By Emily Villamar-Robbins, guest writer
I am a believer in public school. Growing up, I attended public school from K –
12. During law school, I explored the
history of educational inequality in the United States, including segregation,
desegregation, the risks of tracking, and inadequate school funding. I believe that each of us has a civic and
moral responsibility to
As you can imagine, when I had children, I planned for them
to attend public school. When my older
son entered first grade, however, we faced a situation not uncommon for
children identified by psychologists as gifted: without significant adjustments,
the curriculum did not fit his development.
For him to learn in school, we needed help from our district’s gifted
specialists.
When a few family friends learned of his learning levels, some
made well-intended comments:
“Public
school won’t meet his needs.”
“Public
schools have limited resources. They
can’t help kids like him.”
While this may be the temporary reality in some cases, and especially
in states without gifted education laws, I would argue that these statements are
offensive: many parents of children
“like him” cannot afford alternatives.
As parents and educators, we must work to shift perspectives.
The decision to pull advanced children from public school is
common, particularly in areas with inadequately funded schools. Resigning ourselves to this practice,
however, would reveal a terrible bias: if
we fail to hold public schools responsible for meeting advanced learning needs,
we assume that (a) children from low-income backgrounds cannot be advanced
learners, or (b) advanced learners from low-income backgrounds somehow have
less right to learn than students with average academic development. Experts know that intellectually advanced children
are present in culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse populations. We need increased research to improve methods
of identifying giftedness in underrepresented populations, but in the meantime,
we can already identify children in families unable to afford alternatives to
public school.
If we permit public education to remain underfunded, and if we
excuse schools from serving high-ability students, where does this leave gifted
children from diverse backgrounds?
For students with any learning difference, flexible strategies
and continued monitoring are often needed.
Luckily for my children, our state has gifted education laws, an advocacy
organization for educators and parents, and state recommendations for serving
gifted children in diverse populations.
We are lucky to live in a district with dedicated gifted specialists and
administrators who work hard to identify and meet gifted needs in all
populations. Not all families are so fortunate.
Unfortunately, some education advocates have criticized
gifted programs as elitist, unfairly blaming the concept of gifted education
for disparities in school quality. While
any strategy can be misapplied or misused, research supports the need for
gifted education: just as children with
learning challenges require different interventions, depending on their difference
from the norm, children with extreme, advanced differences need curriculum
modifications. As much as we wish it
were simpler, schoolwide approaches, in isolation, may not succeed with some learning
differences. Students with extreme
differences – including the ‘gifted’ – exist at
all income levels.
To succeed in our commitment to equity and the needs
of all students, education advocates must find common ground. As educators, parents, researchers and
lawmakers, we must advocate for improvement in public education as a whole, and
we must increase efforts to better identify students with learning differences
in diverse populations. At the same
time, we have a duty to advocate for programs, professional development
training, and interventions needed for students with all types of special needs
and differences – including gifted needs.
About the Author
Emily Villamar-Robbins is a graduate of Harvard Law School,
and she is a parent to two gifted sons from a diverse cultural heritage. Part of her legal work has involved serving
as a staff attorney at Legal Aid and representing clients living below the
poverty line. She currently volunteers
in support of local education in Texas, and she is a candidate for graduate
certification in gifted education. She is
a contributing author for TheFissureBlog.com,
an innovative resource on education and the evolution of learning.
INTERESTED IN WRITING FOR WEAREGIFTED2? CONTACT Dr. Joy Lawson Davis at profjoy1022@gmail.com
