How Schools Hold Back America'sBrightest Students

[ala...@gmail.com]

Two years ago, I saw a report on "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold
Back America's Brightest Students" by Center for Gifted Education and
Talent Development (College of Education, The University of Iowa):
http://nationdeceived.org/index.html.

Then I read Boston Globe about Massachusetts State Government provided
zero budget for the gifted students. A group of people called themself
"MAGE - Massachusetts Association of Gifted Education" were talking to
the governor for establishing a budget for our smart kids. More
information can be found at: http://www.massgifted.org/

[ala...@gmail.com]

This year I heard some schools received federal funding for starting
pre-school or extended school-day programs, but none reported to have
money for the gifted education programs. The closest one I can say is
the in-school and after-school programs on foreign languages. To my
surprise, French are Chinese are taught in some towns (some by parent
volunteers).

Are there any programs for the students who already know their grade-
level math, science and language and want to learn more?

This is what we are told:
1) Some teachers gave the next level (challenge) worksheets to their
kids as homework, so that the parents could spend some time teaching
their kids - make the learning interesting again;

2) Some students formed their own study groups (with the teacher's
help) to explore new subjects and share their experience in solving
hard questions;

3) Some parents sent their kids to weekend/vacation A+ programs -
these private schools often assign these kids to a higher-grade class
after an entrance exam. This would make these kids' weekday learning
even more boring;

4) Some educational institutes offer some special, I called "over the
top," learning materials in the forms of books, computer games, and
project activities (like Tufts' LEGO Robots and Musuem's Day Camp,
etc.).

However these programs are not designed to cover the curriculum in
sequence/step-by-step. There are many holes in the knowledge base -
not support the accelerated learning process. For example, the squre
root was taught before the power of 2 (or square) was studied.

The gifted kids need more supports. They could learn more if we give
them more opportunities. If you know a good school program that is
designed for the gifted students, please write to us or put your
comments here.