Quiet Crisis in Educating Talented Students

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent - October 1993

Part I.

A Quiet Crisis in Educating Talented Students

In a broad range of intellectual and artistic endeavors, America's most talented students often fail to reach their full potential. These students are or have the capability to be outstanding, whether in mathematics, writing, dance, history, athletics, or any important human endeavor. They excel at intellectual and artistic endeavors that are complex, difficult, and novel. They often learn rapidly and are bored with repetition. They are often tenacious in pursuits that interest them. The way in which they learn sets them apart from most other children and challenges educators and parents.

Despite sporadic attention over the years to the needs of bright students, most of them continue to spend time in school working well below their capabilities. The belief espoused in school reform that children from all economic and cultural backgrounds must reach their full potential has not been extended to America's most talented students. They are underchallenged and therefore underachieve.

That so many of our students work below their potential has grave implications for the nation. The scholarship, inventiveness, and expertise that created the foundation for America's high standard of living and quality of life are eroding. Most top students in the United States are offered a less rigorous curriculum, read fewer demanding books, complete less homework, and enter the work force or postsecondary education less well prepared than top students in many other industrialized countries. These deficiencies are particularly apparent in the areas of mathematics and science.

The talents of disadvantaged and minority children have been especially neglected. Almost one in four American children lives in poverty, representing an enormous pool of untapped talent. Yet most programs for these children focus on solving the problems they bring to school, rather than on challenging them to develop their strengths. It is sometimes assumed that children from unpromising backgrounds are not capable of outstanding accomplishment. Yet stories abound of disadvantaged children who achieve at high levels when nurtured sufficiently.

Ultimately, the drive to strengthen the education of students with outstanding talents is a drive toward excellence for all students. Education reform will be slowed if it is restricted to boosting standards for students at the bottom and middle rungs of the academic ladder. At the same time we raise the "floor" (the minimum levels of accomplishment we consider to be acceptable), we also must raise the "ceiling" (the highest academic level for which we strive).

The President and the nation's governors recognized this need at the 1989 Education Summit held in Charlottesville, Virginia. They defined six National Education Goals and declared that meeting them by the year 2000 "will require that the performance of our highest achievers be boosted to levels that equal or exceed the performance of the best students anywhere. . . We must work to ensure that a significant number of students from all races, ethnic groups, and income levels are among our top performers." This challenge cannot be ignored.

Indicators of the Crisis

Perceptions exist that education problems are confined largely to children at risk of school failure. Many education reports have articulated problems in general education, but they have ignored the condition of education for the nation's most able students. There is mounting evidence that gifted and talented students do not learn as much as they could and compare unfavorably with students in other countries. The following indicators tell the story:

National Assessment of Educational Progress

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides one of the few indicators of how well American students achieve. These tests are not intended to give specific information about the nation's more capable students. However, the results show that very few students perform at NAEP's highest level--a level that is not very demanding. NAEP considers the advanced level to be what is needed for college-level performance.

NAEP tests have found that the percentage of high school seniors performing at the level needed for college work is far lower than the percentage who enroll in college. For example, 58 percent of students who graduated from high school in 1988 enrolled in 2- and 4-year colleges, but

Only 7 percent of 17-year-olds could solve multi-step mathematics problems such as finding percentages, a skill that does not require advanced algebra or calculus (1990);
Less than 5 percent of 17-year-olds could interpret historical data at a level that is expected for college work;
Only 6 percent of 17-year-olds tested in civics could answer questions such as who in the federal government has the power to tax;
Only 9 percent of 17-year-olds knew enough science to infer basic relationships and draw conclusions using detailed scientific knowledge (1990);
Only 1 in 100 high school seniors chose to write a coherent response of more than one paragraph to an essay question (1990); and
Only 7 percent of high school seniors could read at the advanced level (1990).

The results of the NAEP tests suggest that the curriculum offered throughout the nation fails to prepare most students to operate at advanced intellectual levels. As Al Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, points out, even the questions at the highest levels of these tests "do not require knowing Dickens or Shakespeare or calculus or difficult concepts in history or science. They require the kinds of skills people who have completed high school need in order to find their way in the world."

Low academic expectations in American elementary and secondary schools go on to create problems when top students enroll in college. Many of these students must struggle to keep up with the demands of their courses, and, in some cases, they drop out of college or avoid tough classes because of insufficient preparation. Colleges and universities may respond both by providing more remedial instruction and by lowering their academic standards.

