NCLB Leaving the Top Behind

We have a smarty on our hands, but I’m quite certain he’s no genius. However, one of the first reasons given to us by friends to homeschool was the possibility of Sam being bored in kindergarten. I must admit that at first this made my ego soar a bit: yeah…my son is too smart for kindergarten! And this evening I found a quote by Robert Davidson to back me up:

"I mean, that's criminal to send a kid [who already reads well] to kindergarten... Somebody should go to jail for that! That is emotional torture!"

Well, I certainly don’t want to be imprisoned for emotionally torturing my son, so I guess we’ll keep him home. But what if we didn’t homeschool? Would many schools let kids skip kindergarten? Would they be able to tailor his education for him and send him to first grade math and second grade reading while letting him hang out in kindergarten for everything else? And would such a kid stand a chance with his classmates socially under such circumstances (since that's what everyone seems so concerned about these days anyways)?

According to a recent article in Time magazine, most public schools are very hesitant to let kids skip ahead more than one or two grades, if at all, despite research showing that gifted kids do well academically and socially when placed in a grade appropriate for their skill level. And, not surprisingly, keeping them from jumping ahead can leave them socially inept and keep them from achieving their potential.

Robert and Janice Davidson believe that today’s schools are holding back the gifted so much so that they founded a free public day school on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, the Davidson Academy of Nevada, to accommodate kids with an IQ of 160 or higher. From the article:

What's needed is a new model for gifted education, an urgent sense that prodigious intellectual talents are a threatened resource…The academy will begin its second year Aug. 27, and while it will have just 45 students, they are 45 of the nation's smartest children. They are kids from age 11 to 16 who are taking classes at least three years beyond their grade level (and in some cases much more; two of the school's prodigies have virtually exhausted the undergraduate math curriculum at the University of Nevada, Reno, whose campus hosts the academy).

This comes in a time when we spend billions more educating the learning disabled in an attempt to bring them up to the minimum level than we do trying to challenge those at the top.

American schools spend more than $8 billion a year educating the mentally retarded. Spending on the gifted isn't even tabulated in some states, but by the most generous calculation, we spend no more than $800 million on gifted programs. But it can't make sense to spend 10 times as much to try to bring low-achieving students to mere proficiency as we do to nurture those with the greatest potential.

However, U.S. Sec. of Ed. Margaret Spellings says that we need to “close the achievement gap and prepare all children to succeed in the global economy” by reauthorizing NCLB. But what effect does this have on the kids at the top?

In a no-child-left-behind conception of public education, lifting everyone up to a minimum level is more important than allowing students to excel to their limit. It has become more important for schools to identify deficiencies than to cultivate gifts. Odd though it seems for a law written and enacted during a Republican Administration, the social impulse behind No Child Left Behind is radically egalitarian. It has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year. [emphasis mine]

There is so much about this that I could go on and on about. Perhaps I should've made it a two or three-day post. But I encourage you all to read the article for the full story, lengthy as it may be.

Sources: Yahoo News, The Education Wonks; photo: The Davidson Academy of Nevada