No doubt No Child Left Behind has made a bad situation worse - but even if that Act had never been passed, gifted children would still be suffering from neglect.

It is not just in the USA that this is a problem, it is everywhere.

My son, Ainan, is a scientific child prodigy aged 7 and though Singapore, where we live, is supposedly pro-gifted, nothing much is being done to help him. All that he has ever learnt has almost entirely been acquired at home. It is sad, really. Yet, that is the reality of education for gifted children. Often, I think, schools are a waste of time, for the most gifted - they are just dens of utter boredom.

Carry on the good work of educating the public on gifteness.

Kind regards

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As a educational consultant working with gifted and twice-exceptional students and their families, I have heard many stories from clients and teachers in the classroom that confirm what you described as the "devastating effect" of NCLB on the performance of gifted children.

These stories have a disturbing thread running through them. It seems that now, more than ever before, gifted children are giving up and shutting down academically in the face of the numbing process of test preparation. In essence, gifted students are totally frustrated and saddened by the loss of the creative activities teachers must eliminate to prepare for the relentless schedule of testing.

Hopefully, parents of gifted children will make their voices heard and tell their stories to our legislators who have the power to rescue our gifted from the current version of NCLB and replace it with an assessment tool that truly respects and honors all our children and our teachers.

Regards,

Cathy Risberg
Minds That Soar, LLC
mindsthatsoar@comcast.net

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I would love to see this topic plastered everywhere. It is very difficult to recruit parents into advocacy when they are provided age based standardized test scores telling them all is well for their child without the background information that such assessment results are of much less value than they believe. The nation quietly, and shamefully consciously, sacrifices our gifted minds to a target of grade level proficiency.

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It is something I do not understand. According to my rehabilitation counseling program, 70 percent of people with disabilities do not have job after they finish high school. What a waste of our tax money. I am gifted who is Deaf and a proud mom of two hearing kids who are gifted.

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