Failing Our Brightest Kids

Guests: Chester Finn, PhD, and Brandon Wright, JD, Co-Authors of “Failing our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students”; Cindy Taylor, Fifth-Grade Teacher at the Center for Accelerated Studies in the Provo School District  The term “gifted and talented” evokes strong feelings, doesn’t it?  For some it smacks of elitism or others maybe the isolation of being treated differently than your classmates. Not to mention the implication that if some are gifted and talented, then others are not, and therefore lesser in some way.  We tend to prize equality over excellence when it comes to our education system. At least that’s the assessment of two experts who’ve written a book about the many ways we are failing to help our smartest kids reach their potential. They say our national preoccupation with closing the achievement gap in schools has resulted in raising the floor, but not the ceiling.