an
affiliate of National Association for Gifted Children
FROM: Terry James Mohaupt, Chairman, Parent Affiliates
Subject: [Wall Street Journal Gifted Article]
The article regarding Gifted Education and No Child Left Behind is on the front
page of today's Wall Street Journal. Here is a copy. Please share the
article with all who might benefit. Also included is an excerpt of
communication with Dan Golden, the author....
By Daniel Golden: "I've gotten loads of emails today praising the
story... I
plan to do at least one more story on gifted ed, and maybe more. (The next
one will be about the resistance of neighborhood schools to sending gifted
kids to magnet schools, and about how Ohio lets the neighborhood schools
keep the test scores. A visit to Youngstown, Ohio, may be in order.)
...Also, here's an online copy...."
Brain Drain: Initiative
to Leave No Child Behind Leaves Out Gifted---Educators Divert Resources From
Classes for Smartest To Focus on Basic Literacy---Blow to Bright Minority Kids
By Daniel Golden
2,493 words
29 December 2003
The Wall Street Journal
(Copyright (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- To make sure even the most disadvantaged students learn
the three R's, Congress two years ago passed a law known as No Child Left
Behind. National test scores suggest it is indeed helping the weakest
students.
There's just one problem: It may be leaving behind some of the strongest.
The 2001 law, championed by the Bush administration, calls for all
public-school students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Schools
must make steady progress toward these goals. They face penalties if they
don't continually raise their proportion of proficient students, both
overall and within various racial and other categories. Schools that miss
milestones can be required to pay for outside tutors and let parents
transfer children elsewhere. But a school faces no penalty if top students
tail off as long as they remain proficient.
To abide by the law, schools are shifting resources away from programs that
help their most gifted students. Because "all the incentives in No Child
Left Behind are to focus on the bottom or the middle," says Stanford
University education professor Michael Kirst, "reallocating resources
there
makes sense if you want to stay out of trouble."
Illinois eliminated its $19 million in state funding for gifted-student
programs this year, spurring Springfield and some other school districts to
trim their offerings for top students. California reduced funding for such
initiatives by $10 million, or 18%, a deeper cut than the cash-strapped
state imposed in most other education programs.
In Connecticut, which doesn't provide state funding for gifted-student
education, 22% of school districts last year reduced or abolished programs
they had been funding on their own. And East Providence, R.I., where several
schools fall short of goals set by the No Child Left Behind law, plans to
drop a program for the most promising elementary and middle schoolers, while
increasing funds for reading initiatives. Officials and advocates for the
gifted in all of these places cite the No Child Left Behind law as causing
or at least contributing to the cutbacks.
This shift in the delicate balance between the pursuits of excellence and of
equality may create a more knowledgeable U.S. citizenry overall. That's a
goal important to economic competitiveness and a flourishing democracy. But
reducing programs for the best students also could make it harder to
replenish -- and diversify -- the country's ranks of top intellectuals and
scientists.
The effects may be felt most by gifted low-income minority pupils whose
parents don't have the option of shifting them to private schools or
providing outside enrichment to compensate for cutbacks. Moreover, the
priority changes wrought by the law are coming just as districts had been
making progress in identifying and nurturing brainy minority students,
who've long been underrepresented in such programs.
Seven-year-old Devion Ross lives in a ramshackle house opposite a pawnshop
in Springfield. He and an older brother recently slept several nights on
bare mattresses in a front room because a raccoon had gnawed through their
bedroom ceiling.
In kindergarten, Devion scored in the 99th percentile on an intelligence
test, making him the only African-American at his elementary school to
qualify for services for gifted children. In first grade, during weekly
sessions with a specialist, he arranged cubes in intricate patterns and
solved logic puzzles designed for older students.
But this fall, Springfield dropped that program after state funding for it
vanished. Devion now daydreams in the back of his second-grade class, rarely
raising his hand. His report card brims with "unsatisfactory" grades,
he
often fails to hand in homework, and he has been suspended four times. His
mother says he is bored and needs "that one-on-one attention."
"I believe we could do away with affirmative action [in college
admissions]
if the needs of these young, bright minority children are met at an early
age," says Susan Rhodes, gifted-education coordinator in Springfield.
"But
No Child Left Behind leaves them behind, because it doesn't let us spend
money on children already meeting the standards."
