Meet the needs of all kids
For better or for worse, federal guidelines have established policies and procedures that undergird the education of special education students. The same cannot be said for the education of gifted and talented students. Defined as children with abilities far beyond what is normal for their peers, the traditional grade-level curriculum is insufficient to meet their needs. Gifted children require higher levels of challenge and differentiated educational programs and/or services in order to realize their full potential. In Minnesota, parents sometimes opt to open-enroll their children into nonresident districts when they find that their home districts do not offer the level of challenge their children need. For example, a study of the services for gifted students in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district confirmed what parents there had long known — gifted students are not now receiving the level of academic rigor they need. Consequently, parents such as Jennifer Wilson have been looking for other options. In the fall, her daughter Sophie will leave the district to attend Atheneum, a magnet school in Inver Grove Heights for gifted children. In another example, the parents of Devin Heule used Minnesota's open enrollment law to move him from Ramsey to Spring Lake Park, where he recently graduated with top honors — at the age of 14. In this district, providing accommodations for gifted students is seen not as an inconvenience but rather as an educational necessity. According to district literature, Spring Lake Park practices flexible ability grouping, where the "intentional grouping of gifted students within a regular classroom with a teacher who has the desire and expertise to work with gifted students" is seen as a necessary means to meeting the needs of these children. The fit was right for Devin, and he excelled. Districts across the nation differ in how they respond to parental requests for enhancing services for gifted/high-ability students. When parents in Nashville approached the school board with evidence that not enough was being done for gifted students, the board formed a task force to study the issue. Within five months, the task force made recommendations and developed plans to "step up their responsiveness" by upgrading course offerings at the middle and high schools. In contrast, parents and consultants evaluating the middle school program in Howard County, Md., recommended that one way to address the needs of gifted students was to implement flexible ability grouping, instead of forcing teachers to use mixed-ability grouping across the board. In spite of this recommendation, and in spite of the fact that a local survey found vast majorities of both teachers (66 percent) and parents (72 percent) in favor of such a move, the administration refused to listen. The result? The number of parents in Howard County who home-school their children or send them to private schools has increased by 50 percent. In a different twist, fear of accountability has resulted in decisions that have detrimental consequences for gifted students. A study in Los Angeles found that some schools deliberately avoid identifying gifted students "out of fear that the child will then transfer out [to district magnet schools] and lower the school's all-important test scores." Critics sometimes call services for the gifted "elitist" or "unfair," and those with extreme views argue that all children should receive the same instruction as gifted learners. But the fact is that the needs of children should drive the services they receive. If one of your children has an ear infection, you don't give penicillin to everyone in the family. Individual needs should dictate the prescribed treatment. Unlike in the past, parents now have the tools to be savvy education consumers. Sources such as the Minnesota School Performance Report Cards, produced by the state Education Department, arm parents with up-to-date and important facts and figures about their schools so they can make informed decisions about how best to meet the needs of their children. If parents cannot find appropriate educational opportunities for their children within their districts, they will search for those choices elsewhere. These options might include using the open enrollment provision to transfer to another public school, enrolling in private or charter schools, or turning to home schooling. Some parents have even created charter schools to help address their children's needs. In Spring Lake Park, the district motto is: "High expectations, high achievement for all. No excuses." And they practice what they preach. Cheri Pierson Yecke, Ph.D., is Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education and Social Policy at the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis, and former Minnesota commissioner of education. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted. |
Cheri Pierson Yecke