8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
EDUCATION
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
Funding for gifted programs comes under scrutiny
A new report by a national organization details wide disparities between states regarding efforts geared toward top students
BY DORIE TURNER Associated Press
ATLANTA — When Liz Fitzgerald realized her son and daughter were forced to read books in math class while the other children caught up, she had them moved into gifted classes at their suburban Atlanta elementary school.
Just 100 miles down the road in Talaferro County, that wouldn't have an option. All the gifted classes were canceled because of budget cuts.
"If they didn't have it, they would get bored and distracted easily," said Fitzgerald, whose children are 14 and 12. "It just wouldn't be challenging."
Such disparities exist in every state, according to a new report by the National Association for Gifted Children that blames low federal funding and a focus on low-performing students.
The report, "State of the States in Gifted Education," hits at a basic element of the federal government's focus on education: Most of its money and effort goes into helping
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low-performing, poor and minority kids achieve basic proficiency. It largely ignores the idea of helping gifted kids reach their highest potential, leaving those tasks to states and local school districts.
and we ended up on the moon," said Del Siegle, a University of Connecticut researcher who wrote the report. "We really need to consider that again. We cannot afford as a country to ignore talent."
"in the age of Sputnik, we put money into math and science,
The federal government spent just $7.5 million last year
on research and grants for the estimated 3 million gifted children in the U.S. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to eliminate that money entirely, but Congress put it back into the budget each year.
Gifted programs are typically paid for by local districts or states and vary dramatically. In some states, it's as stark as one county with multiple gifted programs — magnet schools, honors courses and separate classrooms for advanced learners — next to a county with nothing.
president of the Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education and the mother of two gifted children.
Just six states pick up the whole tab for gifted programs, and 13 don't put a single dollar toward such curriculum, according to the
"If I'm middle class and my kids are gifted and talented,I'm going to find a charter school or ... find a private school."
"The quality of gifted services is dependent on geography, and it shouldn't be," said Laura Carriere.
MARTHA FLOURNOY Former gifted instructor
gifted and talented children, which, if left unchecked, will ultimately leave our nation ill-prepared to field the next generation of innovators and to compete in the global economy"
For Bellevue, Wash., mother Julie Plaut Warwick, a gifted program was the only option for her now 16-year-old son, who is in a magnet high school in the Seattle suburb.
"He would be very bored and would have gotten in trouble," she said. "If you're in a regular classroom and you repeat things two or three times, he gets incredibly bored and frustrated."
the federal No Child Left Behind
Law, which was passed in 2003, forced states to focus on bringing struggling children up to grade level — inadvertently exaggerating the problem even more, Siegle said. A Fordham Institute study released last month showed gifted students are still improving their standardized test scores, but not as quickly as low-performing children.
As the economy has tanked, some states are shifting money away from gifted programs to help balance their budgets. The report shows that 13 states — more than half of the 23 that actually fund gifted education — made such cuts in 2008-09.
In the Oxnard School District just north of Los Angeles, that means Martha Flournoy, who ran the district's gifted program for a decade, is back in the classroom.
She said the students who are suffering the most are bright children from poor families.
"If I'm middle class and my kids are gifted and talented, I'm going to find a charter school or go to a neighboring district or find a private school," Flournoy said. "That does not happen with all kids."
Some oppose having separate classes for gifted kids. Mara Sapon-Shevin of Syracuse University argues that gifted programs create "haves and the have nots." She prefers grouping students together and then tailoring the curriculum to each child. Sapon-Shevin kept
her own daughter out of a second- grade gift program in the 1980s.
"In the unit on birds, the gifted children would learn myths about birds, go bird watching, build bird houses, learn bird calls, do bird identification," she said. "The problem came when I raised my hand and asked what the other second-graders were doing. They said 'work sheets.'"
But for educators like Sally Walker, gifted programs help bright children reach their highest potential, putting future doctors, scientists and engineers in classrooms where they don't feel embarrassed for being smart.
Walker recalls the day she was testing a particularly bright 5-year-old boy in her gifted program in a Rockford, Ill., elementary school in the 1980s. She asked him what color coal is and gave him three options: black, purple and gray.
The boy marked all three answers and told Walker that coal was black indoors, purple in the sunshine and gray if it burns.
"These are students who are ignored because of the myth that they will make it on their own or succeed without help," said Walker, now executive director of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children. "They get frustrated because they feel they are not being understood."
LAW
Biden calls health-care vote a victory
Vice president applauds the Senate's move to begin debating the legislation
BY MIKE GLOVER
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa — Vice President Joe Biden told Iowa Democrats on Saturday that the Senate handed the president a big victory with its decision to move forward with debate on sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation's health care system.
"Tonight we have more momentum than we've ever had in the history of health care discussions," Biden told about 1,000 Democrats in Des Moines.
Biden's comments at the Iowa
Democratic Party's largest fundraiser, the Jefferson Jackson Chair, came shortly after the 60-39 vote in the Senate that cleared the way for a full-scale debate on the health care bill. Biden said his speech was delayed as he worked the phone to lobby swing lawmakers.
"I see the special interests raising tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat our agenda." Biden said. "We've never thought change would be easy. You all knew change would be hard. It's hard to change the direction of a nation that's been adrift for at least eight years."
Republicans have cast the health care bill as a costly government takeover, built on budget gimmicks.
"Those who voted for reform will be rewarded and those who voted against it will be held accountable," Biden said.
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He pointed to the Senate's vote as the latest sign of progress.
The 39 senators who voted against moving forward with debate were all Republicans, and the House approved its version of the bill earlier this month on a near party line vote.
Obama easily won Iowa in last year's election, and Democrats hold the governor's office as well as majorities in both legislative chambers.
In recent months, however, there have been signs the party may not fare as well next year. Polls have shown Gov. Chet Culver, running
for re-election in 2010, badly trailing the leading Republican candidates. And a poll published by The Des Moines Register on Saturday shows Obama's approval rating has fallen to 49 percent in the state, down four percentage points from September and 19 from January.
Biden argued that as issues such as health care begin to take shape, Democrats will reap political gain. He dismissed those he called "noisy" critics, such as those who shouted at lawmakers at health care forums throughout the country earlier this year.
"Progress in this country has never been produced by yelling and saying no," Biden said. "For those of you who stood with Barack Obama from the beginning, you have heard the doubts. When Barack and I talked about change we meant it."
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