from middle-class districts to more affluent communities often discover that their children are
no longer considered “gifted.” For a youngster, this can be a traumatic experience.
Segregating students based on academic performance also reinforces stereotypes. Chil-
dren are taught that some people are better than others and deserve special rewards, even
if they did not do anything observable to earn them. For some children, it encourages their
sense of entitlement, that they are better than other people and should get more from life.
Other children worry they will lose their friends or that they will be thrown out of the select
group if they ever make a mistake. Meanwhile, children left in the drill-and-skill club get the
message that they are academic failures. Many give up trying to learn, setting the stage for
future failure in life.
Another problem is that a variety of programs claim to serve the needs of “gifted chil-
dren.” In urban areas, students in “gifted” classes are generally from middle-class families
that constitute a diminishing percentage of the public school population. These children,
who are from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, are segregated into special classes and mag-
net schools that receive extra resources. These so-called “gifted” classes function as oases
in a troubled school system. Often they are the only classes and schools where children re-
ceive a sound basic education. John Obgu (1994) reports that African American youth in
these classes, especially if they are from poor communities, carry an especially heavy bur-
den. Pressure is placed on them to be positive representatives of their race. At the same
time, performing well in school often means alienation from their peers. This phenomenon
was effectively explored in the movieFinding Forrester(2000).
Many elementary school gifted programs are pull-out programs: Children who are desig-
nated as “gifted” spend most of the day or week with a regular class and are “pulled out” for
special enrichment. This type of program is justified in two ways. Parents and school offi-
cials claim that without enrichment the “gifted” children will be bored in school and their
performance will suffer. In addition, pulling them out of the classroom is supposed to enable
teachers to provide individualized attention to students who are having difficulty learning
the basic material.
I have serious reservations about organizing educational instruction this way. Pull-out
programs generally employ a project approach to teaching that encourages kids, working in-
dividually and in groups, to explore computers, science, literature, and history. The reality is
that this type of teaching makes learning exciting and benefits every child. Educational re-
searchers have repeatedly demonstrated that it can be done in mixed ability groupings with
sufficient teacher support. Although repeated drilling of students who are having difficulty
in the basics has a long history of failing to improve their performance, stimulating them to
want to learn through enrichment programs has the potential to change their attitude to-
ward learning and their performance in school.
In middle schools and high schools, the gifted program is usually called the honors pro-
gram, the advanced placement class, or a class that prepares students to compete in a pro-
gram such as the Intel Science competition. I have the same concerns with these programs
that I do with elementary school gifted programs, and I have two other concerns as well.
In middle school and high school, students feel pressured to be chosen for selective pro-
grams with limited enrollments because their parents see this as an avenue for entry into
elite colleges. Instead of learning how to learn, how to enjoy learning, and how to work so-
cially with groups of diverse people, teenagers learn to compete for limited rewards. This
leaves them ill prepared for a world where they will need to work cooperatively with people
from many different backgrounds. In addition, pressure to get into advanced classes and the
hierarchies these programs help create contribute to the stress and social division that have
exploded into violence in schools around the country. In Japan, the intense pressure to ex-
112 CHAPTER 4