America is ignoring and largely wasting one of its most valuable resources - its gifted and exceptionally capable children.
Several million of the brightest U.S. children often sit unchallenged in public school classrooms because the school work is too simple or they already know it. Many become lazy and fail to live up to their potential. Others are bored and have behavior problems. An estimated 3 to 5 percent of students spend most of their young lives in classes that do not require much effort.In the end, their talents are not stimulated, their intellectual growth is stunted and they often score no higher on international tests than just average students from other countries.
This gloomy evaluation was released the other day by the U.S. Department of Education after one of the most thorough studies of gifted children in the past 20 years.
While 26 states - Utah is not among them - require special services for the gifted, most programs don't amount to much. Many entail as little as two or three hours a week. Nationally, only about 2 cents of every $100 spent on education is targeted for the gifted.
Utah has no organized state program for gifted children, although services are offered by individual districts, often on a hit-and-miss basis, school-by-school or even teacher-by-teacher. Some of those efforts are excellent, but there is little in the way of a comprehensive approach.
Scott Bean, state superintendent of public instruction, reluctantly admits that gifted youngsters are the "most under-served group" in the Utah education system.
On the high-school level, Utah leads the nation in the percentage of youngsters enrolled in college-level Advanced Placement classes. But the critical need is for recognizing and challenging youngsters still in elementary school or even at preschool ages. Most parents are not aware of programs for gifted children even where they are available.
Efforts at identifying and dealing with gifted youngsters often are frustrated by basic public education philosophies. Among these are desires to eliminate differences between children, to avoid classifications of bright and not-so-bright, to keep children with their age-group peers despite intellectual disparities, and to foster self-esteem among the less capable.
The latter objective has led to a "dumbing down" of textbooks by at least two grades in the past 20 years and the weakening of the curriculum in an effort to avoid having children fail. That only makes things worse for the gifted who need tougher challenges and stimulation.
In addition, coping with a gifted child in a crowded classroom is frequently not a high priority for a hard-pressed teacher who is trying to meet the needs of other youngsters having a hard time with learning.
Special programs and materials for the gifted are difficult to assemble when education funding each year falls short of everyday needs. But as the U.S. study shows, this whole issue needs to be re-examined.
Gifted children must not be ignored or dealt with haphazardly. The nation cannot continue to waste one of its most precious resources - its brightest children.