Thank you for sharing this thought provoking article.
Trying to digest this thought:
"Lubinski’s unusually successful cohort was also a lucky group from the start—they participated in the study in the first place because their parents or teachers encouraged them to take the SAT at age 12. Previous research into gifted children has shown that many, or even most of them, aren’t so lucky: They aren’t identified early, and they don’t necessarily get special attention from their schools."
Familiar with children who took out-of-level academic talent search tests,
specifically to help encourage teachers/schools/districts to provide appropriate curriculum and pacing... these kiddos, from a broad range of SES, at 12 years old had spent a range of 5-7 years in the public and/or private school systems... years which were largely characterized by benign neglect and no
special attention from schools, whether "identified" or not. Some may even go so far as to say that children were "identified" to determine who not to teach.
There may be great danger in presuming that a child having taken the SAT at age 12 (or any other out-of-level academic talent search test at any age) is an earmark of the child having been the beneficiary of support, challenge, special attention, or appropriate curriculum placement/pacing from their school.
More from the article: "
Politically, it raises the fraught question of whether our education system should be in the business of identifying and segregating elite students—an idea that has been tried and rejected before, for good reasons."More from real life: Kiddos may have long been
identified and segregated, not for appropriate curriculum and pacing (as the article seems to imply) but rather "identified" and segregated to be recipients of benign neglect in the classroom. Several forum posts discuss gifted children receiving no instruction.
The article referring to students with a rare and extremely high intellectual profile as "elite" students may seem to imply wealth or high SES amongst these students, as the definition of "elite" is somewhat ambiguous as to indicating a high amount of
talent, power, or wealth.
