"Idiot! "a short-short story

Bright and Gifted Children: America's most underserved group

Perhaps redistributive "justice's" most pernicious side effect has been the reallocation of funds and other resources from high-achieving to low-achieving children. That's the contention of my PsychologyToday.com article today. The article goes on to propose what society should do and what individual parents and grandparents of bright kids should do in the meantime. HERE is the link.

Six Ways Teachers Can Meet Bright and Gifted Students' Needs in a Regular Class

I have a special place in my heart for bright and gifted kids. They have great potential to abet humankind but policies in many of today's elementary schools make it difficult to  provide them even with an appropriate-level education.

In a small attempt to help, I've created this seven-minute video of tips teachers can use to meet bright and gifted kids' needs in a regular class...without having to do undue additional work. It's below.

And below it, is an adaptation of the script. That's a bit more detailed and nuanced than would be appropriate for the video. 

As always, I welcome your comments.

Six Ways Teachers Can Better Meet Bright and Gifted Kids’ Needs

All children are entitled to an appropriate education, to not be bored too much of the time.

But in today's mixed-ability classes and with pressures to focus on low achievers, bright and gifted kids often get shortchanged.

And that's understandable. Perhaps you think they'll do okay without much attention. Alas, there are many brilliant failures. Perhaps you know one. And that's unfortunate because our bright and gifted kids are the most likely to cure our diseases, design helpful new products, and be wise corporate, non-profit, and government leaders. 

Here are six ways teachers can better meet bright and gifted kids’ needs in a regular class without incurring undue additional work.

1. Cluster group: You may be reluctant to divide your class into ability-based groups because of the extra work of creating a separate lesson for each group. But even if each group has the same lesson, a bright/gifted group discussing it among themselves can be more interesting and result in more learning. For example, if a class is discussing the causes of the Civil War, rather than forcing bright kids listen to lots of low-level comments, discussing it among themselves would likely be more interesting and engender more growth. A teacher might designate one student to lead each group’s discussion.

2. Encourage students to propose an alternate assignment. Invite bright and gifted kids (and perhaps others) to propose an alternate assignment they’d find more challenging and interesting. For example, if the standard homework assignment is to write a summary of a short story’s plot, a gifted child might propose, for example, writing a character’s backstory. With younger children, the teacher might well have to propose the alternate assignment.

3. Make gifted kids your assistant teacher…occasionally. Yes, a student reading on a fourth-grade level develops tolerance and patience by helping a slower child learn to read The Cat in the Hat but is thereby denied the right to learn new things. It’s usually best to have gifted students coach others on that which they themselves need solidifying. For example, if they’ve quickly learned how to estimate the probability of drawing a particular playing card in a poker hand, they could probably benefit by teaching that to a weaker student(s.)

4. Have gifted kids teach lessons to a group or even the entire class.  This goes a step beyond the previous tip. Teach one or more of your gifted kids how to teach a lesson. For example, you might teach them this model for teaching a new concept: 1. Explain why the concept is important.  2. Explain the new concept. 3. Give an example. 4. Walk the class through an example. 5. Have the class do an example on their own. 6. Give feedback on the example. 7. Summarize.  Using that model, have your "student teachers" teach a lesson to a group or even to the entire class.

5. Allow students to join a higher-grade’s class for one or more subjects.

6. Consider having a gifted child skip one or more grades. There's good evidence that acceleration can be of great value if the receiving teacher is welcoming of the idea and the child is capable and motivated, even if lacking in social skills. There’s just too great an advantage of being in a class in which much more of the instruction is appropriately leveled. Social deficits can be mitigated by pairing the child with a popular child in the higher grade. That child can teach the accelerating child the ropes, help her or him make friends, and the accelerating child starts out with the advantage of being associated with a popular child.

It makes me sad to see so many bright and gifted kids sit stultified for six hours a day, five days a week, for years. They deserve better and so does society.

Six Ways to Meet Gifted and Bright Kids’ Needs in a Regular Class…Without Giving Yourself Much Extra Work

You have a wide range of students in your class. It’s hard to meet all their needs. And you may feel you need to focus on low-achieving kids, maybe because your heart especially feels for them and/or because you’re feeling external pressures such as No Child Left Behind and now Common Core.

