The Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education is asking for the public's support for House Resolution 139, which would require a comprehensive study of educational programs available to gifted students in Pennsylvania school districts. (See Guest View, this page.)

Before you say, "so what?" consider all the rhetoric we continually hear about how American students are falling behind their foreign counterparts, especially when it comes to test scores. We're all too familiar with headlines such as "Global rivals still outscore U.S. students" (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11, 2012) and "Harvard study: U.S. 'middling, not stellar' in student achievement gains" (July 25, 2012, nbcnews.com). And the list goes on.

Want to do something about it? Perhaps the single most important thing we can do for the American educational system is start systematically working to make every student reach his or her full potential.

That's not going to happen by inertia. It's not going to happen by teaching to the test or expecting every school student to achieve the same things in the same way at the same time. It's going to happen by encouraging excellence at all levels, even though doing so is not exactly neat and tidy.

The title of the first chapter of the book, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students," published in 2004, is "America Ignores Excellence." Strong words, yes, but authors Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline and Miraca U.M. Gross have tons of research to back up their statements.

"In every state, in every school, in huge cities and in tiny farm communities, students are ready for much more challenge than the system provides," reads a segment of the first chapter. "These children perform better than any politician dares to expect. They are the top scorers, the ones who break the curve. They are the kids who read shampoo bottles at age 3, and read newspaper editorials at age 5. They can add up the cost of groceries faster than a cash register. They shock their parents and wow their grandparents.

"But when they enter school, things change. They're often the most frustrated students in the classroom. They're bored in kindergarten, and they're bored again in first grade. Year after year, they learn little that they haven't learned already. They hope things will get better, but things rarely do. For many of them, nothing changes."

I can attest to the truth of this excerpt. My daughter, Kayleigh, now 20 and a student at Lehigh, was doing simple math before kindergarten. When she wanted to learn multiplication in first grade, the school's response was "we don't do that until third grade." One teacher actually asked me not to allow her to teach herself cursive because they hadn't gotten to that yet. I had to continually fight to get her access to the most advanced books in the school library.

So what my daughter and I heard the school saying was "Students must wait to learn until the curriculum catches up with them."

Ridiculous.

By the time Kayleigh was in seventh grade, she had developed a negative attitude toward school. She was still getting good grades but she was beginning to contemplate whether the time in school when her brain wasn't engaged – which was most of the time – might be better spent being disruptive.

That's not as far fetched as it sounds. Gifted students are sometimes among the lowest achievers, according to the National Association for Gifted Children.

"Underachievement describes a discrepancy between a student's performance and his actual ability," says an article on the NAGC website. "Gifted students may become bored or frustrated in an unchallenging classroom situation causing them to lose interest, learn bad study habits or distrust the school environment. Other students may mask their abilities to try to fit in socially with their same-age peers."

While I can't remember the exact source, when I was involved with PAGE, a state affiliate of NAGC, I heard it said school valedictorians – and probably quite a few of the highest achievers – are not typically gifted. They're hard workers. I see nothing wrong with hard workers accomplishing much and being recognized, but I also see something terribly wrong with allowing the abilities of gifted students be squandered.

It's difficult to draw a simple analogy to show why educational programming for gifted students benefits everyone. However, that doesn't mean the connection isn't there. It's not hard to see, for example, how allowing a student like my daughter to become a discipline problem – which surely would have happened without intervention – would be a detriment to the entire school community.

I also believe if we can get better, more individualized programming for gifted students, we can begin to break free of this ridiculous notion that levels of academic achievement should correspond primarily to age. We would not require a young, outstanding athlete to sit on the bench until everyone else's skills caught up. We should not be doing this in our classrooms. The research cited in "A Nation Deceived" shows making students wait to learn does not even benefit those who need time to catch up.

I hope readers will support H.R. 139, regardless of whether their children are identified as gifted. It may not make an immediate difference for children who will graduate in the next couple of years. But it could have a profound impact on the youngest ones at a tremendous benefit to all of us.

It would certainly be nice to see headlines that read something like "American students among highest achievers."

It certainly won't happen if we continue to hold back those with the potential to become the highest achievers.

Johanna S. Billings

editor

Whitehall-Coplay Press

Northampton Press

Catasauqua Press