the class, it is impossible to challenge the majority of the students.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that as a parent, I fully intend to monitor my kids feelings about what they're learning in school (is it review, are they bored, etc), and ensuring that they are intellectually challenged, whether through reading higher level books, playing higher grade-level computer games, etc.