You have one or more bright or gifted students in your class but if someone has be shortchanged, maybe it’s them. After all, consciously or unconsciously, perhaps you think they’ll do fine anyway.

I can understand, but maybe your bright and gifted kids are worth a second look. In fact, many such kids turn out to be brilliant failures. Maybe you know one. And after all, all children are entitled to an appropriate-level education, to not be bored too much of the time. And those kids are the most likely to grow up to cure our diseases, be our corporate, non-profit, and government leaders, be our teachers and administrators!

And it is possible for you to better meet their needs without giving yourself too much work. Consider trying one or more of these tips:

Tip #1  Cluster-group. When bright kids are listening to a lesson or are in a group activities where their classmates aren’t as bright, they’re often bored and deprived of their right to grow. Less bright kids may feel that no matter how hard they try, they’ll never do as well and so may just give up and let the bright kids carry the load. 

So, as you deem appropriate, for parts of the day, divide the class into groups by ability: how quickly they learn, reason, and sophisticatedly they communicate. Sure it can help kids if you take the time to create separate lessons and activities for each group but that’s time-consuming, although technology, for example a personal device, may make it easy to provide individualized activity. 

The good news is that even if it’s the same lesson or activity, it’s exciting to watch bright kids build off each other rather than be bored and that’s not only good for them but ultimately for society. So, tip #1:  For parts of the school day, consider dividing the class by ability.

Tip #2. Allow bright and gifted students to propose doing a more challenging assignment or activity of their own choosing rather than the regular one. Or you propose one. 

For example, if you’re about to teach a spelling lesson, you might invite bright kids to write a story using the spelling words. If the class is about to work on a worksheet a child feels is too easy, s/he can propose that s/he be allowed to use some educational software on her iPad, Chromebook, whatever. If you’ve assigned making a diorama on the Civil War for homework, a students who wished to, could opt to write a scene and perhaps act it out for the class on the dilemma President Lincoln faced in deciding how to respond to secession. And again, technology may enable you to find assignments that better meet bright and gifted kids’ needs. So, Tip #2:  Allow or give bright and gifted kids an alternate assignment.

Tip #3. For content that some students in your class knows but could use solidifying, occasionally make them your roving assistant teachers, helping the other students with their seatwork on that content. 

For example, if you’ve just taught a lesson on subtraction with regrouping, ask for volunteers to take a 1-question quiz that demonstrates they know it. Or perhaps you already know they know it without having to quiz them. Anyone you deem to sufficiently know the content or concept can volunteer to be your roving assistant teacher for the seatwork on that topic. When other students raise their hand asking for help, one of your “assistant teachers” can go over to the student and try to help. Of course, that must only be done occasionally. Bright and gifted kids deserve to be learning material that’s challenging for them, not just helping slower students. So Tip #3: When kids know a concept before you teach it, occasionally make them your roving teaching assistant.

Tip #4. Have students actually teach a lesson to a group of classmates or even the entire class. If you like that idea, you might, when the rest of the class is doing independent work, teach your would-be “teachers” a lesson on how to teach a lesson. For example, you might teach them a model such as 

1: Tell the class why the lesson is important. 
2. Model what you want them to learn, for example, the scientific method. 
3. Walk them through an example, such as designing an experiment to test whether Coca-Cola really does eat through car paint. 
4. Have them do an example independently.
5. Ask for questions. 
6. Summarize. 

So, Tip 4: Have kids teach lessons to part of or even the entire class. 

Tip #5. As appropriate, allow students to join a higher grade’s class for a given subject(s).

Tip #6. Consider having a child skip one or more grades. Research indicates that can be wise as long as the child is capable and motivated, the receiving teacher enthusiastic, and the child paired with a popular child in the new class  to teach him or her the ropes and help the child make friends.  So, Tip #6: Consider talking with your principal about having a gifted child skip one or more grades. 

You may want to try none, one, even all those six ideas. But we often promise ourselves to do something but forget. So do you want to write down the idea or ideas you want to try? Whatever you try, treat it as experimental. If it doesn’t work, scrap it or perhaps tweak it. 

In any event, thank you for all you do. A great teacher can make all the difference.

If you have a question or comment, email me at mnemko@comcast.net

Parenting Your Gifted Child

Guiding Your Gifted Child
 by Marty Nemko

(Originally appeared in the Mensa publication, The Intelligencer)

The government incentivizes schools and teachers to improve low-performing students' achievement. As a result, too often, bright and gifted kids' needs shortchanged.

