Recently, the Texas legislature passed a law that allows districts to give 2 weeks off to any student who passes the state's mandated accountability tests. Even worse, HB 524, currently before the legislature, would allow school districts to only require 4 days of school per week for “certain high-performing students." I mention this here because Texas often acts as a barometer for the educational mood of the rest of the country, and I think this particular mood is not a positive one for gifted education.

According to this kind of legislation, if your children can pass the state's skills test, we don't even pretend that public school holds any educational value for them. They can just go home. Getting rid of the gifted kids gives "teachers more one-on-one with the students who are not passing," Suzanne Marchman, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman, explained in the Dallas Morning News. Clearly, we here in Texas are just focused on making sure everyone passes the tests, and we don't have time to bother with students who already can.

This kind of legislation is the direct result of the half-cocked "No Child Left Behind" initiative. The problem with No Child Left Behind is that it's wrong-headed. Anita Sharpe, in her blog, asks if the initiative wouldn't be better named "No Child Should Get Too Far Ahead," and I think she's right. Here's the basic idea behind "No Child Left behind" in the form of a sports metaphor. Your child's baseball coach announces that, from now on, every practice will be designed to ensure that every child on the team can pass a mandated minimum baseball-skills test. Those children able to exhibit mastery of the basic skills can go home because there is simply no time to coach anything beyond the basics. If you feel your child has baseball skills beyond the required minimum, perhaps you should enroll him or her in a special summer program because "we here in this baseball program are not interested in teaching all those new-fangled skills needed to actually win a baseball game."

I'm just tired of this. Those of us in gifted education have been running from this fight for too long. We watch as gifted programs get dismantled. We stand by as gifted children are placed back into regular education classrooms where they are forced to drill and practice for state achievement tests that they can already pass. We watch as thousands of parents pull their gifted kids out of public schools and place them in private schools and homeschools. We stand back as state universities eliminate teacher-training programs in gifted education. And I, for one, am tired of it.

I think it's about time that we as parents and teachers of gifted children get outraged at what's going on; time that we start raising hell with administrators who want to eliminate gifted programs in our schools; and time we start supporting those teachers out there who are going the extra mile for children of advanced ability.

And that's not enough. We've got to take an active role with legislators who don't support advanced academics. Through letters, phone calls, or votes, let those politicians who vote for legislation like that just passed in Texas know that we've had enough.

You've heard it before from shortsighted administrators, "Parents of gifted children are pushy." Well, let's start living up to our reputation and push with all we've got.