Open Letter to President Bush

Final Draft of the letter sent to The White House and then published as an Open Letter in Education News, August, 2008 and in TEMPO Magazine, February, 2009.



August 4, 2008

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Subject: Education’s “Wag the Dog”

Dear Mr. President:

“No Child Left Behind” is commendable, noble, and truly needed. Giving a minimum education to everyone in the country affords great benefits to all. Finding the Gifted and teaching them to be talented is even more important because these are the people who will become the next generation of leaders in business, politics and education. The problem is that so much of our energy and resources are dedicated to the first, that there is little left for the second.

It is true that many public school districts have a department and Director of what is usually called Advanced Academic Studies which is over Gifted and Talented as well as Advanced Placement. All of these people I have met are very skillful and dedicated educators. But the resources dedicated to them are minuscule compared to the effort of just getting the masses to pass. Unlike some in education, I do believe there should be a minimum bar that all students must clear in order to graduate and that it must be measured by a quantified assessment. But let’s face it; the bar is currently set so low average students can pass it by the time they are in the 9th or10th grade. Far too much time is spent on teachers teaching to this test.

If one of the top priorities of the secondary education system is to train students so that our colleges and universities will be able to build them into talented leaders; then we are only partially successful. Look at our top graduate schools. Most are filled with non-American students; this especially true in the sciences. Much of this is because we are not finding many of our gifted students early enough so their giftedness can be trained into useful talents. If we do not find these gifted kids between the 1st and 8th grades, there is a good chance many will dropout of school in the 9th grade, just like the academically challenged student. The gifted get bored with the repetition-learning used in the classroom and pace of the average class and many end up dropping out and becoming gang leaders, scam artists and internet pirates, where if found and trained they likely will be our future leaders. While they may number only 5% or so of the students, virtually all of them will become leaders.

Research has clearly shown that giftedness knows no cultural or racial boundaries. But look at typical G/T classes, most are populated with Asians and white boys with a smattering of Blacks, Hispanics and girls. The gifted are out there in equally numbers, but we have to find them. The good students are easy to find; that is the model student making all As. Their parents are beating down the Principal’s door to get them into G/T, but this is only a small percentage of the gifted students. The rest are much harder to find.

True we have had a Federal Plan since 1972 and a Texas State Plan since 1990 with a mandate to identify and serve G/T students, but there is limited resources and no political urgency compared to the all-out effort that is being made in expenditure of teacher/administrator time and resources to make sure every student pass a minimum exam..

Only 27 states require that Gifted and Talented students be taught by G/T certified teachers. That includes three states, of which Texas is one, where this is only an OPTION. Any university with a G/T curriculum will tell you that G/T kids learn differently from the rest of us and unless we train even the best teachers in G/T techniques, the results will be lacking. So why don’t we require that only G/T certified teachers find and teach G/T students?

So what I am requesting is 1] Take some of the political and economic pressure off the public schools by emphasizing less the passing of every last student and more on finding the gifted and training them, 2] Place an emphasis on finding these gifted kids early, ideally in the first grade, 3] Encourage the States to require that they use certified G/T teachers to find and teach the G/T students. We are doing exactly that for our special education students. We should do the same for our most brilliant kids, many of whom we are losing.

Sincerely,



Richard F. Kantenberger
Texas Certified Math, Science, Special Education, and Gifted and Talented Teacher.
Member, Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented
President, Kantenberger International, Inc. (retired)

cc: Secretary Margaret Spelling, U. S. Secretary of Education
Governor Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
Commissioner Robert Scott, Texas Commissioner of Education