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-- Gifted and talented elementary school children have mastered 35
to 50 percent of the grade curriculum before starting the school
year.
-- Most elementary school classroom teachers make few provisions
for gifted and talented children.
-- The curriculum offered to top students in the United States is less
rigorous than in other countries. The U.S. students do less
homework, read fewer demanding books and aren't as
well-prepared to enter the job force. The survey found some high school students spent less than an hour a day doing homework.
The nation is failing its smartest students, who sit bored and
unchallenged in classrooms and ultimately learn less than their
counterparts around the world, according to the most
comprehensive federal study in two decades on the status of
education for the gifted and talented.
The report, by U.S. Department of Education, recommends a more
challenging curriculum for these children and a better system for
identifying them, rather than relying simply on IQ tests and
achievement scores.
Many of the country's most talented students are enveloped in a
"quiet crisis" in which they are not encouraged to work hard or
master rigorous and complex material, according to the report,
presented to educators yesterday at the annual conference of the
National Association for Gifted Children, in Atlanta.
"American education is now at a turning point -- one that requires us
to reach beyond current programs and practices." Education
Secretary Richard W. Riley said in the 33-page report, "National
Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent."
About two-thirds of public schools offer programs for the gifted and
talented, but many entail little more than two to three hours a week,
the report said. The students -- roughly 3 to 5 percent of the student
population -- spend most of their time in classes that do not require
much effort.
Many textbooks have decreased in difficulty by two grade levels in
the last 20 years, and few if any publishers produce textbooks
aimed at above average students, the report found.
It said a survey of high-achieving high school students reported that
they spent less than an hour a day doing homework. And in
elementary school, even before they begin the school year, gifted
and talented students have mastered 35 to 50 percent of the basic
curriculum, yet they are required to attend classes anyway.
In one national survey, only two cents out of every $100 spent on
K-12 education in 1990 supported special opportunities for talented
students.
The result, according to the report, is a dearth of high-achieving
graduates, particularly in mathematics and science forces many
large companies -- such as Texas instruments, Bell Laboratories,
and IBM -- to fill jobs, particularly in research, with people educated
outside the United States, the report said.
Not since Alexis de Tocqueville chronicled America's ambivalence
toward intellectuals in the 1830's have the signs of low academic
expectations been so visible, the report said.
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