Faced with budget shortfalls and No Child Left Behind requirements, many states are looking to cut funding for gifted and talented classes to free up extra cash for programs aimed at struggling students. Illinois, for example, "eliminated its $19 million in state funding for gifted-student programs this year" and California "reduced funding for such initiatives by $10 million, or 18 percent, a deeper cut than the cash-strapped state imposed in most other education programs." Unfortunately, this "robbing Peter to pay Paul" strategy is mostly hurting children who are both disadvantaged and gifted. It's those students who are most likely to slip under the radar and not be identified as gifted and talented, and whose parents cannot afford to pay for tutors or send them to private schools where their talents might be better cultivated. Perhaps most troubling is the impact such cuts will likely have on the largest and most persistent achievement gap--the gap among the highest achieving students. According to a 2000 federal survey, though blacks make up 17 percent of public school students, they only account for 8.2 percent of all gifted and talented students. For Hispanics the figures were 16 percent of all students and 9.6 percent of those in programs for the gifted. By contrast, whites make up 62 percent of public school students and 74 percent of gifted-education pupils, and Asians, while just 4.1 percent of all students, made up 7.1 percent of those enrolled in programs for the gifted.
"Initiative to leave no child behind leaves out gifted," by Daniel Golden, December 29, 2003, Wall Street Journal (subscription required)