Every Genius Left Behind

MP3 File

"No Child Left Behind" is dumbing down America. That is just the opposite of what it was intended to do . Children are being tuned out when they are too smart. They are treated as Attention Deficit Disorder kids, or given limited attention to their genius status. Fritz Alvarez reports on the problem.

The whole story is being spelled out by some wealthy and smart philanthropists Jan and Bob Davidson who have authored a book entitled Genius Denied. (check it out here)

Here are the facts (Provided by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development):

America has thousands of highly gifted children and millions of gifted children whose intelligence quotients (IQs) qualify them for gifted programs.

• Gifted individuals (IQ 125+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 20 people. Approximately 5% of the population is gifted (IQ 125+).
  
• Highly gifted individuals (IQ 145+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 1,000 people. Approximately 0.1% of the population is highly gifted (IQ 145+).
  
• Profoundly gifted individuals (IQ 160+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 10,000 people.
  
• Approximately 1.5 million gifted students in the United States are under-challenged by standard school curriculum and need an educational program more optimally matched to their abilities.
  

Gifted children are one of the most at-risk student groups in America.

• Research indicates that up to 20 percent of high school dropouts test in the gifted range. (an IQ of 125 or above, or achievement test scores at the 95th percentile).
  
• Gifted children are frequently misdiagnosed as hyperactive or as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) because boredom often leads them to be inattentive in class.
  
• Researchers estimate that about half of gifted students are underachievers.
  
• Gifted students learn more rapidly and desire to pursue subjects in greater depth. They need a rigorous curriculum that matches their ability to learn.
  
• Highly gifted students are the most likely to fall between the cracks in American classrooms – they are the ones experiencing the greatest gap between their potential and what is asked of them.
  
• Gifted children often hide their intellectual abilities in order to make friends. During adolescence, girls especially will “dumb down” to fit in with their peers.
  
• Social development is more closely aligned with intellectual development than chronological development.
  This means that many highly gifted students have little in common with students their age,
  therefore they have trouble forming friendships. These students are more likely to develop friendships
  when placed with their intellectual peers.
  

Gifted education in America is mostly inadequate and underfunded.
The $50 billion federal education budget contains only $11 million earmarked for gifted education - the equivalent of 2 cents out of every $100.

• The only federal funding for gifted students – the $11 million Jacob K. Javits grant –
  goes primarily to research and demonstration projects, not to educate students.
  
• No federal mandate or overarching federal legislation exists to guide state and local school districts to educate highly intelligent students.
  
• Only
  32 states have laws requiring that gifted students be identified; just 29 require that they be served.
  
• Roughly 70% of elementary school gifted programs consist of just 90 minutes to a few hours of “pull-out” enrichment programs per week.
  These programs generally feature non-curricular work such as puzzles or games that do not challenge gifted students in core curricula subjects.
  Many secondary schools serve gifted students by allowing them to take honors classes aimed at the 75th percentile, or by allowing students to move ahead a year in math
  (such as taking algebra in 8th grade). Yet early entrance college programs have found that highly gifted students can usually compress the entire high school curriculum into one or two years. Talent search summer programs find that highly gifted students can learn a year’s worth of curricula in math in three weeks of intensive study.

Anti-intellectualism runs rampant in America.
The number of American students scoring above 1,000 on the SAT declined so much over the past few decades that in 1995 the test was adjusted to “re-center” the scores, having the effect of inflating their numeric value.

• U.S. businesses have been complaining for some time about the lack of highly skilled workers;
  many businesses have to import intellectual talent from abroad.
  
• The No Child Left Behind Act penalizes schools if students do not meet minimum competency
  requirements, but does nothing to ensure that high-scoring children continue to learn.
  
• Because so little time and attention are given to nurture gifted students’ intellectual abilities, we are, in effect, writing off our nation’s brightest young minds.
  By denying them the opportunity to excel, we deny the nation the benefits of what they could
  someday achieve.
  

Anti-intellectualism has Conservative talk show hosts making fun of the intelligent, calling them "Pointy-headed intellectuals." It is, of course, understandable why some of those guys would feel left out of the circle of genius. The painful fact is America as a society is rejecting intelligence in favor of encouraging that everyone be exactly the same. Political leaders and business owners warn us that American workers must now compete in a global economy. It is pretty certain that no class in China has to twiddle their thumbs while the teacher tries to see if the little vegetable in the classroom is conscious at this moment, or he/she takes verbal abuse from young Blinky.

America is in trouble in education and the No Child Left Behind fiasco isn’t fixing it. We can’t just keep giving the smartest kids Ritalin because they are a pain in the ass. We are dumbing down America and Liberals and Conservatives must share the blame.

Click Here
- for some thoughts on what you can do

copyright 2005, D.L. Day