What's the parent or other caring relative of a gifted child to do?

Choosing a School

One option is to try to get your child admitted to a school with a large percentage of high-ability and/or high achieving kids: a school in your district or an inter-district transfer.

Whether or not such options are available to you, as the new school year or semester approaches, find out if there's a teacher of your child's grade who would be much better with kids like yours than would the other teachers. If so, ask the principal or counselor if your child might be placed in that class. You'll be on safer ground if you couch it as, "I visited the classes my child might be in next year and it really seems that Ms. X would be the best fit for his needs. Might you be willing to place him there?" You can't request that too often but do it once or twice during your child's stint at that school and you can make a big difference in her education without undue effort.

Skip a Grade or Four?

Consider acceleration, grade-skipping. Especially with today's focus on low-achieving students, acceleration works better for many kids than does badgering the on-grade teacher to accommodate to your child's needs. Often, despite incessant tactful requests from the parent, above-average kids sit stultified in today's mixed-ability classes. And if a kid is active, s/he gets in trouble and too often put on a Ritalin leash...at a ratio of eight boys for every one girl.

Many parents worry that the academic benefits of grade-skipping will be outweighed by social mismatch but generally, if the receiving teacher is enthusiastic and has the child sit next to a supportive, respected student, the result is superior to the aforementioned badgering.

If the idea of grade-skipping appeals, schedule a meeting with the principal in which you don't blame teacher or the school. Couch your request as simply trying to get an appropriate-level education for your child. Support your case by showing a portfolio of the child's work in and out of school, test scores, and a supporting letter(s) from the child's teacher, head of the district's gifted program, and/or a private educational consultant.  

After School

While we parents like to think we're most important to our child's development, recent research suggests that peers may have more influence. That means that one of our most potent interventions is to facilitate good friendships. If you don't know which kids to invite to your home or on trips, etc., visit your child's class and watch the kids not only in the classroom but at recess. Of course, ask your child who s/he'd like to befriend.

Parents of gifted kids tend to overschedule their kids after school. Be selective. Not every kid needs exposure to soccer,  flute lessons, religious school, and community service. Gifted kids are still kids, and they, like all of us, can use down time. Some of my happiest childhood memories are simply of watching clouds, or snowflakes land on the window. That all said, some supplementation of course is wise. Hoagie's Gifted (www.hoagiesgifted.org) is a portal to an amazing range of options for gifted kids and their parents and teachers, from ten-minute activities to summer programs.

Emotions

Even some well-adjusted gifted kids suffer emotionally. Especially if they're in a school with few intellectual peers, they may suffer from the Hobson's choice of being disliked or dumbing themselves down, for example, by not raising their hand often. Even though it's contrary to today's egalitarian ethos, I think it's wise to often remind your child that s/he is intellectually superior. Of course, that doesn't justify their being obnoxious to others, but quietly recognizing their superiority can balm against the slings and arrows.

Don't assume that because a child is intellectually advanced, s/he's not below average in some emotional or social area. Despite having a Ph.D. in educational psychology and a school psychology credential, except in severe cases, I'm not a big fan of therapy. If my child were mildly depressed, socially anxious, or simply socially clueless, I'd focus on simple behavioral strategies: giving gentle feedback on their behavior, modeling the desired behavior, encouraging them to work to their strengths rather than focusing much on weaknesses, and encouraging some non-academic area that feeds them: in the arts, sports, helping others, whatever.  

Of course, significant dyslexia, spectrum disorder, bipolar, etc usually require professional assistance. Severe hyperactive (ADHD) kids may benefit from Ritalin, Adderal, etc. 

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but I believe that a high-ability child is one of society's greatest treasures. I wish they were more valued by today's schools but they're not. That leaves it to us. It may be some of our most important work.

Dr. Nemko is an education and career adviser to people young and old. His seven books include How to Get Your Child a Private School Education in a Public School and How to Do Life: What They Didn't Teach You in School. Reach him at mnemko@comcast.net.