Test scores seem to reflect the shift in priorities. In the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, low-achieving public-school fourth and
eighth graders have posted larger gains since 2000 than top students. In
fourth-grade reading, for example, the bottom 10% of students jumped 10
points on a 500-point scale. The top 10% of students showed only a two-point
gain. In eighth-grade math, the bottom 10% of students rose seven points,
compared with just one point for the top 10%.
Eugene Hickok, acting U.S. deputy secretary of education, says top students
made smaller gains because "it's easier to bring a student up from an F to
a
C than it is from a B-plus to an A." The Bush administration's highest
education priority is to narrow the achievement gap between minority and
white students, the official says.
Mr. Hickok says No Child Left Behind may unearth some diamonds in the rough:
gifted students scoring below proficiency level. School districts shouldn't
use the law as an excuse for shortchanging the brightest of any race, he
says: "It's a false dichotomy. If they get rid of the achievement gap, the
entire school should improve."
One reason gifted-child education is vulnerable to cutbacks is that the U.S.
government doesn't mandate programs for the three million or so students
considered to be in the category. The federal contribution is limited to
$11.2 million a year for research and state grants. More than half of states
require districts to offer gifted-student programs, but few provide enough
state aid to cover the cost. Even so, many school districts set up such
programs over the years, including "magnet" schools, regular sessions
of
independent study and museum tours.
Now, they're making hard choices. The Plymouth, Mass., district last year
began dismantling a program for gifted students. It reassigned the program's
three teachers to regular classrooms. One Plymouth school principal, Lyman
Goding, says resources needed to be shifted because some schools barely meet
No Child Left Behind targets in math. Plymouth also is paying teachers $100
a day to tutor struggling students during summers and school vacations.
Before Plymouth's program for the gifted was discontinued, eighth-grader
Marina Ramsay says she studied everything from robotics to the stock market.
She won first prize in the state science fair for a project on the effects
of magnetic fields on plants. Now her classes rarely excite her. In science
this year, Marina says, she was assigned to "memorize the order of the
planets in the solar system. I learned that in kindergarten." Her parents
are considering teaching her at home next year.
Meanwhile, Fairview Elementary in High Point, N.C. -- 85% black or Hispanic
and 95% from low-income families -- has raised its proficiency rate sharply
by intensively tutoring low achievers. Only one segment has lagged. "The
group here that did the worst was our academically gifted children," says
Carol Forsyth, a third-grade teacher.
Illinois, in addition to eliminating last year's grants for gifted-child
education, stopped requiring districts to identify top students and develop
programs for them. Brenda Holmes, an education aide to Gov. Rod Blagojevich,
says he figured that identifying preschoolers at risk of failure was
especially important, and $29 million more went to that task. Gail
Lieberman, federal liaison for the state board of education, says these
spending shifts also reflected the impact of No Child Left Behind.
The Jefferson Middle School in Springfield landed on a watch list for
showing insufficient progress under the law. It responded by targeting 60
low-scoring students for improvement and putting them in classes of just 20.
The move increased high achievers' class sizes to 30 or more.
English teacher Barbara Boosinger, a former Jefferson "teacher of the
year,"
says that though she prefers teaching high achievers, she switched to the
lower track because of the smaller classes. "No Child Left Behind is a
real
joke, because children are going to be left behind," she says. "It
may be
the ones in the higher track, because they didn't get the individual
attention they needed."
In Springfield, as in much of the country, white children have long been
overrepresented in gifted-student programs. Donna Ford, an Ohio State
professor who has studied the issue, cites several reasons. She mentions a
lack of referrals of promising minority students by some white teachers,
possible cultural bias in tests, and a reluctance by some black and Hispanic
students to participate because "they don't think it's cool."
A federal survey in 2000 found that blacks made up 17% of public-school
students but only 8.2% of those in programs for the gifted. For Hispanics,
the figures were 16% of all students and 9.6% of those in programs for the
gifted.
By contrast, whites made up 62% of public-school students and 74% of
gifted-education pupils. Asians, while just 4.1% of all students, made up
7.1% of those in programs for the gifted. Gaps in Illinois are similar.
Kendra Lockhart was among low-income minority students to benefit from the
full array of services Springfield once offered for gifted children. Kendra
was reared by her grandparents because her mother couldn't afford to support
her. In small groups in their neighborhood schools, she and other talented
students met in weekly sessions with Ms. Rhodes, Springfield's
gifted-education coordinator. Ms. Rhodes nurtured Kendra's interest in
science by taking her to meet doctors and observe laboratory research at
Southern Illinois School of Medicine.
