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Friday, December 2, 2011

Cheating the Gifted? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Cheating the Gifted? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Cheating the Gifted?

It's an argument that seems to bubble up cyclically. It doesn't matter what the hot policy idea du jour is, someone is bound to assert: What we're doing right now does not serve the needs of the gifted!

The question was raised in the Rising Tide of Mediocrity era: What were we doing to nurture those promising leaders who would keep America #1? Debates about tracking have never gone away, pitting "low-achieving" students against "America's brightest." Even the recent flurry of interest in Finland's great results is accompanied by little yeah-but digs: "High-flying students might get neglected in a system set up to improve the bottom and the middle."

After a decade of federally mandated accountability, predicated on closing the achievement gap, Michael Petrilli