Scholastic Aptitude Tests and Advanced Placement Data

Scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), required for admission to many American colleges and universities, also provide an unimpressive portrait of the academic accomplishment of America's top students. They show that:

Since 1972, the number of students with high scores (over 600 out of a possible 800) declined by more than 40 percent on the verbal portion, with 1989 yielding the fewest students scoring between 700 and 800 since 1984. The average entering scores to the most selective colleges in 1970 ranged from 670 to 695 on the verbal portion; in the mid-1980s, they ranged from 620 to 640.
The number of high scorers on the mathematics section has not increased since 1972.
Among high-scoring students on the mathematics section, the proportion interested in becoming mathematicians, scientists, or engineers--three areas where the country has a growing demand--has declined steadily since 1982.

Caution is needed when looking at SAT scores because the difficulty of the test may have become easier over time. Advanced Placement (AP) scores, on the other hand, have been remarkably stable in the past 20 years despite tremendous growth in AP enrollment. Minority participation in the program, which offers students the opportunity to complete college-level studies during secondary school, has steadily increased. This suggests that students can meet the challenge when academic standards are set high, fueling the argument that much more can be expected of students.

Tests of International Comparison

Whatever our national indicators show, it is no longer sufficient for the United States to examine the achievement of its students solely with internal comparisons. As competition stiffens with other countries, international comparisons provide perspective on America's ability to survive in a global economy.

Americans assume that our best students can compete with the best students anywhere. This is not true. International assessments have focused attention on the relatively poor standing of all American students. These tests also show that our top-performing students are undistinguished at best and poor at worst when compared with top students in other countries.

International test data provide the best comparison of mathematics and science achievement. For a comparison of the humanities, a look at the curriculum and expectations as they are expressed on national exams reveals much about how our students perform. The test data and exam questions clearly show that our best students are not receiving as challenging an education as students in other nations. For example,

A. Elementary-Level Mathematics and Science

A 1986 study of first and fifth graders in the United States, Taiwan, and Japan found no innate intellectual differences among the children. Yet in mathematics, only 15 American children were among the top 100 scorers in first grade, and only one was among the top scorers in fifth grade. If proportionately distributed, there should have been about 33 American children in the top group.
American 13-year-olds performed very poorly when they were tested in 1987 for higher levels of conceptual thinking against 11 other countries and Canadian provinces. The advanced levels involved understanding concepts and interpreting data in mathematics and science.
- In mathematics, only 9 percent of U.S. students performed at the level that requires understanding concepts, while 40 percent of students from Korea, the top-scoring country, were at this level. At the highest level, less than 1 percent of U.S. students could interpret data compared to 5 percent of Korean students.
- In science, only 7 percent of U.S. students could apply elementary scientific principles in problem solving compared to 33 percent of students from Korea and 31 percent from British Columbia. At the highest level, less than 1 percent of U.S. students could apply experimental data, while 2 percent of students from Korea and 4 percent of students from British Columbia could do so.
A large international study of 20 countries, released in February 1992, tested 9- and 13-year-olds in mathematics and science. Findings show that, except for 9-year-olds tested in science, American students ranked close to the bottom when scores of the top 10 percent of students tested in each country were compared.
Interestingly, American students ranked best on the science test for 9-year-olds, a test given before youngsters in most countries receive formal instruction in science. American students did not rank as well, however, when they were tested at age 13--once schools in all of the countries have begun to provide formal instruction.

B. Secondary-Level Mathematics and Science

To gauge achievement of American high school students in science, we can turn to a study comparing U.S. seniors taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses in science with top students in 13 other countries. U.S. students represented the top 1 percent of students in the nation. The study found that American students were
- 13th out of 13 in biology;
- 11th out of 13 in chemistry; and
- 9th out of 13 in physics.
When controlled for selectivity (a higher percentage of the total school population in other countries takes advanced classes), American students scored the lowest of the participating nations in all three areas.
In mathematics, the top 1 percent of students in the United States scored very poorly when compared to a similar group of students in 13 countries:
- 13th out of 13 in algebra and
- 12th out of 13 in geometry and calculus.
When comparing American and Japanese high school seniors enrolled in college preparatory math classes, Japanese students at the 50th percentile scored slightly higher than the top 5th percentile of American students.

Critics charge that international assessment results are skewed because the United States educates a larger portion of students, which lowers the American rankings. But the indicators cited here compare America's top students with top students overseas, and our youngsters still rank at or near the bottom in all subjects tested.