When You Have a Gifted Child Poorly Served By the Public Schools

I often get letters from parents frustrated with the public schools' denying their gifted child their right to an appropriate leveled education. Here's one I just received. Below that are my suggestions for what she might do:

From: MJ [mailto:I'VE DELETED THE REST TO PRESERVE HER ANONYMITY
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 9:53 AM
To: mnemko@comcast.net
Subject: Active Smart Boys
I recently read your post Our Most Underserved Students: Active, Smart Boys, and agree with your assumption on this topic. I’m wondering if you can offer suggestions for parents? Our son is consistently at least two years ahead of his classmates in every subject. I home school him part time over the summer, in the afternoons after school, weekends, and breaks. It has been very frustrating for us, however, to see him take almost a “teachers aid” position in the classroom during the day in school every year. He has picked up the rolling pencil on the table, tilting his chair, staring out the window, tapping habits recently this year and this is a bad sign of boredom for the hours he spends at the school. Would it be insulting to the teacher(s) if I suggested he bring in work packets from home to work on after he completes their work?

I scheduled an appointment to discuss this with his teacher. I don’t know how to approach this without causing the teacher to become defensive. Last year the teacher picked on him and called him names throughout the year (if he answered too many questions she would yell at him to stop bragging). So I don’t want to annoy this years teacher.
I look forward to your input,
MJ (I ONLY PROVIDE HER INITIALS TO PRESERVE HER ANONYMITY)

Dear MJ,

Indeed, these stories sadden me a great deal, both for your son and for all of us, which is not helping to flower the students with the greatest potential for improving society. Also, your description of your son's behavior fits me-- I was like your son--the tapping, tilting, etc., bored silly in school. Here are things you might try:

1. Observing your child in class to see if there's more going on than you're aware of.

2. Speaking with the teacher to ask, "What should my child be doing differently? What should I be doing differently? And finally, "Is there anything you think you might do?"

3. Speaking with the principal to help ensure your child is in a better-suited teacher's class next year. Especially if there isn't a very well-suited teacher, consider having him grade-skipped one to three years. Here's an article I wrote about that: www.naesp.org/resources/2/Principal/2009/nov/N-D_p50.pdf

4. Teaming up with the parents of some other gifted kids to pressure the school into providing for gifted students' needs just as special ed parents successfully have done.
5. Perhaps start a one-room schoolhouse for gifted kids, which may not be as difficult as it sounds: I outline how to do that here: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/03/smarter-way-to-start-school.html

My Advice to Gifted Teens

I'll be doing a presentation today to students at the Davidson Academy. It is the nation's only free public high school for the profoundly gifted.

Here's the one-pager I'll distribute, which lists the presentation's main points:

Some Things I Believe About Being Profoundly Gifted in a Not-So-Gifted World

Display your intelligence without appearing like you're showing off. That's a hard balance to strike.

Resist today's egalitarian ethos. Elitism, considered a dirty word, is both more pleasant and edifying for the gifted and better for the world.

For most people, there is no one right career. And the risk/reward ratio of waiting too long to pick is poor. Pick something, even if it doesn't make you ecstatic. Career happiness, if it is to come at all, usually comes only after you've become the go-to guy/go-to girl, have great coworkers, etc. And you can always change your goal if early signs are negative.

The field I believe will have the greatest impact in your lifetime: genetic enhancement of humans.

The most useful skill they don't teach in school: entrepreneurship. Just make sure ethics remain primary. Most entrepreneurs (and leaders) start out ethical but many fade.

All empires have their rise and fall. I believe the American Empire is in its fall. This is China's century. Consider that in planning your career, summer internships, investments. (Pssst: FXI.)

Ask yourself whether, for you, it's worth resisting the parental, peer, and societal expectation that you'll go to college, or at least go to college immediately after high school. What could you do instead? Start a business? Write a book? Start a school? Apprentice with a brilliant, ethical person?

In class and in discussions with peers and others, when you don't understand something, ask. Similarly, tactfully ask if something a teacher says seems wrong to you. You'll learn more by asking questions than almost anything. If you're too embarrassed to ask in class, ask after class.

Most important growth occurs one-on-one. Develop relationships with your favorite adults and peers. You might try co-peer-mentoring: Every week or two, you support and gently counsel a friend for a half hour on an issue of his or her choice. Then you switch roles.

Working long hours to get all A's is rarely worth it. The extra study time is usually better spent exploring, creating, and yes, having fun.

