The Editor's View

Riding the Wave

Volume 7 / Issue 3 / Spring 2007

The impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation on gifted children has received national attention in recent months. The February 2007 issue of the School Administrator is devoted to the theme “Gifted Education Left Behind.” This magazine is delivered to every public school superintendent in the United States. Be sure to follow-up with your school system’s superintendent to make sure he or she doesn’t miss reading this important issue of School Administrator.

Now is the perfect time to ride the wave and advocate for changes in NCLB that address the needs of our country’s brightest students

With the reauthorization of NCLB on the agenda for federal legislators and the heightened visibility of the unintentional consequences of this law on gifted children in our schools, now is the perfect time to ride the wave and advocate for changes in NCLB that address the needs of our country’s brightest students. Parents should encourage their local school systems and state school board to measure student growth, rather than mere proficiency, as indicators of academic success. While many gifted students are deemed “proficient,” they may not be achieving any academic growth over the course of the school year. If every student’s growth was assessed from year to year, the testing probably would reveal that gifted students are stagnating or losing ground.

A teacher from a rural school system within North Carolina, recently called to indicatethat she had obtained and analyzed gifted student end-of-grade test score data from her school system. Her analysis revealed that 38 percent of elementary school gifted students and 50 percent of middle school gifted students in her district exhibited regression or no growth across the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school years. This data is disheartening, especially when you consider that similar results likely can be found in school systems throughout our country.

Parents and other engaged citizens are encouraged to advocate for a yearly performance growth assessment of gifted students in all states through contact with policymakers, letters to the editor, and op-ed pieces in your local paper. We need to know that all gifted students are making at least one-year’s growth each school year. We need to know that we are appropriately challenging these students, and if we aren’t, we need to devote resources to establish more effective programs that do.

—Kristen R. Stephens, PhD