C. International Exams for Students Entering Universities

Testing programs in other countries drive home the discrepancy in what and how students are asked to learn. Tests reflect what students are taught in their respective classrooms. Whereas the only examinations required of students seeking admission to most American colleges are multiple-choice exams, students in other countries must write extensive essays on their college entrance exams. These essay exams provide a fair comparison of what various nations teach in their curricula and of their expectations for student performance. The National Endowment for the Humanities recently compiled examples of national examinations given to students from other countries leaving secondary education for universities and found the following:

British and Welsh students are asked to write for 3 hours on questions about U.S. history, such as "Why did Virginians dominate the presidency from 1789 to 1825?" or "To what extent does the conduct of American foreign policy, 1954-- 1974, offer evidence for the existence and influence of a "military-industrial complex'?"
French students of philosophy and liberal arts, an area students may concentrate on in secondary school, are asked to write for 4 hours on such questions as "How might one characterize rigorous thought?" or "What does one gain by losing one's illusions?"
German students are given the text of selected original documents and asked to write for 3 1/2 hours. They respond to such statements as "Disagreement over the person and the role of the king was a key element in the first phase of the French Revolution," and are instructed to describe the development of this tense situation from the meeting of the Estates General to the trial of the king.
The 12 member countries of the European Community (EC) have established an examination system that allows students from any of the participating nations to sit for a common set of exams and, if successful, be eligible for admission to any university in these countries. The examination focuses on subjects taught in the 11th and 12th years of schooling and includes five written and four oral exams, which are more challenging than those normally given in the United States.
EC students also are required to study three languages. Beyond the obvious advantage this suggests in the ability to communicate with more people, it also indicates greater knowledge of other cultures and of the nature and study of language and linguistic structure.

America's top students have the potential to achieve at the same levels as their international counterparts, but our students are not challenged to do so. Top-performing students in the United States spend less time in school, spend less time outside school doing homework, and are not asked to work with challenging materials as often as their peers in other countries. According to several studies, more than half of our gifted students fail to achieve in school at a level commensurate with their abilities.

Performance of Top Students in Graduate School and in Mathematics and Science Careers

The poor performance of America's top elementary and high school students, especially in mathematics and science, continues on into college and the professional world.

Only one-half of America's high-ability high school seniors from the class of 1980 (the top 25 percent as indicated by achievement tests) were estimated to have received a bachelor's degree by 1987. Only one in eight had entered graduate school or postbaccalaureate professional school by that date.
Among black students who score at the highest levels on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (those with a combined verbal and math SAT score of 1,400 or above), more than 18 percent leave school because of academic problems. Up to 70 percent of black students who enroll in 4-year colleges drop out at some point.
Graduate school enrollments of American students in mathematics and science have declined substantially in the past 20 years, while the number of foreign-born students enrolled has risen. In 1990, 57 percent of doctorates granted in the United States in mathematics went to students from other nations.
Minorities are not entering many important fields in mathematics and science. For example, blacks make up 12 percent of the population, yet earn only 5 percent of the baccalaureate degrees awarded each year in science and mathematics, receive only 1 percent of the Ph.D.s, and make up only 2 percent of all employed scientists and engineers in the country. Hispanics make up 9 percent of the population, but represent only 3 percent of the baccalaureate degrees in science and mathematics, 2 percent of the Ph.D.s, and 2 percent of all employed scientists and engineers in the country. Therefore, the fastest growing sectors of our society are seriously underrepresented in leadership positions in science and mathematics.

Foreign-born students are not taking away jobs from Americans; they are filling jobs that are going empty. The U.S. shortage of graduate students in mathematics and science forces many large companies--such as Texas Instruments, Bell Laboratories, and IBM--to fill jobs, particularly in research, with people educated outside the United States. In Bell Lab's research area, for example, about 40 percent of the professional employees received their precollegiate education in other countries.

These foreign-educated people alone, however, cannot continue to supply the nation with all the scientists, mathematicians, and engineers it needs. Yet American students are being shut out of these professions because of poor preparation and lack of interest. Already spot shortages exist in some science fields in the United States, and unless dramatic changes are made in the way we educate all of our students, including our most talented, the shortages will increase.

In Sum . . .

The indicators tell us that

Only a small percentage of students are prepared for challenging college-level work as measured by tests that are not very exacting or difficult;
The highest-achieving American students fare poorly when compared with similar students in other nations; and
Students going on to a university education in other countries are expected to know more than American students and to be able to think and write analytically about that knowledge on challenging exams.

Educators recognize that tests have limitations. Widely used tests do not gauge creativity or leadership abilities or other important human qualities. Nor do they indicate the potential of students. Still, the message the tests collectively carry is disturbing: America demands less of top students than other countries do. At the same time our need for the highest levels of skills and expertise is on the rise, many of America's most talented students are being denied a challenging education.

