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In Henrico County schools last year, African-American students made up 36 percent of the enrollment and 7 percent of the children who received gifted education. Chesterfield and Hanover counties saw similar patterns the last school year. Area school officials who provided the numbers acknowledge the disparities and say they've dug in with task forces, targeted programs and studies. But last week, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine put the issue in the spotlight with an order to analyze disproportionately low representation of minority students in gifted education.

APRIL 30, 2009 100 Days: 'Harry, I Have a Gift' By DANIEL HENNINGER Text If opinion polls were real life, Barack Obama would be walking with the immortals. In polls taken as he headed to his 100th day, his numbers are high and heavenly, cruising on issue after issue at 70-plus percent. One number in last weekend's Washington Post/ABC poll, however, stands out. On whether he is "willing to listen to different points of view," Mr. Obama elevates into hyperspace, hitting 90%. Just behind is "he understands the problems of people like you," at 73%. An argument made repeatedly during...

opinion polls were real life, Barack Obama would be walking with the immortals. In polls taken as he headed to his 100th day, his numbers are high and heavenly, cruising on issue after issue at 70-plus percent. APOne number in last weekend's Washington Post/ABC poll, however, stands out. On whether he is "willing to listen to different points of view," Mr. Obama elevates into hyperspace, hitting 90%. Just behind is "he understands the problems of people like you," at 73%. An argument made repeatedly during the campaign by converts to the Obama movement was that this guy simply "gets it."...

Two years ago, Paul Potts, a chubby mobile phone salesman, wowed the British TV public with his performance of Puccini's "Nessum Dorma" to win "Brtiain's Got Talent", The British equivalent to "America's Got Talent". While good, I didn't think Potts to be that fantastic. However last weekend, the third season of "Britain's Got Talent" opened and another diamond in the rough emerged. This one is quite fantastic. Susan Boyle, a frumpy looking 47 year old Scottish spinster, who lives with her cat "Pebbles" and admits she's never been kissed, came out on stage and told the audience she wanted to...

The number of children entering New York City public school gifted programs dropped by half this year from last under a new policy intended to equalize access, with 28 schools lacking enough students to open planned gifted classes, and 13 others proceeding with fewer than a dozen children. The policy, which based admission on a citywide cutoff score on two standardized tests, also failed to diversify the historically coveted classes. In a school system in which 17 percent of kindergartners and first graders are white, 48 percent of this year’s new gifted students are white, compared with 33 percent of...

More minority and poor students in Denver are being classified as highly gifted under a new system that gives extra credit to children who are economically disadvantaged or nonnative English speakers. Denver Public Schools is trying to fix a disparity in the program that serves its smartest and most talented students — which up until now has drawn mostly white students in a district that is mostly Latino.

With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the fact that the law is causing many concerned parents to abandon public schools that are not failing. These parents are fleeing public schools not only because, as documented by a recent University of Chicago study, the act pushes teachers to ignore high-ability students through its exclusive focus on bringing students to minimum proficiency. Worse than this benign neglect, No Child forces a fundamental educational approach so inappropriate for high-ability students that it destroys their interest in learning,...

A growing number of families are homeschooling. Many of these are doing so in order to accommodate their advanced and gifted learners. The advent of the Internet has made homeschool support and information readily available. People in cities, suburbs, and rural areas can access the same online bulletin boards, courses, and web sites. Though some parents spend a small fortune on home education, it can also be done on a very modest budget. Some families take great pride in making the most of their library cards and buying gently used textbooks, joining educational co-ops, or bartering for tutoring services. Why...

At an educators' meeting in Washington last fall, conversation turned to whether the federal government should support programming for this nation's most gifted and talented high school students. Educators overwhelmingly said that top students in secondary schools need no assistance, much to my dismay. Priority must be given to those not meeting the minimal standards in science and math, they reasoned. The ugly secret is that our most talented students are falling through the cracks. Not one program of such major governmental agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation or NASA specifically targets the top 5...

Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise. If "intellectually gifted" is defined to mean people who can become theoretical physicists, then we're talking about no more than a few people per thousand and perhaps many fewer. They are cognitive curiosities, too rare to have that much impact on the functioning of society from day to day. But if "intellectually gifted" is defined to mean people who can stand out in almost any profession short of theoretical physics, then research about IQ and job performance indicates that an IQ of at least 120 is usually needed. That number...

BERKELEY – Charles Pierce really likes playing video games. He practices piano and violin. He used to study aikido, but lately he's been more interested in taking up fencing. Lately, however, the 13-year-old has mostly been hitting the books. Charles is the youngest transfer student this fall at the University of California, Berkeley, where he's now in his junior year. His 14-year-old sister, Mayumi, also transferred in this fall as a junior. Attending UC Berkeley is a bit of a family tradition: Their parents, Wincie Pierce and Qin Ma, met and married while they were students at UC Berkeley in...

OUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. — Before her second birthday, Audrey Walker recognized sequences of five colors. When she was 6, her father, Michael, overheard her telling a little boy: "No, no, no, Hunter, you don't understand. What you were seeing was a flashback."At school, Audrey quickly grew bored as the teacher drilled letters and syllables until her classmates caught on. She flourished, instead, in a once-a-week class for gifted and talented children where she could learn as fast as her nimble brain could take her.But in September, Mountain Grove, a remote rural community in the Ozarks where nearly three in four...

BALTIMORE –– Maryland school districts and nonprofit groups are trying to address the under-representation of minority children in gifted programs. Officials want to correct biases in the ways children are determined to be gifted. They're trying to make sure precocious pupils from poor families don't lose out on gifted programs simply because their parents don't know about them. ... The program expanded the list of factors used to identify children as gifted beyond standardized test scores.