Domestic, K-12, Minorities, Opinion, Public, Recruitment, Required, STEM, Teachers - Written by on Tuesday, September 25, 2012 6:00 - 0 Comments

Opinion Overheard: Why The US Needs More Public Schools For Gifted Students

2012 Projects Day: Simulations_16
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: West Point Public Affairs via Compfight

Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, wrote a piece in the New York Times recently about gifted and talented young people and how they are largely neglected in the current public school system. He notes that both presidential candidates attended elite schools. He says other smart, motivated young people in America deserve a similar chance but suggests many are held back by a lackluster public education system that does not prepare them for their full potential in life. He and a colleague wrote a book about the small number of public schools around the US for gifted and talented young people. He explains why the nation needs more of these special schools like Bronx Science and Boston Latin:

… First, we’re weak at identifying “gifted and talented” children early, particularly if they’re poor or members of minority groups or don’t have savvy, pushy parents.

Second, at the primary and middle-school levels, we don’t have enough gifted-education classrooms (with suitable teachers and curriculums) to serve even the existing demand. Congress has “zero-funded” the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program, Washington’s sole effort to encourage such education. Faced with budget crunches and federal pressure to turn around awful schools, many districts are cutting their advanced classes as well as art and music.

Third, many high schools have just a smattering of honors or Advanced Placement classes, sometimes populated by kids who are bright but not truly prepared to succeed in them.

Here and there, however, entire public schools focus exclusively on high-ability, highly motivated students. Some are nationally famous (Boston Latin, Bronx Science), others known mainly in their own communities (Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills, Austin’s Liberal Arts and Science Academy). When my colleague Jessica A. Hockett and I went searching for schools like these to study, we discovered that no one had ever fully mapped this terrain…

Via The New York Times

Finn speaking_s
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: barb burt via Compfight


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