America's Ambivalence Toward the Intellect

The American tendency to have low expectations in education is not new, but it is more visible today. The roots of it were apparent in 18th and 19th century America. Writing in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville portrayed the United States as a society with low levels of interest in education and intellect. Ours, he noted, was a culture that values equality. Americans, he observed, are uncomfortable with social or intellectual distinctions or with any hierarchies that they believe can stand in the way of success for industrious individuals. He also noted a tendency of Americans to move toward a "middling standard" that favors conformity over deviation from the norm.

This distrust of scholarship and reverence for the average has persisted throughout American history. As Richard Hofstadter wrote in his 1970 book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life:

Again and again, it has been noticed that intellect in America is presented as a kind of excellence, as a claim to distinction, as a challenge to egalitarianism, as a quality which almost certainly deprives a man or woman of the common touch.

But competing with the nation's egalitarian spirit is a conflicting assumption--that individuals should be allowed to "be all that they can be." In America, freedom and liberty are valued as tools to unleashing potential in citizens so that they can go as far as their talent and ambition will allow. The assumption is that people vary in interests and abilities, and those who can excel ought to be able to do so.

These two beliefs--a distrust of the intellect and an assumption that people should be allowed to develop to their full potential--have clashed throughout American history and have muddled efforts to provide a quality education for the nation's most promising students. Today, exceptional talent is viewed as both a valuable human resource and a troublesome expression of eccentricity. As a culture, we admire and reward the brilliant, creative mind after it has invented something practical or produced tangible results. Yet we are not inclined to support those who want to pursue an artistic or intellectual life, and we find ways of discouraging those who wish to do so.

Mixed Message to Students

The nation's high-ability students receive mixed messages. Our society urges these young people to do well in school; but it also encourages them not to flaunt their intelligence and, in some cases, to avoid high grades and excellent academic achievement altogether. America's negative nicknames for these students say a lot about how they are often regarded. Gregory Anrig, president of the Educational Testing Service, explains:

In America we often make fun of our brightest students, giving them such derogatory names as nerd, dweeb, or, in a former day, egghead. We have conflicting feelings about people who are smart, and we give conflicting signals to our children about how hard they should work to be smart. As a culture we seem to value beauty and brawn far more than brains.

Negative stereotypes of high-achieving students have created an atmosphere in which students do not want to be identified as very smart. In one study at three Midwestern high schools, researchers discovered that less than 10 percent of the students with a straight "A" average perceived themselves to be part of the "brain crowd." Moreover, less than one-third of the students nominated to this crowd by their peers perceived themselves to be "brains." The percentage was much lower among females (4 percent) than males (18 percent) but did not vary substantially by ethnic background. Students say they want to do well, but not exceptionally well, because it is more important to be accepted by the "in crowd (which) is not the brain crowd."

Peer pressure to avoid academic excellence can be particularly difficult to combat among minority adolescents because they sometimes link it to majority cultural values. High achievers in one inner-city high school populated by low-income blacks were labeled "brainiacs," a term associated with a variety of undesirable characteristics, including wimpishness. In addition, brainiacs were accused of "acting white,"--of disavowing their ethnic heritage in an effort to become accepted by the dominant society.

In short, students feel pressure to finish high school and get good grades. At the same time, however, they are pressured not to work hard, develop scholarly habits, or master a body of knowledge. The message our society transmits to its students is to do moderately well--to strive for academic adequacy, not academic excellence.

Implications for American Education

We know that high expectations produce higher achievement. Yet our expectations for most American students remain at minimum levels of academic competency. We set the bar well below the standards set in many other nations and wonder why our students achieve at low levels. We fail to provide opportunities for students to perform at high levels and then lament that few of our youngsters excel.

To compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world, we must start our children down the path to excellence when they are very young. Learning is cumulative; all students, including the gifted, develop to their full potential only when their special strengths are identified and supported throughout their lives. This is particularly true with economically disadvantaged children because they often face so many impediments to success. We must acknowledge that all schools, whether in affluent or low-income communities, have children with outstanding talent. Our job is to find these children and to develop their full potential.

To help accomplish this goal, we must elicit the help of the entire community. Policymakers, educators, business leaders, civic organizations, and parents can all play important roles in improving education for America's most talented students. Because so many values are learned at home, it is particularly critical for parents of talented children to work closely with the schools and to instill in their children the desire to excel.

Only a challenging educational environment that elevates standards for everyone can create the schools our students need to take their places in tomorrow's world. We can build world class schools; we can raise the ceiling of expectations for all students; and we can provide challenging opportunities for students with outstanding talent. Herein lies the key to better schools.

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[Introduction]

[Part II.]