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

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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?
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