Posted on 05/13/2010 5:51:10 AM PDT by reaganaut1
As California's public schools have increasingly poured attention and resources into the state's struggling students, high academic learners - the so-called gifted students - have been getting the short shrift, a policy decision that some worry could leave the United States at a competitive disadvantage.
Critics see courses tailored for exceptional students as elitist and not much of an issue when compared with the vast number of students who are lagging grades behind their peers or dropping out of school. But a growing chorus of parents and advocates is asking the contentious question: What about the smart kids?
"We have countries like India, Singapore, China, and they realize the future productivity of their country is an investment in their intellectual and creative resources," said gifted education expert Joseph Renzulli.
By ignoring the needs of gifted students, the achievement gap separating the best students from the worst will be closed "by pulling it down from the top rather than jacking it up from the bottom," he said.
Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs even in the best of economic times have gotten only a token nod in school budgets, but in recent years, funding for those programs has eroded further as school districts have grappled with ever-shrinking budgets.
Meanwhile, spending on programs to help the lowest-achieving students has increased with a boost from federal stimulus money and statewide efforts to target struggling schools.
At the federal level, $8 billion has been set aside this year to help the country's worst schools, while the entire $7 million budgeted for GATE - the equivalent of about $140,000 for each of the 50 states - is on the chopping block.
At the same time, California set aside about $39.9 million for the state's 490,000 gifted children.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Smells like communism.
Everything else is up to the individual and family. After a certain point all true education is self-education.
And of course after too much time in any institution, the education invariably is replaced by indoctrination.
Study: States must fill $1 trillion pension gap
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35448576/ns/us_news-life
HARRISBURG, Pa. - States may be forced to reduce benefits, raise taxes or slash government services to address a $1 trillion funding shortfall in public sector retirement benefits, according to a new study that warns of even more debilitating costs if immediate action isn’t taken.
Another time bomb waiting to go off.
I’ve been reading this for years.
Gubermint unions are bankrupting our country...it’ s us VS. them (private sector against public)
—nowhere is it more true than CA an NY. They are the models of our pending demise. don’t expect in government to take any serious action .
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/public.php
What? These are the very voters that the left can herd to the polls to maintain power. Consequently, they want to spend all the money necessary to indoctrinate them. What they are doing is quite rational.
Hey, how about this?
Forget the dumb kids. Put the money on the smart ones and let the dumb ones pick lettuce.
A new wave of workers to replace illegals!
A real "special" might have his own full time aide following him around all day, and yet at the same time derive little educational benefit. Any idea how much resources this takes away from normal and gifted students?
Watching what Democrats and constituents have done to Detroit, we cannot complain about Mexicans. They would not live in that mess either. It isn't the illegals shooting up Chicago and mismanaging the city finances. It is home grown criminals. Which is worse? Which issue takes more resources away from programs? Mexicans are looking for a better life and the home growns are p***ing away knowingly.
“What they are doing is quite rational.”
....exactly!...in my area the population down in the hood/barrio reproduces every 15 years or so...28 year old grandmothers are quite common...the Left is merely harnessing this powerful voting bloc.
The admin's brilliant idea (/sarc) was to try and advance me from 1st grade to 5th. Fortunately, Mom and Dad were intelligent enough to recognize a really stupid idea when they heard it, and nix the plan.
So, the school bounced me around trying to figure out where to stick me. Occasionally, I'd head to the HS library...I'd already gone beyond everything in the elementary school, and what I'd not gone beyond, I'd already read. I remember teaching modules on dinosaurs, coin collecting, and some of my other interests to the older kids. I spent all the time I could at the big public library in the closest town - Mom took me there about once a week.
I spent most of one year - with another kid in the same boat as me - sitting in front of a couple of TRS-80s that the school got from somewhere. (at the time, they were pretty cutting edge tech) We rewrote some text-based games that were on the PCs to make them "cooler".
I'm still in IT today ... guess it stuck. But truly, it revealed the principle failing of elementary schools in this country - they can handle the "special needs" students far better than they can handle the "Gifted" ones, and the end result is that the "Gifted" ones get pulled down.
'Twould be why homeschooling, or at least parental involvement, is so crucial, particularly at early ages.
I'm a hard nose. Stupid kids need more effort to be taught the basics than smart kids. Once the basics are learned, get them out of the system before serious damage is done.
Actually, school choice is the answer. If the money follows the child rather than the school district, parents can pick and choose what is best for the child.
Schools with advanced curriculum would be developed for those able to handle it. Schools with extra-slow curriculum would be developed for those needing it.
The state money would be the same for everybody.
The college schools of education offer many credit hours in such things as child learning, philosophy of education, etc., but generally speaking you will find only one course given on the exceptional child. I always thought it was because prospective teachers didn’t want to be reminded that they were inhtellectually inferior to others attending college.
Maybe California can cut their healthcare programs to provide money for schools...wait a minute...
You're absolutely right.
There's more-or-less a de-facto system for this in place now. I'm in the process of house shopping. The best school districts in our area are nearly impossible to find homes in. Lesser school districts are easy pickings.
Ergo, the better school districts have better tax bases, and more money to spend on the schools, I'd imagine.
If you'll pardon my lack of humility....
One of the hardest realizations that I came to in school was that I was smarter than some (most?) of my teachers. Tough to deal with when you're 10 or 12. "Why are we doing things your way, when this way is (easier / faster / the correct way)?"
I'm sure that I wasn't the only kid who's ever had that difficulty. And, I don't think that it was teenage hubris, either.
Biggest problem that I had with a couple of teachers was when I turned in work that "they didn't believe I could do" (read: probably didn't understand it themselves), and accused me of plagiarism. This happened a handful of times during Jr. High and HS and was really, really hard for me to deal with.
If we don't want parents killing their “imperfect” kids in the womb, then we need to be prepared to have an education system that teaches them what they need to know. Mainstreaming them is expensive and useless, preparing these kids by teaching them basic life skills would be cheaper and lesson the burden they place on society as adults.
FWIW, I went to a small, rural high school where there were no gifted and talented programs. A nearby college offered them and I qualified, so my parents sent me. What a joke, imagine everything presented from a new age, pseudo-intellectual perspective. This was before the days of AP classes and I got much more out of the regular classes taught by “old school” teachers than any of the gifted and talented programs I attended. When I got to college, I was shocked at how easy my Biology and honors English classes were. I also couldn't believe how many of my classmates were struggling to the point of failure. Before we started homeschooling our kids, my oldest was in the gifted and talented program at school as well. I don't think it enhanced his learning as much as the time he spends reading very challenging literature on his own.
Thank you for saying that. A friend of mine works as a "one on one" at a California middle school, which means she follows a special ed kid around all day. The stories she tells me make me want to rip out my hair.
There's truth to that but even there if your kid happens to get assigned a teacher about whom you have reservations you are still stuck for the most part.
Fo shizzle.
'Tis why parental involvement is so important.
I firmly believe that people (teachers, in this case) perform better - or at least act more responsibly - when they know someone is watching. :-)
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