Wouldn't that be nice - a federal law mandating that gifted children receive an appropriate education. Instead we have No Child Left Behind which has the opposite effect in many areas. It requires that all children have minimum skills at each grade level and exacts severe penalties on those who do not. If little Johnny has already exceeded those standards on September 1 - then that is one less child that MUST be worked on.
Further, this serves as a reason not to grade skip children, unless they have also already exceeded the minimum standards for the grade they have skipped into.
Someone mentioed the other day that we should all be fighting to have gifted children be a group to be monitored in NCLB - at least that way we could insist on minimum yearly progress!
Now if you are lucky, your state might require an appropriate education for all gifted children. Here in Illinois we aren't so lucky.
