Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education The Bright Students Left Behind

...

Poor test scores show that gifted American children still aren’t reaching the heights they are capable of. How do other nations achieve better results? We set out to examine 11 of them—four in Asia, four in Europe, and three that speak English—for our forthcoming book, “Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students.”

Unsurprisingly we found that culture, values and attitudes matter a great deal. Parents in Korea, Japan and Taiwan push their kids to excel, and often pay for outside tutors and cram schools. So costly has this become, so taxing for parents whose children come home exhausted late at night, that families are apt to have only a single child—unwittingly contributing to their nations’ demographic crashes.

Finland is a different story. Equity and inclusion are the bywords, and teachers are supposed to “differentiate” instruction to meet the unique needs of every child. Elitism is taboo and competition frowned upon. Yet Helsinki boasts an underground of specialized elementary schools that parents jockey to get their children into. Most Finnish high schools practice selective admission, including more than 50 that, as a local education expert told us, “can just as well be called schools for the gifted and talented.”

In Germany and Switzerland, too, the high schools (“gymnasiums”) that prepare students for university are mostly selective. A handful also have intensive tracks with extra courses for uncommonly able youngsters.

Western Australia, like Singapore, screens all schoolchildren in third or fourth grade to see which of them show academic promise. Those who excel can choose to enter specialized classrooms or after-school enrichment programs. Both places also boast super-selective public high schools akin to Boston Latin School or the Bronx High School of Science.

Both Ontario and Taiwan treat gifted children as eligible for “special education,” much like disabled students, giving them access to additional resources. But these students are also squashed under cumbersome procedures: For instance, a committee must review their progress annually, and generally they may not transfer out of the school that the bureaucracy assigns them to.

What lessons can the U.S. take from this research on how to raise the academic ceiling, while also lifting the floor?
...

Chester Finn is an advocate of the Common Core, which will eventually standardize education and eliminate tracking in order to cut costs. I'm not sure how that supports gifted children, lumping all children into one pathway.

My cynical immediate reaction to this snippet (have not yet read the whole article) is that it doesn't seem like any other country has it figured out. Perhaps some advantages to the Western Australia/Singapore and German/Swiss models.

Chester Finn also supports vouchers and tax credits to charter schools, private school scholarships, and education non profits.

These amount to $1.5 billion lost from the Treasury per year.

Chester E. Finn Jr. has three very bright granddaughters. He thinks they "have considerable academic potential and are not always being challenged by their schools." Finn is not just a proud grandpa; he's a long-established expert on education policy with the Fordham Institute and Hoover Institution.

So it's not surprising that his grandkids got him wondering about — and researching — a big question: How well is the U.S. educating its top performers?

His answer: not very. "High achievers are being neglected in all sort of ways by schools that had no incentive to push them farther up."

His research became a book, with co-author Brandon Wright, out next month from Harvard Education Press. It's titled Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students. It contains an analysis of the U.S. issue, plus case studies on gifted education from a dozen countries around the world.

I'm curious whether the students in Hong Kong who were tested were already top performing students, or at least average or above, because the low-level kids were filtered out and tracked to non-academic career pathways. In the US, the scores reflect all the kids, even the ones who come from low SES and have low cognitive ability. So in Hong Kong, and similar high-performing countries, who is being tested?

Look at China as a whole. Seventy-five percent are illiterate. Since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, economic policies have changed to favor the wealthy few. One of these policies has been the privatization of schools. Today the Chinese government contributes the equivalent of 1 cent per year, per child to their education. The young people toil away in factories without basic rights and basic benefits, that we take for granted, to pay for the education of one relative. The hope is that one relative can pull the entire family out of poverty with an education. The exams are so important. If the child does not receive the highest marks, he cannot go on to college and that entire family investment is wasted. It's definitely high-stakes testing. Unfortunately, the rural poor do not have access to the best schools and tutoring programs necessary to pass these exams, so the odds are not good for them.

Look at China as a whole. Seventy-five percent are illiterate.

I wouldn't want education funds to be used for teaching intelligent design, for example.

The brightest students not only fall behind, but often reach the bottom in society... They know the work is neither mentally stimulating nor is it of any practical use.

Unsurprisingly we found that culture, values and attitudes matter a great deal.

Edward, I'm sorry for your painful experiences. I hope it is somewhat healing to have the support, understanding, and validation of the members of this Davidson Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

The Davidsons began the Institute for Talent Development specifically due to recognizing that the gifted population was underserved.

Much of what you've observed is also reported by research, including this article, recently posted to another thread.

Parents and experts in the field continue to advocate for change. Meanwhile I would tend to agree with you that the public schools may not be the best placement for gifted students, when other learning environment options are available. There are several old threads which discuss experiences with public schools, including:
- How do you feel about the public school system? (Oct 2013)
- Public v. Private (Dec 2013)
- Ped told my dd public school not working! (Jan 2014)
- Who is better IDed in public school? (March 2014)
- What questions should I ask a new public school? (March 2014)
- Success Stories of HG+ in Public Schools? (March 2014)
Parents may often default to public schools out of financial necessity and/or to obtain special ed services such as remediation and accommodation when their child has been evaluated as being "2e" (twice exceptional: gifted and also having a learning disability).

Some may say the most important point in the OP's article is: