I just read a comment somewhere that truly talented kids are being stifled and I agree.

 I've said it for years.

It always seems like the smarter people are held back from achieving their true potential. Part of it is because we put our money in the wrong department. We spend it on the slower people.

The feds generally hand out about $11 billion every year for the special needs kids. While I can't really slight the mainstream educating of special needs kids, it truly irks me because in a way it is more reenforcement of failure.

The truth is that special needs kids are generally going to need help of some sort their entire lives and certainly cannot be counted on to produce a whole lot.

Granted, I see a couple of kids that have likely been through special ed programs of some sort working at the local supermarket bagging groceries and I'll give credit for that. They're working and that is always a good thing.

The truth is, though that it seem that the truly talented and gifted kids are stuck in the pile with the rest of us and they don't belong there. They belong in accelerated programs.

Talented kids suffer in school, too simply by being held back. They bore, start fooling around and some get misdiagnosed with an attention deficeit disease and most likely get slowed and dumbed down with drugs.

The No Child Left Behind programs seem to slow progress down. They tend to slow things up to let the slower kids catch up at the expense of the more talented kids. The future movers and shakers are held back.

Truth is that no matter what you do, someone still is going to be left behind no matter what you do. Some people were just plainlyy and simply not given the brain power to work with.

Schools should be quicker to recognize talent when they see it and be willing to spend a little more money on these kids instead of holding them back.

What is interesting is that if we put less than half of what we are putting into special education into nurturing the talented, everyone would be a whole lot better off.

But, of course, it is unlikely to see an increase in talented and gifted education because society has a bad habit of reenforcing failure.




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