Don't prostitute yourself to get into a more prestigious college. Possible examples of such prostitution: taking an SAT-prep course, rowing on a crew team, serving soup to the homeless, and the aforementioned killing oneself to get straight A's. The benefit of the more prestigious college is outweighed. For example, if you start prostituting yourself now, that will likely only accelerate over your lifetime.

Think three times before getting romantically involved with someone who doesn't bring out the best in you. No matter how good looking, they must be kind.

You can dramatically increase the meaning of your life by, as you decide how to spend your time, what it would score on a scale from -10 (selling crack) to +10 (working to cure cancer.)

Today's Anti-Boy Schools Are Unfair Even to Gifted Kids

Here's a report from Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute on how boys are being manipulated out of programs for the gifted.

Wanted: Under-served Gifted Boys

I will be interviewing intellectually gifted boys and/or a parent who feels the child's needs are being poorly met in their public school.

I'll conduct the interviews by phone, or if the family lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'll video the interview and, if his teacher agrees, I'll video the boy in his classroom.

I'll post the best interviews and videos here as well as attempt to publish them in major media.

If you'd like to nominate someone, let me know: post it as a comment on this blog, email me at mnemko@comcast.net, or phone me at 510-655-2777.

Grade Skipping: An Underutilized Option for Gifted Kids

Today, most public schools merely pay lip service to the needs of gifted kids. This is the era of education "for all"--translation: low achievers. 

The research suggests that the wisest work-around often is for gifted kids to skip between one and six grades, depending on the student. Grade skipping is the only powerful school-based intervention that doesn't require great teacher effort, which you can too rarely count on.

Parents' main worry about grade skipping is social maturity. Even if your high-ability child isn't socially adept,  in many cases, it's wiser to have him or her skip a grade(s) than to endure the ongoing boredom and lack of learning that comes from being in a too low-achieving class. Too, grade skipping reduces the chances of a gifted child being ridiculed by classmates as a snob or showoff.

You can mitigate the social risk of grade-skipping by:

• Trying to get another gifted child accelerated into your child's new class. 
• Having your child sit next to a kind, socially adept student(s) who can teach your child the higher grade's social and academic norms.
• Ensuring that the receiving teacher will welcome your child and be willing to keep an eye on your child to ensure s/he's being welcomed into the class and to give your child needed feedback, social and academic.

To maximize your chances of getting permission to have your child skip a grade, present to the principal a portfolio including:

• Samples of your child's in- and out-of-school work that suggest the ability to handle the work in a higher grade. 
  
• Samples of work assigned in his current class that demonstrate how beneath his ability or achievement level that work is.
• Standardized test score results.
• Research supporting grade skipping, including those studies that address the social maturity and knowledge-gap issues. An easy way to assemble the research is to print pages from the excellent book Genius Denied. Because principals tend to be busy, highlight the key sentences. 
• If your child writes well, include a letter from your child explaining why it's important s/he be allowed to skip a grade(s).
• Have your child verbally join you in making the case for skipping a grade(s).

For more on accelerating gifted kids, see this portal and/or the book, Acceleration Strategies.

More Projects That Can Make a Difference

As I wrote yesterday, I have many more project ideas than I have time for. So, if you don't want to do any of those I mentioned yesterday, how about one of these?

• A private elementary school for high-ability kids or a chain of them. No Child Left Behind and other public school programs driven more by politics than pedagogy are denying bright kids their right to an appropriate education, curtailing their ability to live up to their potential.
  
• A career counselor who does the job searching for clients. This person would cold-call and answer want ads on behalf of clients, so all the client would have to do was show up at the interview.
• Create Utopia College, an undergraduate college whose sole mission was to help undergraduates grow in important ways and to land good employment after graduation.
• Advocate for men. On behalf of the National Organization for Men, continually send op-eds and letters to the editors of the major media. Offer to appear on major TV shows, perhaps having debates on such propositions as: Who has it better: men or women?
• Intelligent Choice: A high-school or college course helping young women to realize that the choice of their child's father has a profound effect on both their child and themselves.
• A parenting education course: Taught in high schools, colleges, as part of LaMaze classes, or in maternity ward hospital rooms, this course, based on the critical incidents in parenting ,would help ensure that, from day one, parents had the skills to raise their children well.
• A financial literacy course: Taught in high schools or colleges, this would teach students how to get good deals, avoid getting ripped off, manage checkbooks and credit, and invest wisely (The word "Vanguard" would appear prominently.)
  
