Leave No Gifted Child Behind

By Susan Goodkin
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A25

Conspicuously missing from the debate over the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is a discussion of how it has hurt many of our most capable children. By forcing schools to focus their time and funding almost entirely on bringing low-achieving students up to proficiency, NCLB sacrifices the education of the gifted students who will become our future biomedical researchers, computer engineers and other scientific leaders.

The drafters of this legislation didn't have to be rocket scientists to foresee that it would harm high-performing students. The act's laudable goal was to bring every child up to "proficiency" in language arts and math, as measured by standardized tests, by 2014. But to reach this goal, the act imposes increasingly draconian penalties on schools that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" toward bringing low-scoring students up to proficiency. While administrators and teachers can lose their jobs for failing to improve the test scores of low-performing students, they face no penalties for failing to meet the needs of high-scoring students.

Given the act's incentives, teachers must contend with constant pressure to focus their attention simply on bringing all students to proficiency on grade-level standards. My district's elementary school report card vividly illustrates the overriding interest in mere proficiency. The highest "grade" a child can receive indicates only that he or she "meets/exceeds the standard." The unmistakable message to teachers -- and to students -- is that it makes no difference whether a child barely meets the proficiency standard or far exceeds it.

Not surprisingly, with the entire curriculum geared to ensuring that every last child reaches grade-level proficiency, there is precious little attention paid to the many children who master the standards early in the year and are ready to move on to more challenging work. What are these children supposed to do while their teachers struggle to help the lowest-performing students? Rather than acknowledging the need to provide a more advanced curriculum for high-ability children, some schools mask the problem by dishonestly grading students as below proficiency until the final report card, regardless of their actual performance.

Perhaps these schools, along with the drafters of NCLB, labor under the misconception that gifted students will fare well academically regardless of whether their special learning needs are met. Ironically, included in the huge body of evidence disproving this notion are my state's standardized test scores -- the very test scores at the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act. Reflecting the schools' inattention to high performers, they show that students achieving "advanced" math scores early in elementary school all too frequently regress to merely "proficient" scores by the end. In recent years the percentage of California students scoring in the "advanced" math range has declined by as much as half between second and fifth grade.

Many gifted students, of course, continue to shine on standardized tests regardless of the level of instruction they receive. But whether these gifted students -- who are capable of work far above their grade level -- are being appropriately educated to develop their full potential is not shown by looking at test scores measuring only their grade-level mastery. Nor do test scores indicate whether these students are being sufficiently challenged to maintain their academic interest, an issue of particular concern in high school. Shockingly, studies establish that up to 20 percent of high school dropouts are gifted.

When high school faculty members face the prospect of losing their jobs if low achievers do not attain proficiency, what percentage of their resources will they devote to maintaining the academic interest of high-level students? How much money will administrators allocate to providing advanced courses? How many of the most experienced teachers will teach honors, rather than remedial, classes?

Surely we can find a way to help low-achieving children reach proficiency without neglecting the needs of our gifted learners. If we continue to ignore gifted children, the NCLB may end up producing an entire generation of merely proficient students -- a generation that will end up working for the science leaders produced by other countries.

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Any teachers out there want to comment on this?

My mother, aunt, and a few friends are employed in the public school system.

Not one of them has said anything other than the NCLB act is the worst legislation they've ever seen. You have autistic kids, and many special needs kids in class with everyone else. That's got to be quite a distraction. Plus, the schools around here really haven't gotten any extra funding to make it work. My mother's school actually lost 2 teacher's aids when their budget was cut. It doesn't make sense.

My mom's a teacher. She says basically the same thing.

My wife is a teacher, one of my best friends (A W backer) teaches, my sister is a teacher. I also know at least 10 other teachers so I've sat around listening to teacher babble many many times and I have never heard them say anything positive about NCLB.

I figured no teacher would like the NCLB act...

but.....

Does it "help" lower IQ/ability kids at the expense of higher IQ/ability kids?

The way this op-ed reads, it sounds like educational equality is being put ahead of educational quality in the name of helping those less fortunate. I can't think of anything worse for our nations future than an entire generation of average kids. How are we suppose to compete in the global marketplace with nations that value higher achieves instead of punish them?

Should some kids get left behind so that our nation can still produce the best of the best?

absolutely true... we spend so much damn time worrying about kids who are LD and BD that we get no time for the smart ones... it's a joke, and it's killing our education system


great article, btw

Not to mention all the programs being cut all over the country. I keep hearing about art and music programs being cut all over the place......schools actually keeping the heat down so low that kids are freezing. Tech programs and schools being cut, etc. The education system is not looking good right now.

It doesn't help anybody, even the lower-level kids. Basically, it puts all the emphasis in education on standardized tests. If kids don't do well on the tests, schools get money taken away from them. So what happens? Teachers end up being forced to spend the vast majority of class time teaching the students how to pass the test instead of really educating them. The kids (if they're lucky) end up as test-taking experts, with no real knowledge of the subjects they're supposed to know. It's an idiotic program.

And besides the fact that it is innefective, I cannot believe that people in Congress who call themselves conservative would vote for a program that amounts to an enormous unfunded mandate.

That's horrible. I can't say I'm really surprised. Everywhere I look something new is going downhill in America.

Excerpt from Blueprints for the Destruction of the Earth. It's a bit lengthy, I know.

“What problem should we next add to our list?” he asked, looking at both the men seated with him.
Glenn waited quietly, not feeling the need to jump in with any other issues that he knew Colin was already aware of.
Jeff frowned. “Hm,” he muttered. “It’s hard to think of any. To be honest, I feel like schools do a pretty good job.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Colin chided. “We’ve already established that society’s struggles are reflected on the education system. It was agreed, was it not, that schools must not be achieving all that they should because society is not achieving all that it should.”
“I suppose.”
“So what is preventing this from happening?” Colin asked.
“Well, time, for one thing. We only see students for a relatively small fraction of their lives…as a Language Arts teacher, you have them for an hour a day…”
“Forty minutes.”
“…forty minutes a day, five days a week, for nine months or so, minus holidays and other time off.”
Colin nodded. “This is a good point. Inadequate time is a problem. So how do we overcome that?”
Jeff blinked. “You want to overcome….time?”
Glenn laughed.
“Quiet, you,” Colin pointed his fork at him. Then he simply looked back at Jeff, as though waiting for him to continue.
“Erm,” Jeff closed his eyes. “I don’t think I can create time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not our goal.”
“Then what is?”
“We need more time.”
“I don’t want to play any more,” Jeff crossed his arms.
“Tough shit. This is a small hurdle, you’re just over thinking it. We only have so much time, but we need more, so…”
Jeff shrugged. “We…change the way we’re using what time we have?”
“Precisely!” Colin gave a thumbs-up. “And how do we do that?”
“Find ways to be more efficient?”
Colin’s thumb dropped, and he looked disappointed. “Goodness, no. Efficiency is for adults, not so much twelve year olds. Besides, in which direction are you going to center your efficiency?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Then you’d be a terrible member of a marching band. But that’s alright…what I mean is, are you going to more efficiently teach math? How would that even work?”
“No. By efficient, I mean less time with pep rallies, or all those holiday-related things that use up instructional time.”
Glenn frowned. “The fun stuff?”
Colin glanced at him. “If the high school presentation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ is what you call ‘the fun stuff,' I hope I never get stuck in your classroom. But you have a point. Stuff like that takes a relatively insignificant time out of the year, and it makes for some great positive school experiences for children.”
“I know,” Jeff replied, “but I’m just trying to figure out where you’re trying to go with all this.”
“Just give me your version.”
“Hm. Well, I think that a lot of small things eat up time. I know that behavior takes up an enormous chunk of each school day.”
“But isn’t behavior one of the things we’re trying to help kids with?”
“Yes, but if I teach that I don’t have time to teach anything else.”
Colin smiled. “You just stated the problem.”
“That I don’t have time to teach both?”
“No. The problem is that you’re wasting your time teaching.”
Jeff looked skeptical. “Now I’ve really lost you.”
“Alright, imagine this,” Colin rubbed one eye, “Suzie is in your class. She reads below grade level, has a hard time with spelling, and often tries writing the way she talks. As a result, her essays often read like half-completed thoughts, because she’s slow enough that she never finishes one before she’s ready to move on.”
“Hum.”
“What do you do to better use your time to help her?”
“Well,” Jeff clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, “I imagine that I would do a unit on informative writing to help her overcome the informal nature of her essays, and introduce small weekly spelling lists.”
“Interesting. But in the same class you have Kyle, who writes just fine (as far as format is concerned) and reads alright, but has impossible-to-read handwriting and dull word choice. He uses the same verbs over and over again. Also, he almost never turns in his homework.”
“I think I see where this is going, but I’ll play along. I always had handwriting work in my classroom, so that would help him, and spending a few weeks on using verbs in writing would help him out, too. Detentions could be assigned to make sure he gets his work done.”
“If he shows up for them.”
“Right.”
“You’ve already used up a good chunk of your year,” Colin observed, “and you’ve only met the needs of two students.”
Jeff smiled. “I knew that’s what you were up to.”
“But I’m not done. One last student. Beth sleeps during class, is sick often, has poor social skills which result in her being teased by the other students, and is unable to process directions more than one step at a time. She needs glasses but hates them and always leaves them at home. Her parents are at work before she goes to school, and aren’t able to make sure the glasses get there. She can’t see the board.”
He nodded. “Sounds familiar.”
“I imagine,” Colin said. “There’s a Beth of sorts in just about any classroom.”
“It sounds to me like Beth’s needs are going to require more one-on-one attention. She may need special ed classes…”
“Nope. She was already tested and she scores just above the maximum for special ed placement.”
“Hum. Well, let’s just describe it as one-on-one assistance as needed.”
“Every day?”
“It’ll have to be.”
“Alright,” Colin nodded. “that will add to the amount of time each of the units you’ve already selected will take.”
“I know, but there’s no real choice there.”
“That’s true, by your logic.”
“Not by yours?”
“Right.”
“Well, then,” Jeff leaned forward, “tell me what you would do about these students.”
“That’s where we’ll go later.”
“I just want to know,” he insisted. “I’m tired of answering questions and getting no information. Indulge me.”
Colin stared at the table a moment, deciding whether or not to do so. “Okay. I think you made one major mistake in all of that. It’s a big one, and it forces you to paint yourself further into a corner with every subsequent reaction to a student need.”
“What’s that?”
“You decided to teach them.”
Jeff laughed, hard. Nobody else did. “You’re not serious,” he insisted.
“Sure I am. You decided that the best way for them to improve was for you to instruct them, to show them, to present for them just as you were for us this morning.”
“Is there an alternative to that? One that will achieve the same level of benefit?”
“I’m not sure the level of benefit is as high as you think. I know that some people love and learn from lecture, but those are also people who would specifically choose a lecture format if given the option and are a relatively small percentage of the population.”
“So you’re not big on lecture.”
Colin shrugged. “Ever met a college graduate who wasn’t all that intelligent?”
“Most definitely.”
“Well, there you go. Lecture is even more common in college than high schools. That person was a graduate of a decade or more worth of lecturing.”
“You can’t prove that lecturing is why they’re not intelligent. Don’t be rediculous.”
“No, but the very existence of their stupidity is proof that it didn’t make them smart,” Colin countered. “People graduate from colleges every day with not a spark of that great thinking mind. Where is it? What is the point of college, if it does not serve to improve?
“Colleges are salary increase facilities. That’s it. That’s all. People talk about them this way all the time. ‘Go to college, get a great job.' It’s such a well-stated truth, isn’t it? What they’re really saying…the underlying message there…is that the hope of a great job is what college has to offer. Not new insight. Not a fresh look at life. Not even knowledge, in some cases. Just money.
“There are colleges, universities, that stand against this trend. Generally they are more prestigious and off-limits to most of the populatin, but at least they exist somewhere. The heart of the misfire in public education is also a the heart of similar cancers in private and higher education. And that is what we are talking about now.” He took a breath, his rant over.
Jeff glanced at Glenn, again. Glenn just shook his head. “This is going to go in a weird direction, I’m afraid,” he smiled.
“But not yet,” Colin reminded him. “For now, let’s just restate the problem.”
Jeff nodded warily. This conversation was bordering on surreal. “How about: there is not enough time for teachers to completely meet the needs of every learner and provide subject-based instruction.”
“Sure,” Colin agreed.
“Maybe the problem,” Glenn cut in, “is that teachers are expected to meet the needs of every student.”
Colin thought for a moment. “Tell me, Mr. Willis…if a child is a remedial reader and you do not in some way address that, will it affect that child’s ability to partake in your classroom?”
“You know it will,” Glenn said.
“Then of course I expect you to deal with it.”
“Wait, though,” Jeff frowned. “I still don’t understand the problem. I mean, I know that we don’t have enough time and I know what we need it for, but I can’t see any direction to look for a solution in.”
“Obviously,” Colin pointed out, “the solution will be in whatever direction frees up more of your time without taking away from the degree to which your classroom is a learning environment.”
Jeff frowned in thought. “Hm. Alright, I guess…but I’m still not sure I get it.”

“I don’t promise that we’ll be able to solve anything, today,” Colin admitted, “but I do believe a solution exists.”

I must not be getting that.

Is Rollins trying to say that a bad solution "blueprint for destruction" is to remove underperforming students from normal classes or is he saying that keeping them in the classes is where the problem lies?

That's not Rollins. Although the title was his, from a spoken word yonks ago, the passage is from a book.

I worried that it might not be as clear, taken out of the context of the rest of the novel, but for crying out loud that's too much of a passage already. I'm not putting in more.

It really is unclear to me as posted. Maybe you could just sum up what the point of the unabridged passage was?