Losing Our Minds, Gifted Children Left Behind

    

     One of our gifted students just won the state finals of the Geography Bee. He is a student at Greenbrier Elementary, a school with several remarkable brains. But, that is true for most of our schools. According to experts, we have the right socio-economic climate to create a brain-trust of creative learners, at least at levels one through three. Of course, calling such students "gifted" creates its own problems.

     "In our egalitarian society, you have to be brave to describe your child as 'gifted' with its suggestion of elitism and status-chasing. Many people will tell you that all children are gifted, which is true, but not in the sense that the term is used in the field of education." - On Living by Learning

     The Deer Valley Unified School District claims to embrace "gifted education." We even have a gifted academy at Esperanza Elementary School. But, the embracing we give such learners is more like getting a hug from Vito Corleone. Look at the recent budget considerations for our gifted students.
     With the potential risk for deep budget cuts, some of the budget for gifted education was included in the various reduction plans forwarded to the Governing Board by the district administration. By the time the final budget proposals were presented for a vote of the board, gifted education had already been reduced by the superintendent. So, when taxpayers approved the increase in sales tax, the programs that might have been cut were salvaged. But, not gifted education.

     Why the cuts? Simple. It was a case of blame the students rather than the district. Seems that math scores for gifted students weren't any better than the scores for the normal classroom. I guess, it never entered the mind of the administration that maybe we had missed the mark on teaching math to our best students.

     We've lost something with that decision and we need to recover it. We don't want to lose our best minds.