[Ohiogift] Brilliant NYT Opinion Piece: "Even Gifted Students Can't Keep Up"

[Anne Flick]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/in-math-and-science-the-best-fend-for-themselves.html


By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
December 14, 2013
In a post-smokestack age, there is only one way for the United States to 
avoid a declining standard of living, and that is through innovation. 
Advancements in science and engineering have extended life, employed 
millions and accounted formore than half of American economic growth since World War II, but they are slowing. The nation has to enlarge its pool 
of the best and brightest science and math students and encourage them 
to pursue careers that will keep the country competitive.
But that isn’t happening. Not only do average American students perform poorly 
compared with those in other countries, but so do the best students, 
languishing in the middle of the pack as measured by the two leading 
tests used in international comparisons.
On the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment test, the most recent, 34 of 65 countries and school systems had a higher 
percentage of 15-year-olds scoring at the advanced levels in mathematics than the United States did. The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland 
all had at least twice the proportion of mathematically advanced 
students as the United States, and many Asian countries had far more 
than that.
Other tests have shown that America’s younger students 
fare better in global comparisons than its older students do, which 
suggests a disturbing failure of educators to nurture good students as 
they progress to higher grades. Over all, the United States is largely 
holding still while foreign competitors are improving rapidly.EKTA
Federal, state and local governments and school districts have put little effort into identifying and developing students of all racial and economic 
backgrounds, both in terms of intelligence and the sheer grit needed to 
succeed. There are an estimated three million gifted children in K-12 in the United States, about 6 percent of the student population. Some 
schools have a challenging curriculum for them, but most do not.
With money tight at all levels of government, schools have focused on the 
average and below-average students who make up the bulk of their 
enrollments, not on the smaller number of students at the top. It is 
vital that students in the middle get increased attention, as the new 
Common Core standards are designed to do, but when the brightest 
students are not challenged academically, they lose steam and check out.
Analysts and scholars have studied international trends and identified the 
familiar ingredients of a high-performing educational system: high 
standards and expectations; creative and well-designed coursework; 
enhanced status, development and pay of teachers; and a culture where 
academic achievement is valued, parents are deeply involved and school 
leaders insist on excellence.
But raising the performance of the best students will require the country to do far more. Here are a few recommendations:
Government Support
The federal and state governments should support education of the gifted 
more aggressively. The federal government provides very little money to educate gifted students and state financing is spotty, with many states leaving it to local 
school districts. The states face a loss of federal funds if students 
don’t reach minimum proficiency levels, but they are given no such 
incentive to propel top students to defined standards of excellence. The federal government should require schools to monitor and improve the 
performance of their gifted students, backed up with financial 
incentives. Only eight states track the academic performance of gifted 
students as a separate group.
More money could help create a corps of teachers trained in identifying and teaching highly talented 
students. Many such students are never identified because of assumptions that overlook minority and low-income students. Currently, only three states require their general education teachers to have some type of training 
in gifted education and only 17 states require teachers in programs for 
the gifted and talented to have a credential for gifted education.
Accelerated Learning
Fewer than 45 percent of the nation’s public secondary schools offer Advanced Placement 
courses, which inject extra rigor and are intended to prepare students 
for more challenging work in the first year of college. That’s not 
enough, especially because the courses are increasingly popular when 
they are offered. At the same time, a disturbing number of the exams 
taken by A.P. students received failing scores in May — from 38 to 43 percent in biology, physics B, calculus AB, statistics 
and chemistry — suggesting that too many students are not being prepared adequately and taught well.
In past years, the College Board, 
which administers the program and the exams, has been justifiably 
criticized for requiring too much rote learning of a broad range of 
facts, and too little time for in-depth study, lab work or creative 
ventures. But now the board is beginning a drastic revision of its 
courses and exams, which will focus on the most important core concepts 
of a subject and leave more room for students and teachers to become 
more creative.
These courses are often missing in rural areas, 
which lack enough talented students and qualified teachers. It’s a 
perfect opportunity to take advantage of high-speed Internet service, 
making use of online materials and video learning to bring expertise to 
the most distant schoolhouses.
Early College Admission
The ultimate form of radical acceleration is to let extremely gifted 
students enter college at a young age. The University of Washington has 
long allowed a select group of seventh and eighth graders, none older than 14, to 
skip high school entirely and enter a one-year “transition school” in 
which they live at home to ease the social adjustment while taking 
courses on campus taught by an experienced faculty. The courses include 
physics and precalculus along with English, history and ethics. In the 
following year, transition-school graduates become regular full-time 
students.
Follow-up surveys have found that these early-entrance 
students do well academically and socially compared with regular 
students and with other talented students who have not skipped high 
school. Most acquire graduate degrees and some found their own start-up 
companies. A more modest approach used in some communities allows gifted students to take some courses in nearby colleges while still in high 
school.
In addition, SAT tests that are typically used as college 
entrance exams could be administered to some students before age 13 to 
identify who might easily jump ahead to a high school class in a 
particular subject. A few of these precocious students might be what 
researchers call the “scary smart,” whose reasoning ability, as measured by math or verbal SAT scores, puts them in the top 1 in 10,000 for 
their age group.
A pioneering study has followed a cohort of those extremely smart students for 25 years. 
It found that they have made outstanding contributions to advancing 
scientific and medical knowledge, earning tenured professorships, 
developing software, receiving patents, and serving in leadership 
positions in Fortune 500 companies and in technology, law and medicine. 
Such students could easily do the academic work in a high school class 
while remaining with their age peers in other subjects, or could explore real-world learning through internships and apprenticeships, 
potentially for school credit. The cost would be minimal. No need to 
hire or train new teachers or write new curriculums. Just add another 
student to an existing classroom.
Psychological Coaching
Rena Subotnik, director of the Center for Psychology in the Schools and 
Education at the American Psychological Association, along with several 
colleagues, has suggested that gifted students receive psychological coaching from well-trained 
teachers and from mentors outside the school system, to strengthen their ability to handle stress, cope with setbacks and criticism, take risks 
to achieve a goal, and compete or cooperate with others as needed. Such 
skills are often as important as brain power to achieve success. She has also proposed that the main goal of gifted education should be to 
produce not just experts but individuals who will make pathbreaking, 
field-altering discoveries and products that shake up the status quo.
There is little reliable evidence on the best ways to educate gifted 
students; much of what exists was produced by programs promoting their 
own success. Federal agencies should finance careful, unbiased studies 
of many of the programs in use: specialized schools for science, 
engineering and math students; courses for gifted students within a 
regular high school; enrichment programs in the community; after-school 
mentoring by local scientists; summer programs for high school students 
at leading universities; and in-depth research projects under the 
guidance of outstanding high school or professional mentors. There is no shortage of good ideas, but proof that they work — along with the money and will to back them up — remains lacking, a disservice to the 
students on whom the future depends.
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