The August 16 issue of TIME Magazine features an article titled Are We Failing Our Geniuses? In the article, John Cloud criticizes the American school system, saying that it “has little idea how to cultivate its most promising students” and that it spends a disproportionate amount of money on students with learning disabilities, often ignoring the need for money to meet the needs of gifted students.

 

He cites that “many school systems are wary of grade skipping even though research shows that it usually works well both academically and socially for gifted students—and that holding them back can lead to isolation and underachievement.”

 

While I agree with much of what Cloud says in this article, I do question some of his conclusions. He states that, while the most recent data indicate that U.S. universities are awarding more doctorates than ever before, the rate of annual increase has fallen dramatically. In 1979 it hit nearly 15% for the year, but for more than a decade now, the number has grown less than 3.5% a year. His assumption is that we are now coasting and the implication is that this is because we are not adequately attending to the education of the gifted. While it may be true that there was a dramatic increase in the number of doctoral candidates following the post-Sputnik era, I question whether the number of students seeking advanced degrees should be expected to increase by high percentages every year. Are there that many people who would benefit from a doctorate? Is a doctorate important to all high-level professions? Is this really a valid measure of opportunities available for gifted students?

 

Cloud also states that the year after President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002, Illinois and Michigan cut large amounts of funding from gifted education. Yet, he offers no documentation explaining the link between the cuts and NCLB. Although there may be a link, he did not provide evidence. He just came to that conclusion on his own.

 

The premises of Cloud's article revolve around The Davidson Academy, a public school for profoundly gifted students that has received a lot of press. But, this is not perfect either. The school’s admission policy relies on test scores. One consequence of this is that its population does not mirror the population of our country. Both girls and African Americans are represented in disproportionately small numbers.

 

A couple of forum threads from The Math Forum@Drexel Website discuss Cloud’s article.

 

One discusses the question of who should be adapting to differences in ability, geniuses or average people? “Special schools for genius children? If the genius child is not adequately exposed to the rest of society, how then will she/he cope later in life?

What about educating all of us 'average people' more effectively, so that we can learn how to live with and work with real genius, giving them adequate emotional support at least, even if we cannot quite match them intellectually? This route is barely explored anywhere in any society or school.”

 

The other questions some commonly used terms or phrases. “The continued assertions that a) there is some monolith called the ‘education industry’ and b) a bias against exceptionally bright students remain, as far as I can see, undefined and unsupported, especially the former.”