Commiserating on How Gifted Students are Ignored by Educators, Policymakers and Those Who Should Care
A post I did almost a year ago about Common Core and gifted students has been receiving renewed activity lately. HERE. HERE is another. I wondered what was up. Why are gifted parents digging into the archives? I realized school for many has been in session for a while now and for parents, including parents of gifted children, reality is setting in. Realizing there is nothing special for your special ed. gifted student is like running into a brick wall.
It reminds me of a parent of a gifted child who once told me that she had attended a meeting with other parents of gifted children. While parents loved their children, many at the meeting expressed that they wished their child did not have gifted qualities. They would have preferred a regular kid.
This stunned me. I even wondered if it was disingenuous on the part of the parents. As a teacher of students with learning disabilities, I’d always thought parents wanted their children to be gifted.
Then it occurred to me, and this was the point this parent was making, gifted children are difficult to understand. Their characteristics can be strange to those in school and even parents. Students and teachers often don’t get these kids either. Unless teachers and parents study what the gifted are all about, it is confusing. And even if they do understand the complexities surrounding these students, it is almost impossible to provide gifted students with the right kind of education. In America, gifted students have never been a priority when it comes to schooling.
In general, at the federal, state and local levels, policymakers have failed to address the needs of gifted students. They just don’t seem to care. In my book, I write about how Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who came before Arne Duncan, said, “Our federal commitment is about those disadvantaged kids, and by damn we’re not doing right by them. We don’t have $12 billion for a gifted and talented program at the federal level.” (p.88) She encourages the state and local governments to do the task. But we all know how that goes.
This is a strange argument on the part of Spellings and those who continually ignore gifted students, because disadvantaged children could be gifted as well and deserve Commiserating on How Gifted Students are Ignored by Educators, Policymakers and Those Who Should Care:
