What elected leaders need to know about gifted education

As a former director of gifted and talented programs in the Charleston County School District for five years from 1999 to 2004, I am concerned about the challenges facing our gifted education programs. Gifted education is vital to healthy communities and to our nation's future. As elected officials fulfill their terms in the Legislature and develop their policy plans, they must keep the following in mind:

1.) Gifted education is not about catering to some students over others. Rather, it is about modifying the regular curriculum to match the unique learning needs of gifted students. Gifted students have special learning needs that must be addressed if they are to succeed.

2.) As our world becomes increasingly interconnected and competitive, we must do more to ensure our students will be able to face these challenges. When our gifted students are not challenged and are not educated to their full potential, we are jeopardizing our state and nation's ability to compete in the global economy.

3.) Inadequate support for gifted education hurts all talented students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. These students' abilities often go unrecognized or ignored in classrooms.

4.) Teachers must be prepared to educate gifted students. According to a 2008 national teacher survey conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institution in Washington, D.C., only 41 percent of classroom teachers have been trained to work specifically with academically advanced students; well-trained teachers will lead to better educated students.

Seventy-three percent of teachers agreed that "too often, the brightest students are bored and under-challenged in school; we are not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive."

Seventy-seven percent of teachers agreed that "getting underachieving students to reach proficiency has become so important that the needs of advanced students take a back seat."

Eighty-four percent of teachers say that in practice, differentiated instruction designed to reach advanced students is difficult to implement.

Sixty-five percent of teachers reported that education courses and teacher preparation programs focused either very little or not at all on how to best teach academically advanced students.

Legislative delegates from our local area know well about the creation and opening of the only gifted and talented public charter school in the state designed to serve the academic and social emotional needs of gifted students.

Palmetto Scholars Academy, located at the old Navy Base, was able to met Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in its first year of operation.

Only 27 percent of the schools in South Carolina earned the AYP status, and Palmetto Scholars Academy was the only public charter school able to achieve this accolade under the No Child Left Behind mandate.

Our education policies today are as a whole neglecting our gifted students. Palmetto Scholars Academy is an oasis in the middle of the desert with a charter school open-door policy for bright children. Economic development begins in the classroom.

Lawmakers must focus now on getting these students what they need and deserve -- an opportunity to do their best.

Jean Chandler

Board Member

S.C. Consortium for Gifted Education

Beresford Creek Street

Charleston