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Failing Our Geniuses
saintlupus writes "Time has an interesting article about the failure of the US educational system to properly deal with gifted students. For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones. Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?"
If you're that smart, you should be able to get ahead yourself.
Kids today. Sheesh.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
This is more general idiocy about public education, perpetrated by rich conservatives who all think their kids are "gifted" and need to be in "honors" courses. (My experience with honors courses is that it's the same damn course as the non-honors courses. The only difference is that pampered rich kids get a 4.0 if they get straight B's in their honors courses.) Now the conservatives need to show how the public schools that they ensure are underfunded are "failing" the kids that likely voters think they have.
The public schools are forced to pay for all the Special Ed. kids that the private schools won't take. Let's force them now to spend money on the kids that don't need it. Anything to deprive normal kids of an education. An educated populace is a threat to conservative ideology.
If you are gifted you make your own education regardless of what is being provided. I have yet to find a teacher that won't let a truly gifted student move beyond what the class is learning. If you aren't "being challenged" as Sylvan puts it, you probably aren't gifted. You're probably just a rich Special Ed. kid. Even in elite colleges it seems that so-called gifted students think that education is something they are given rather than something that they do for themselves. It's the "A+ entitlement" mentality. There is an assumption that if they do the work they deserve an A. If they do it AND turn it in on time, they think that it should be an A+.
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