In 1999-2000, Kendra transferred to a magnet school Springfield had set up
for gifted children. She was one of three blacks in a sixth-grade class of
28.
(MORE)
At first, Kendra says, she floundered academically there. She was so lonely
she argued with others in hopes of being sent back to her neighborhood
school. But when her family told her she had to stay in the magnet school,
known as Iles Elementary, "I figured I might as well start getting
along,"
she says. Persistence paid off, and she scored 197 out of 200 in the state
eighth-grade math test. Now she's a Springfield High sophomore, and the only
black in her German class. She hopes to become a psychologist.
Recently, Springfield has made strides toward diversity in gifted-student
education. All kindergarteners now take the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test,
which requires them to detect patterns of geometric shapes and aims to
eliminate the influence of parental education and socioeconomic status.
"It
levels the playing field," says the test's developer, Jack Naglieri of
George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Top scorers on the test, along with
high-achievers nominated by teachers, are eligible for Springfield's
gifted-student services.
Devion Ross scored 141 out of a possible 150 on the test as a kindergartener
in January 2002. At home, he often reads or does word puzzles while his
friends play outside. He is writing a book of several chapters on the
family's 10-year-old computer, which was bought second-hand for $100 and has
a broken mouse. "I like to read books all day long," he says.
"I'm the only
one I know that writes stories. It's a special secret I keep."
His first chapter, called "The Three Boys," displays a flair for
math. "One
day, three boys named B.J., Maurice and Stanley wanted to go to the bowling
alley. But they had $98 and it cost $202 to get in the bowling alley," the
story reads in part. "So they went to their mom and their mom gave them
$202
and they had $300 and they got in the bowling alley."
Devion's high Naglieri score brought him an invitation to attend the magnet
school last year. His parents didn't follow up on it. His mother, Lasand,
says she missed the appointment, exhausted from working an overnight shift
as a caretaker. His father, Steven, was recently laid off from a bookbinding
job. The five-member family has a $12,000 annual income, say the parents,
both of whom have high-school equivalency diplomas.
Devion would have continued having weekly sessions with a specialist in
gifted-child education. That was before Illinois -- its priorities under
pressure from the No Child Left Behind law -- ended its grant for gifted
education. Springfield had used its share of the grant to fund the weekly
sessions. Deprived of the money, it ended them.
The discontinued program had served as many as 550 talented students a year.
That's more than twice as many as in the Iles magnet school, which wasn't
funded by the state gifted-education grant and therefore was largely
unaffected.
Devion attends class in a middle-class white neighborhood, under a
desegregation plan. His second-grade teacher there, Paula Gruebel, says she
is unaware of his Naglieri score. She says she doesn't look at
intelligence-test results for fear of prejudging students.
Specialists in gifted children say some exhibit behavior problems and
inattention when their intellectual needs aren't met, and Devion seems to
fit that mold. He has been barred from two field trips because of
misbehavior. Mrs. Gruebel says he is "extremely bright, but he's not doing
the work he can do" and often doesn't follow directions.
She recently told the class to write to Mickey Mouse, congratulating the
cartoon character on his 75th birthday and on being a good role model.
"Second-graders have to learn how to write a friendly letter," she
said.
Devion began the heading, but Mrs. Gruebel corrected him for putting the
date on the top-left side of the page instead of the top-right. He changed
it, but then lost interest. Afterward, Devion said the assignment bored him
because he prefers Pokemon to Mickey Mouse: "I could write 100 pages about
Pokemon. A whole book."
Devion may soon get more instruction that's geared to his abilities.
Although the Iles magnet school is so crowded it rarely accepts transfers,
after The Wall Street Journal began looking at Devion's situation, he
was
invited to transfer in. He is expected to start there Jan. 5.
---
Who Gets Help
States have shifted education aid priorities since the "No Child Left
Behind" law put stress on basic skills. Here are some changes Illinois has
made.
FY
2003
FY
2004
Programs for gifted children
$19
million
0
Reading improvement grants
$79.6
million
$79.3
million
Aid for at-risk preschoolers
$184.2
million
$213.6
million
Note: Fiscal year ends June 30
Source: Illinois Board of Education
CONTRIBUTORS:
Daniel Golden, The Wall Street Journal
Susan Rhodes, Principal, Iles School, Springfield, IL
Sally Walker, Executive Director, Illinois Association for Gifted
Children