On Top of the News
Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up
12/14/13 | New York Times

Behind the Headline
Teaching Math to the Talented
Winter 2011 | Education Next

An editorial in Sunday’s New York Times laments the performance of our nation’s highest-achieving math and science students, who increasingly trail high-achievers in other countries. On the most recent PISA test, 34 of 65 countries and school systems had a higher percentage of 15-year-olds scoring at the advanced levels in mathematics than the United States did. The editorial includes several recommendations for boosting the performance of gifted students in the U.S.: more federal and state spending on gifted education, expanding access to Advanced Placement courses, allowing younger students to enroll in college early, and offering special coaching for gifted students.

A 2011 Ed Next study by Paul Peterson, Eric Hanushek, and Ludger Woessman, “Teaching Math to the Talented,” identified the countries and the states that were producing the highest-achieving math students.

Andy Rotherham wrote about effective ways to help our most talented students in 203.

A study that appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Ed Next looked at the effectiveness of some of our current programs for gifted students.

A forum that appeared in Ed Next in 2011 examined tensions between the goals of equity and excellence.

-Education Next