• An entrepreneurship course: This, unlike courses commonly taught in universities, would not focus on building scalable large innovations, which are too risky for the average self-employment aspirant. This course would focus on replicating low-investment, proven successful businesses as well as the art of unearthing out new, practical ideas and how to bring them to fruition.
  
• Champion three-week-long, publicly funded elections. That would encourage good candidates to run and ensure they weren't in special interests' hip pockets. To help ensure an informed electorate, voter information pamphlets and websites would include the candidates' voting record and position on key issues.
  

Smart, Active Boys: Our Most Underserved Students

by Marty Nemko
When I was a boy, I just could not sit still in class. I was very bored and active by nature, so I would rock my chair back, whisper and write notes to kids, even wander around the classroom until the teacher yelled, "Martin, sit down!"

That was decades ago. Today, I suspect I would, like so many boys, put on a Ritalin leash. Indeed there are eight boys for every girl on Ritalin.

The blame is placed on the smart, active boy, rarely on the schools, which claim to celebrate diversity of learning styles and needs but stop celebrating when it comes to smart, active boys. Indeed, this decade's signature domestic policy, No Child Left Behind redirects nearly all efforts to educate the lowest achievers.

This, of course, is ironic in that smart kids have the greatest potential to contribute to society: to cure its diseases, close the racial achievement gap, develop cost-effective solar power, etc.

The unfair treatment of smart, active boys comes from four factors:

1. The widespread abandonment of ability-grouped classes. In most of today's elementary schools, gifted and slow are placed in the same class. That creates more equality--especially racial equality--but the result is that all children receive a worse education. Imagine for example, that you spoke good Mandarin but wanted to become expert. Wouldn't you prefer a class with advanced students rather than one that also had beginners? Yet today, we don't give smart kids (or their parents) that choice. We force them into mixed-ability classes, where dispositive metaevaluations reveal they learn less and are bored. And because, on average, boys are more active than girls, they more often can't sit still for six hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year, year after year. Rather than the harder task of accommodating to smart, active boys' needs, it's "take this (meth-like) pill." and/or be yelled at, and or given bad grades.

2. That elementary school teachers are overwhelmingly female. Today, the percentage is up to 93%, the highest ever recorded. Even if teachers believe they're accommodating to all students' needs, they can't help but tilt their teaching to what appeals to them. Thus, books about male heroism are replaced by those of female relationships and heroines, typically in which an inferior male is shown-up by a wise female. Competition--a prime motivator for boys--is replaced by so-called "cooperative learning," which usually reduces to the bright doing the slow's work, boring the bright kid and precluding him from learning new things.

3. The media's continuing to perpetrate the myth that females are oppressed and males are the oppressor. For example, they continue to spout these disproven assertions:

• women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared with men. In fact, a rich research literature documents that sexism is not at the core of pay differentials, for example, THIS is from the New York Times, THIS is from the Wall Street Journal, THIS is from Compensation Cafe, THIS is from City Journal. Alas, the media chooses to ignore all that research in favor of the broadbrush, "Women earn 77 cents on the dollar."
• women are underrepresented in high-level positions because of sexism. In fact, as documented in recent well-reviewed books such as Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox, women's not being in high-office comes much more from choosing to have a less work-centric lifestyle.
• the schools shortchange girls relative to boys. (the long-debunked Reviving Ophelia canard.)
• men abuse women--in fact, studies show that 30 to 52% of severe domestic violence is perpetrated by women.

Thus, the feeling among educators, policymakers, and the public, is that we need to do more for females than for males, ignoring such statistics that boys are achieving far worse in school than are girls, much more likely to abuse drugs, commit suicide, and drop out of high school, far less likely to graduate from college, much more likely, as young adults, to be sleeping late unemployed on their parents' sofas.

4. Society's bias that says: let's help those with the greatest deficit rather than those with the greatest potential to profit: "Those smart boys will do okay on their own. Let's commit our resources to the lowest achievers." I deeply believe that such a philosophy will reduce our society to the lowest common denominator, ironically resulting in a worse life for us all. Besides, it simply is unfair for the public schools to not provide at least a marginally appropriate education for all kids, and right now, smart boys get the very least appropriate education.

What do you think?