We love to talk about gifted-
ness. We love to talk to each
other about it by the hour.
We go to seminars and talk and listen all
day about giftedness and sometimes
several days at a time. We read and
write books and articles about gifted-
ness primarily aimed at other people
in gifted and talented education and
to the students and parents of gifted
or potentially gifted children.
There is nothing wrong with these things at all.
First, we enjoy talking about gifted-
ness because we are very interested it,
and second, there are many students
and parents that need the help that
gifted and talented education can give
them. But if we are going to broaden
the support for gifted and talented
education in this country, we are going
to have to broaden our message.
Look what special education has
been able to accomplish. But how long
did it take? Both gifted education and
special education have been studied
in academia for about 40 years prior
to World War II, but after the war
special education grassroots advo-
cacy organizations began to spring
up, like the American Association on
Mental Deficiency, United Cerebral
Palsy Association and the Muscular
Dystrophy Association. Then in the
sixties an increasing level of school
access was established for children
with disabilities at the state and local
levels.
The grassroots advocacy for
special education began to swell as
Congress approved Public Law 94-142
"Education for All Handicapped
Children Act" in 1975, but it did not
prove effective until legislation for fed-
eral funding was approved two years
later. It mandated that school districts
provide such schooling in the "least
restrictive environment" possible.
But special education did not take off until
1990 with the passage of "Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act"
(IDEA). Before IDEA, the condition
of special education in this country
was pretty bleak. In 1970, American
schools educated only one in five chil-
dren with disabilities, and many states
had laws that excluded children with
major disabilities like deafness, blind-
ness and mental retardation.
There is no doubt that special education pro-
grams have helped a great number
of students assimilate into the public
education system. However, 80% of
students in special education are there
because of weak underlying cognitive
skills according to LearningRx (http://
www.learningrx.com/).
Therefore, identifying and retraining these cog-
nitive skills is essential for overcom-
ing learning struggles on a permanent basis.
The goals of gifted and talented
education are to identify and train
the cognitive skills of gifted students
whose vulnerability is such that it is
estimated we are losing about a mil-
lion kids a year because the public,
state, and federal politicians still
mostly have the misconception that
if a child is gifted then "don't worry
about it, s/he is bound to turn out
OK”
Unless we want to wait another
forty years, it seems to me our goal
is clear. As much as we love talking
about gifted and talented education
among ourselves, we must accelerate
the grass roots ground-swell by direct-
ing our message to the general public
and especially to our state and federal
legislators.
Currently we in Texas have almost
as many identified gifted students as
we have special education students
(actually it is 1 to 1.4), but in public
education we spend 11 times more on
special education than gifted educa-
tion.
Sadly that number is pretty good
compared to the national average
where special education out-spends
gifted education by over 100 to 1.
But even our 11 to 1 ratio is not all
that noteworthy because a handful of
school districts are spending most of
the money while most school districts
are spending little or nothing. My own
affluent school district is spending 43
times as much on special education as
gifted education.
We in gifted education are the
"tree trucks" of our movement.
However, we need many "leaves" on
our "trees” The "leaves" we need, if
we are to accomplish our goals, are
the support of the general public, and
the state and federal legislators. Tree
trucks can not grow many leaves on
their own, so we all need to make a
concerted effort over a period of time
to grow many "limbs" which can in
turn grow many "leaves”.
This means that since we are small in numbers
we all have to take a proactive role in
educating all of our non-gifted educa-
tion teachers, counselors, principals,
and the parents of our gifted children.
So, all of us need to contact the gen-
eral public and the state and federal
governments, especially the state
legislators. With a new Congress in
Washington DC and a new Legislation
in Austin, there is no better time to
get our message to these very impor-
tant people. What can we do?
This article will be continued next week.
The original article was published in Tempo Magazine in February 2009
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Dick Kantenberger
National Gifted Education Writer, Examiner.com
www.examiner.com/gifted-education-in-national/dick-kantenberger
http://rfkantenberger.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dickkantenberger
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dick.kantenberger@gmail.com
Houston, TX 77024-4026
713-206-9343
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