[Ohiogift] two more studies on our forgotten gifted students

[Margaret DeLacy]

Here are another set of comments and reports to add to the now overwhelming set of studies about the problem of inadequate services for gifted and high-achieving students in the U.S. 

The first is a commentary in the Education Gadfly this week.  Below is a link to an excerpt from that column: 

http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/america-and-its-high-potential-kids

"America and its high-potential kids" Andy Smarick October 24, 2013

"Throughout much of 2013, a colleague and I worked on a project related to America’s highest-potential boys and girls, students colloquially known as “gifted.” Though I learned a great deal, it was mostly a discouraging enterprise.
In short, this country gives the impression that it doesn’t much care about such kids. We have an astonishingly under-resourced, deprioritized, and inchoate system of school supports for kids on the right side of the academic distribution...."

Here's a link to the downloadable report on which this column is based:

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/guidebook/closing_americas_high_achievement_gap/k_12_education

And below is a link to a report that follows up on an earlier report called "Mind the (other) Gap." (2010).   This new one is called "Talent on the Sidelines: Excellence Gaps and America's Persistent Talent Underclass"  by Jonathan A. Plucker, Ph.D., Jacob Hardesty, Ph.D., Nathan Burroughs, Ph.D. There is no date but it is recent (2012 or 2013).  The website includes a state-by-state summary.

http://cepa.uconn.edu/mindthegap/  

Here is an excerpt (p. 27):

Based on the results of our studies and a growing body of research, there is considerable evidence that America has a permanent talent underclass. Year after year, with billions and billions of dollars spent on interventions and policy initiatives that focus largely on minimum competency, the vast majority of our bright minority children, ELL students, and students of limited financial means underperform academically. The trends we noted in 2010 were depressing, but there were limited signs of hope. The data we explored for the current study
shoul  crush anyone’s optimism about the country’s success in developing
academic talent: The rich are getting richer, so to speak (but not in all cases), and
the poor continue to show evidence of incremental, insufficient progress."

Margaret