The 2009 results of the OECD's PISA exam released in November 2010 are a clear indicator that the current state of education in the US is dismal. President Obama touched on the subject in his State of the Union address last night. A Google search using the keywords us students falling behind brings up 493,000 documents. Obviously the subject is on a lot of people's minds. Amidst all of the handwringing and angst over what is wrong with US students, it's hard to believe that at one time students in the United States were the best educated and highest achieving in the modern world. What happened? How did we fall so far behind? And most importantly...how will we ever catch back up? The change occurred when educational systems stopped looking at students as individuals with unique academic strengths and weaknesses and began to regard them as a herd that, for efficiency's sake, needed to be pushed down the educational path en masse.

Follow up:

During most of the 20th century it was not uncommon to find students grouped within classrooms based on their personal level of achievement. Children were taught together based on their level of readiness. In my own first grade classroom not every student began to learn to read at the same time. As a group of students achieved the basic skills needed to learn to read, a new group began the adventure. The Little Red Birds went first, followed by The Little Yellow, Orange, and Blue Birds as each group mastered the necessary prerequisites needed to learn to read. By Christmas we all were reading at our own levels. The process was repeated in mathematics...but not always with the same students in each group since it was recognized that each child had their own special abilities. By June...we were all prepared to proceed to the second grade. No child was left behind...and no child was held back from racing ahead if they were capable.

Sometime during the later part of the century though...everything began to change. In our increasingly PC world "labeling" a child a Blue Bird was no longer acceptable. It was discriminatory. It might make the child feel bad. Never mind that he is now required to read aloud after a child that at one time would have been a Red Bird...and that Red Bird is required to wait while the Blue Bird struggles. Where at one time each child had the opportunity to excel in their group and the level difference was transparent to them, children today are routinely slapped in the face with the realization that they are different...either smarter or slower than their peers. Where society at one time embraced the special abilities of each child, our children now are being taught to be average. Is it really a surprise to find that US children are no longer exceptional when compared with students around the world?  Children at each end of the spectrum are ostracized for being either too dumb...or too smart and squeezed towards the middle with no real hope of ever making every child equal in education.

The Founder of Creative Tutors addressed some of the issues faced by the special needs child in Mainstream School - Special Needs Child; but what of the gifted child...the child who spends most of their school day waiting for their classmates to catch up so that they can all move on as a herd to next concept? The problem is even more critical when discussing the profoundly gifted child. As June Kronholz points out in her post, Challenging the Gifted, what do you do with a 13 year old linguistic genius or a 16 year old studying nuclear chemistry? In a 2008 survey of how states manage gifted students, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)  found that at least a dozen states do not allow children to enter kindergarten early, regardless of their actual academic level and readiness. Two states do not allow middle school students to take high school classes. Thirty states allow only 11th and 12th grade students to enroll in college classes. And almost no state will waive mandatory-attendance laws for students who have completed high school course work and who are ready to move on. [KRONHOLZ]

It is clear that schools around the country are making no provisions to help the gifted child with their learning difference. Our national aversion to elitism is preventing school districts across the country from singling out gifted children for special programs although no such compunction exists on the other side of the spectrum. How is providing custom curriculum for special needs children any different than providing the same for the gifted child? The answer likely lies in the fact that a child with exceptional learning abilities will always be able to perform at an average level while the learning disabled child will always need assistance to achieve the same proficiency.  "Federal education policy plays into this egalitarian sentiment by prodding the states to narrow the achievement gap between their lowest and highest performers with the result that scores for the brightest kids have barely moved." [KRONHOLZ] The gifted child is left to fend for themself; stagnant, bored, and unchallenged. They wait in limbo for everyone else to catch up; often a feat that is impossible. Many educational experts argue that the US educational system should be embracing our children's different aptitudes by teaching every child to their potential. Just as average and special needs students have a right to study curriculum designed for their learning style and abilities; the gifted child should be provided with curriculum that allows them to soar.

Sources:  Kronholz, June. EducationNext Vol. 2 No. II: Challenging the Gifted. Spring 2011.