Cheshire Figment
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- Joined
- Jan 12, 2001
I took this from today's Orlando Sentinel. As several people have mentioned, they have children who are very bright but with either learning disabilities or other similar problems. It is interesting to consider that children with low abilities are given all sorts of extra help, but the children at the high end of the curve are just expected to fend for themselves.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-gifted3005oct30,0,4939461.story
Embracing high-IQ students
Communities are starting to recognize the needs of highly gifted students.
Michael Janofsky
the New York Times
October 30, 2005
RENO, Nev. -- Misha Raffiee is 10 years old. An eighth-grader in her final year of private school here, she reads up to six books a month, plays violin and piano and asks so many questions that her teachers sometimes get angry at her.
Driven by an insatiable curiosity, she wants to be a brain surgeon. Her parents expect her to have a bachelor's degree by the time she is 14 and a medical degree soon after. The pace will be wholly dependent upon her teachers' abilities to feed an intellect that in her current setting often goes wanting.
"I do wish they would go faster," she said of her classroom activities. "If I could go at my own pace, I could go forward twice as fast."
By next fall, Misha may have her chance. She has applied to the Davidson Academy of Nevada, a newly formed public school at the University of Nevada, Reno, for profoundly gifted children, those whose test scores and evaluations place them in the 99.9th percentile.
It is a rare opportunity. Children like Misha, who have IQs of 160 and above, constitute only a fraction of the 72 million children who attend the nation's public and private schools. Their needs are often overlooked as federal and state governments concentrate their resources on slower learners to lift test scores in reading and mathematics to a minimum standard.
While federal spending for the Bush administration's education law, No Child Left Behind, is to reach $24.4 billion in the current fiscal year, the Department of Education has allocated only $11 million for programs aimed at "gifted and talented" students.
Recognizing that children with high aptitude require special attention and more rigorous coursework, many communities try to serve them through schools that offer specialized classes, accelerated-learning programs and dual credit for high school and college.
In addition, a small but growing number of charter, magnet and early-entrance schools are tailoring their curriculums to prepare students for college. Foundations such as the Institute for Educational Advancement in South Pasadena, Calif., are forming to help gifted children find programs to challenge them.
Education experts familiar with the needs of the most-gifted students say there are scarcely enough programs to serve them.
"We are undercutting the research and development people of this nation," said Joseph S. Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. "No one would ever argue against No Child Left Behind, but when you ignore kids who will create new jobs, new therapies and new medicines, we're selling them down the river."
Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-gifted3005oct30,0,4939461.story
Embracing high-IQ students
Communities are starting to recognize the needs of highly gifted students.
Michael Janofsky
the New York Times
October 30, 2005
RENO, Nev. -- Misha Raffiee is 10 years old. An eighth-grader in her final year of private school here, she reads up to six books a month, plays violin and piano and asks so many questions that her teachers sometimes get angry at her.
Driven by an insatiable curiosity, she wants to be a brain surgeon. Her parents expect her to have a bachelor's degree by the time she is 14 and a medical degree soon after. The pace will be wholly dependent upon her teachers' abilities to feed an intellect that in her current setting often goes wanting.
"I do wish they would go faster," she said of her classroom activities. "If I could go at my own pace, I could go forward twice as fast."
By next fall, Misha may have her chance. She has applied to the Davidson Academy of Nevada, a newly formed public school at the University of Nevada, Reno, for profoundly gifted children, those whose test scores and evaluations place them in the 99.9th percentile.
It is a rare opportunity. Children like Misha, who have IQs of 160 and above, constitute only a fraction of the 72 million children who attend the nation's public and private schools. Their needs are often overlooked as federal and state governments concentrate their resources on slower learners to lift test scores in reading and mathematics to a minimum standard.
While federal spending for the Bush administration's education law, No Child Left Behind, is to reach $24.4 billion in the current fiscal year, the Department of Education has allocated only $11 million for programs aimed at "gifted and talented" students.
Recognizing that children with high aptitude require special attention and more rigorous coursework, many communities try to serve them through schools that offer specialized classes, accelerated-learning programs and dual credit for high school and college.
In addition, a small but growing number of charter, magnet and early-entrance schools are tailoring their curriculums to prepare students for college. Foundations such as the Institute for Educational Advancement in South Pasadena, Calif., are forming to help gifted children find programs to challenge them.
Education experts familiar with the needs of the most-gifted students say there are scarcely enough programs to serve them.
"We are undercutting the research and development people of this nation," said Joseph S. Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. "No one would ever argue against No Child Left Behind, but when you ignore kids who will create new jobs, new therapies and new medicines, we're selling them down the river."
Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel
