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THE NATlONAL FOUNDATION
FOR
PROPOSAL FOR GIFTED CHILDREN
UNDER TITLE 16-42
Address Delivered To: BOARD OF REGENTS
STATE of RHODE ISLAND
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Ladies and Gentleman:
On July 31, 1976, a group of our foundation parents met with
Dr. Thomas Schmidt to express a very intense concern regarding
the depth of the problems facing Creatively Gifted Children in
our State of Rhode Island. Most of the twenty-two parents who made
a strong appeal to Dr. Schmidt are very dedicated, knowledgeable
and educated professionalB as well as pareats of gifted children.
Dr. Schmidt formed the task force responsible for these regulations
as a result of that meeting. Only one of the group beside myself
was asked to be a member of this committee.
The immediate, urgent and continuing problems facing gifted
children in Rhode Island schools compel me to urge the Board of
Regents to categorically reject this program, as here presented
under Title 16-42. If this proposal is the best this state can do
for these oppressed children, they remain in deep trouble. We
can find no true progress in a program which not only confirms
what Rhode Island has avoided doing but now proposes, in effect,
to not only perpetuate, but to enshrine into a new law, the ma-
chinery of its traditional deprivation of its most creative and
gifted children. The thought behind this new law might have been
to attempt to by-pass a suit presently filed against the State
Department of Education to force the implementation of the 1958
Gifted Law.
The crux of my appeal against the adoption of this tentative
document and the hope that it never become more than that, is that
this proposal is deliberately ambiguous in form, lacks equally in
substance and vision, fails to address itself to the real issues,
and carries no mandate whatsoever for the correction of long-stand-
ing abuses. In this program, which not only avoids all mention of
required compliance, but doesn't offer even a minimum standard or
definition of performance, we have no more than a toothless watch-
dog which is not even allowed to bark.
Among many other things, these regulations should'have had a
preamble that recognizes and admits the unfortunate facts, and con-
sequences, of the deprivation of opportunities for full development
of gifted children --- drug abuse and physical and psychological
damage to which these children have been so consistently subjected.
Rhode Island must no longer be blind and deaf to the living horror
of its long roll-call of case after case, many of which I can cer-
tainly and fully document, and others which the parents here tonight
could also verify from personal and bitter experiences. If you add
to this dismal history the sinister record of undeniable atrocities
against these children that have been concealed by intimidation, fear
and/or ignorance of existing law, then, some of the basic sensitivity
to what this program should really be about might begin to be
properly communicated. Given an earlier respect, support and under-
standing we might have seen Rhode Island already leading in programs
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for the gifted and talented, as opposed to its present, and entire-
ly deserved, reputation for leading the entire nation in institu-
tionally enforced drug abuse as fhe preferred means of "controlling"
too many of these children. This crisis, and the need for a truly
responsive program that so desperately exists today might then not
have to be based on the ugly consequences of Rhode Island's actual
pesformance to date.
I speak from a fifteen-year personal experience of concentrated
work, steadfast commitment and sustained volunteering to help these
children when no one else wanted to recognize their need - or even
their existence as creative and gifted humans. Many a judge has
handed over to me case after case, because he knew no one else would
meet either the need or the challenge. I have also helped the chil-
dren of many a present-day "authority" in this field here in Rhode
Island, when they could not do so themselves. As a consequence, the
openess of my concern for these children has made it all too easy
for some to expropriate what they thought were my ideas and tech-
niques as their own - unfortunately, they seldom got it right, or
completely - but it did lead them to ignore or isolate me as an
alternative to admitting the source of "their" ideas. Few here can
match my experience and record as I stand before you as the Ex-
ecutive Director of The National Foundation for Gifted and Cre-
ative Children.
However, the essential issues here must not be clouded over
by political, personal, or parochial concerns, but remain focussed
on the purpose and the source of our present intentions which should
be meeting the needs of the children which this proposal purports to
serve. Among the dangers of passively accepting this proposal, we
must recognize that its very existence into law will effectively
preclude the subsequent search and adoption of any genuine and
workable future alternative. The cause of these children can only
be massively harmed by such pseudo-solutions which solve nothing at
all, and whose only possible success can be in making successful
solutions impossible. It seems to me that the proposed plan offers
no more than a perpetuation of a past that has yet to wake up to
its deplorable history of inability to cope due to mental blindness
and lack of responsibility. We must correct this past history
not repeat it, and certainly not inbed it into law. We have con-
veniently, and at an immense cost, shut away our present system's
failures in the ACI, various mental institutions, reform schools
among other homes for the emotionally disturbed. Thus, we relieve
ourselves of the burden and, sadly, the immense rewards, of coping
with the danger of potentially gifted contributors in our society.
If we can't eliminate them outright, we can at least consign them
to some permanent limbo by deliberate lack of early detection and
support and, generally, doing as little as possible as late as
possible, under our theory of unbenign neglect. This abysmal failure of
humanistic concern is an absolete indictment of our so-
cial and spiritual priorities. It even fails to recognize the
magnitude of the strictly economic costs imposed upon each of us
taxpayers in the present preference for the permanent maintenance
of the criminal, mental and social cripples it so casually produces -
as an alternative to the temporary and much cheaper proper education
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of its gifted and talented youth. This loss, in terms of human
potential is beyond calculation and beyond forgiveness, and we
may yet be devoured by the monsters of our creation.
I was a member of the GIFTED-TALENTED TASK FORCE ON REGULA-
TIONS, but my experience was neither recognized or utilized, as
this proposal makes amply clear. The National Foundation for Gifted
and Creative Children had established an ongoing school in Lincoln,
Rhode Island which might well have been used by the task force to
its advantage as an example of an actual educational operation work-
ing in this specific area at least well enough for the Courts System,
which referred many troubled children to us. Only one member of
the task force came by to view this operation at work even though all
members were invited to visit us. Significant material developed by
the foundation was freely disseminated to all committee members; it
produced no active interest, much less further inquiry. Since no
actual field experience appears to underlie these proposed regula-
tions, it is no surprise that they read as bland, impossibly general
and essentially insubstantial; under the circumstances. they could
hardly be otherwise. There was a great deal of discussion of money at
these meetings; sound programs do take money but more than money is
needed in this state. We need new courageous and creative leader-
ship on the part of many officials in The State Department of Educat
tion. The citizens must demand accountability from our educational
heads.
I certainly was not a participant in the development and pre-
sentation of these regulations and, as I study them after the fact,
I see nothing in them that I can feel will further this necessity
and cause to which they are nominally addressed. To the contrary, as
I've already said, I see nothing but a proposed continuation, now
strengthened and embedded by the sanction of law, of all the abuses,
and potential for abuse, which I have been opposing for these last
fifteen years. Yet, with all that is being done, and not done, I
continue to receive constant telephone calls from people all over
Rhode Island; parents with children in educational and personal
crisis, asking questions that have no useful answer, all seeking sol-
utions which simply do not exist in this state, and their despair and
frustration are as immense as their consequences are tragic. I hear
the same refrain over and over again; my child's school is simply
not meeting my child's needs - where can I go? what can I do? It
is as unfortunate as it is obvious that, even if the abilities and
needs of these children are properly identified, there is now no
place for them to go to for the kind of supportive education they
so desperately require - and should receive as a matter of simple
fairness.
Yet, under the terms of this proposal, these same local school
districts, school committees and departments of education will be
given the absolute and exclusive power over all programs for gifted
and talented children. It is clear that this proposal intends to
reward their unblemished record of failure with a new franchise into
perpetuity, to the permanent exclusion of any competing entity from
outside the "system". The present sensitivity of those now in charge
of this "system" may be measured by their recorded insistence that
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any parent seeking its financial assistance towards the special needs
of their child must first accept without question, as a necessary
prerequisite of help, its official labelling of the child as either
mentally disturbed, learning disabled, behaviorally disordered or
otherwise handicapped. The lasting damage to any child as an al-
most unavoidable consequence of such invidious, and untrue label-
ling in his or her present and the entirety of his or her future
life and career is obviously beyond the concern of the system, and
is seen as a fair and reasonable price for the help received. I
submit that any reasonable person must consider such a policy rep-
rehensible and morally bankrupt. Understanding this dilemna I
must share the rage of these parents at the way public funds are
used to extort their compliance with such unnecessarily cruel and
demeaning process which is, on the other hand, the only source of
the help their child must have. I see this proposal, if enacted as
presented, as the tombstone over any hope for the present or future
establishment of adequate facilities and educational programs for
the gifted, in which they might be free to learn to their own full-
est capacity from equally gifted and creative teachers in sympa-
thetic surroundings. This is, and has always been, my goal and
the reason for the existence of the National Foundation for Gifted
and Creative Children. I remain convinced that its final success is
absolutely vital, not only for these children, but for all of us -
for, in them, whether we wish it or not, repose all our hopes, and
the entirety of our future. They deserve much better than these reg-
ulations - and so do we.
Respectfully submitted,
Marie Friedel
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