<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'>
<div> <font size="2">It should be no surprise to anyone that the author of this op ed is Chester Finn. It would be lovely if this editorial changed any policy maker's mind, wouldn't it? Perhaps, folks should send this link to state board members along with their representative and senator to ask what they will do about it. My guess is that if anyone responds the term "local control" will be a large part of the response. I think this editorial shows just ineffective local control has been with regard to gifted education. <br>
<br>
--Ann<br>
</font>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Anne Flick <anneflick@yahoo.com><br>
To: Ohiogift <Ohiogift@lists.service.ohio-state.edu><br>
Sent: Sun, Dec 15, 2013 3:08 pm<br>
Subject: [Ohiogift] Brilliant NYT Opinion Piece: "Even Gifted Students Can't Keep Up"<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_2_e6df4c41-0fb4-4894-a658-6a472730673b">
<div class="aolReplacedBody">
<div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><a target="_blank" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/in-math-and-science-the-best-fend-for-themselves.html">http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/in-math-and-science-the-best-fend-for-themselves.html</a><br>
<br>
<h6 class="byline">
<div id="byline">By THE EDITORIAL BOARD</div>
</h6><h6 class="dateline">December 14, 2013</h6>
<div class="article-body">
<div>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 for<a target="_blank" href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Technology_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations.html?id=FyusAAAAIAAJ"> more than half of American economic growth </a>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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>On the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf">2012 Program for International Student Assessment test</a>,
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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<a target="_blank" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/images/100000002600708/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/in-math-and-science-the-best-fend-for-themselves.html?from=opinion" class="related-asset type-image">
<div class="image-container "><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/12/15/sunday-review/15STEM/15STEM-articleInline.jpg"></div>
<div class="text-container">
<div class="image-credit">EKTA</div>
</div>
</a>
<div>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 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nagc.org/index2.aspx?id=548">an estimated three million gifted children in K-12</a>
in the United States, about 6 percent of the student population. Some
schools have a challenging curriculum for them, but most do not.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>But raising the performance of the best students will require the country to do far more. Here are a few recommendations:</div>
<div class="subhead"><strong>Government Support</strong></div>
<div>The
federal and state governments should support education of the gifted
more aggressively. The federal government provides very <a title="Times Op-ED" target="_blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opinion/gifted-students-deserve-more-opportunities.html">little money to educate gifted students</a>
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.</div>
<div>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, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nagc.org/uploadedFiles/Gifted_by_State/state_of_states_2012-13/4082&">only three states</a>
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.</div>
<div class="subhead"><strong>Accelerated Learning</strong></div>
<div><a target="_blank" href="http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/2013-Annual-Participation.pdf">Fewer than 45 percent</a>
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 <a target="_blank" href="http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/STUDENT-SCORE-DISTRIBUTIONS-2013.pdf">received failing scores in May</a>
— 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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div class="subhead"><strong>Early College Admission</strong></div>
<div>The
ultimate form of radical acceleration is to let extremely gifted
students enter college at a young age. The University of Washington has
long <a target="_blank" href="http://gct.sagepub.com/content/36/3/187.full.pdf+html?ijkey=uynf8FJWWWquQ&keytype=ref&siteid=spgct">allowed</a>
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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><a target="_blank" href="https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Kell-Lubinski-Benbow-20132.pdf">A pioneering study</a>
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.</div>
<div class="subhead"><strong>Psychological Coaching</strong></div>
<div>Rena
Subotnik, director of the Center for Psychology in the Schools and
Education at the American Psychological Association, along with several
colleagues, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/rethinking-giftedness-and-gifted-education.html"> has suggested</a>
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.</div>
<div>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.</div>
</div>
<br>
<div></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">
<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">
<div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_3_e6df4c41-0fb4-4894-a658-6a472730673b" style="margin: 0px;font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;font-size: 12px;color: #000;background-color: #fff;">
<pre style="font-size: 9pt;"><tt>_______________________________________________
Ohiogift mailing list
<a href="mailto:Ohiogift@lists.service.ohio-state.edu">Ohiogift@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a>
<a href="https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/ohiogift" target="_blank">https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/ohiogift</a>
</tt></pre>
</div>
<!-- end of AOLMsgPart_3_e6df4c41-0fb4-4894-a658-6a472730673b -->
</div>
</font>