Over the weekend the Baltimore Sun ran a story entitled “The Others Left Behind.” The scope of the story was statewide, highlighting the uneven delivery of gifted services county to county. Montgomery and Howard were cited as exemplary in that for the past 20 years they have been identifying, grouping and providing advanced curriculum to gifted students.
As is not always the case in these kinds of articles, I was pleased to see that some well-respected experts were quoted in the story: Joyce Van Tassel Baska, Sally M. Reis, Linda Brody.
But what I found most intriguing was this paragraph: “Despite the bright spots in Maryland, educators say much more can be done to help students. [State education chief Nancy M.] Grasmick said the state is looking “very seriously” at adding regulations to identify students and mandate services. I’m curious to know what might be in the works.
Also noteworthy was the brief discussion of what constitutes “gifted.” The article states that some educators consider the top 1% to be truly gifted, but “most gifted programs are aimed at a much larger audience — the very bright students who make up as much as 20 percent of the school population.
Which makes one then wonder at the fact that MCPS identified a whopping 39.4% students as gifted in its spring 2007 second grade screening.
