Yet Another Reason for School Choice: Gifted Minority Students are Left Behind
Today's Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) says that the No Child Left Behind Act may be leaving behind some children after all: gifted students.

NCLB distributes federal money to schools based on how well they raise the academic performance of the lowest achievers, in all identified racial subgroups. A school of underachievers that raises performance gets a lot of money; one with already satisfactory performance gets none.

Responding to this incentive, states are shifting money meant to attract and develop gifted and talented students to efforts to raise the lowest performers.

From some point of justice, this is fine. But lost are children such as seven-year old Devion Ross. He was the only African-American child in his Springfield, Ill. Elementary school to qualify for the gifted program. But the school dropped the program after the state dropped its funding to focus on the incentives offered by NCLB. As a result, "Devion now daydreams in the back of his second-grade class." He's the typical smart kid who is doing poorly in school because he isn't challenged.

Devion's parents can't afford to send him to a better school, since their household income is $12,000. If, on the other hand, they were given a voucher or refundable tax credit, they could find another (private) school for him. Thanks to the publicity of the Journal article, Devion will be able to transfer to a magnet school (which is already overcrowded). Other kids won't be so lucky. At a time when minority children are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, that's a shame.

Labels: Education, School choice

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