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Asa Zink, 6, poses in his bedroom Thursday, May 13, 2010. Asa is being homeschooled because he is profoundly gifted, and the Clark County School District doesn’t offer a program to meet his needs. Plans for a stand-alone academy for gifted students have been tabled due to the budget crisis.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Sun archives
Beyond the Sun
For families of the valley’s smartest children, the news back in December was welcomed: A $600,000 federal appropriation would help the Clark County School District pursue plans to start a stand-alone, $2.5 million academy for highly gifted students.
The academy would go a long way in providing the kind of special attention that highly gifted students lack, in part because of federal initiatives that force public schools to focus mostly on students at the opposite end of the achievement spectrum.
But with the district cutting $145 million from next year’s budget, and the outlook even more grim for the next biennium, plans for the academy are cooling on the back burner.
The $600,000 appropriation to Clark County was the largest of its kind in the country, said Jane Clarenbach, director of the National Association for Gifted Children in Washington, D.C.
“There was a lot of excitement about that investment in bright kids — people are watching what’s happening in Clark County,” Clarenbach said. “It’s disappointing that the money still wasn’t enough for the academy to get going more quickly.”
Education experts say the district’s existing programs for gifted education, while better than what’s offered in much of the country, can’t replicate the potential benefits of a dedicated campus tailored specifically to the most advanced students’ needs.
The academy would serve students in grades 6 through 12 who have an IQ of at least 145, representing the top 0.1 percent of the population. The district has identified about 180 students who would qualify.
The proposed academy would have been the first district program to gather gifted students as a group, as opposed to receiving limited services at their neighborhood schools.
Nevada, like more than a quarter of the states, provides no funding to support gifted education, leaving it up to individual districts to set their priorities.
The Clark County School District pays for its program, called Gifted and Talented Education, or GATE, from its regular budget, at a cost of $8 million for the 2010-11 academic year. The program was protected from budget cuts.
The district has five years to spend the $600,000 appropriation. Some of those dollars will be used in the 2010-11 academic year to expand programs for highly gifted students, said Kristine Minnich, district GATE coordinator.
She noted that the district makes a special effort to place highly gifted students in appropriate classes and offer outside enrichment opportunities.
Students in grades 3 through 5 who are identified as gifted — there are more than 5,500 of them this year — receive 2.5 hours per week of specialized instruction at their neighborhood schools. Gifted students who want to study at their own pace can enroll in the district’s virtual high school as well as the Academy of Individualized Study. Several charter schools also offer online learning programs tailored to gifted students.
That’s better than most districts are able to offer, Clarenbach said.
The virtual high school and individualized study programs are indicative of the district’s innovative thinking, she said, and it’s also good news that the programs weren’t sacrificed during the budget crisis.
“Clark County ought to be patted on the back for making a broad effort” in nurturing the brightest students," Clarenbach said. “The more gifted you are, the more challenging it is for the school district to find something that works for you.”
There is hard evidence that gifted students haven’t fared well since No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002.
One of the sharpest criticisms of the federal law is that it forces school districts to dedicate a disproportionate amount of resources to struggling students to avoid the stigma of having a school labeled as “needing improvement,” while offering districts few incentives to boost performance among students who already are high achievers.
Since 1999, low achievers have made steady gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the Nation’s Report Card.” But scores for students in the top 10 percent have remained essentially flat.
With the federal education law up for reauthorization, Clarenbach said there have been encouraging discussions with lawmakers and “general agreement” that gifted education needs to be boosted, particularly identifying and supporting students from low-income households who tend to slip past the radar.
The benefits of a stand-alone academy, versus the typical “pullout” programs are myriad, Clarenbach said. Gifted students often face social and emotional challenges as a result of their abilities, and the academy setting would make it easier to address those issues.
Research shows that 20 percent of students who drop out of high school nationwide tested in the gifted range, and nearly 90 percent of those students were earning passing grades when they left school. The students told researchers that a more challenging curriculum would have kept them engaged and interested.
Asa Zink, 6, conducts a velocity experiment with the help of his parents Bryan and Marcia, above, at his home Thursday, May 13, 2010. Asa is being homeschooled because he is profoundly gifted, and the Clark County School District doesn't offer a program to meet his needs. Plans for a stand-alone academy for gifted students have been tabled due to the budget crisis.
The public and charter school options didn’t provide enough flexibility for Marcia Zink, who is home-schooling her gifted 6-year-old son, Asa.
Asa is working about three years ahead of his age level in the core subjects, and tackling seventh-grade math. He is also an avid reader, saying he purposely took his time reading the final, 700-page installment of “Harry Potter” because he wanted to savor the last of the series.
Zink and Asa meet several days each week with other families home-schooling their children, and the parents take turns providing lessons in their particular areas of expertise. She’s comfortable with continuing home schooling for the next few years, but worries whether her son’s abilities would benefit by a more specialized setting.
One option for the family — although it would require relocation — is the Davidson Academy in Reno, a university school for profoundly gifted students, defined as having an IQ of at least 145 or 150, depending on the test used. A public school funded by the state in addition to private donations, the Davidson Academy’s students are not charged tuition, and many supplement their learning with classes at UNR.
Bryan Zink, an officer with the Clark County School District Police, said he hopes the district’s academy will come to reality within a few years, so his family can stay in Las Vegas.
In the meantime, Asa has qualified for the “Young Scholars” outreach program through the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a private nonprofit organization which supports the public academy in Reno. There are about 1,700 profoundly gifted students nationwide taking advantage of the program’s enrichment and support services, said Erik Schwinger, the institute’s Southern Nevada liaison.
Additionally, more than a third of the Davidson Academy’s 91 students moved with their families to the Reno area from other states to take advantage of the more intensive learning opportunities.
Marcia Zink said her family is planning to visit the Davidson Academy next month — and worries about the highly gifted students for whom home schooling, online learning programs or relocation aren’t an option. Clark County needs its own academy, she said.
“The schools are so busy trying to get students ready for the next big test, they assume the gifted kids are going to take care of themselves,” Zink said. “But if they don’t have the right environment, they’re left with no direction.”
The GATE program in elementary school, while better than nothing, is not sufficient to challenge gifter children. We have Magnet middle and high schools, that can, and should be used to attract gifted children, however, the cutoff scores for admission are so low, that many gifted children get excluded(lottery). Why is it OK to authorize auditions(and selection based on skill) for the Las Vegas Academy, so that the most talented children are offered the opportunity for a performing arts school, when we refuse to allow standard academic testing for "magnet or select schools", to insure the brightest receive the same opportunity. Take the most gifted in our school district and offer a gifted school. If we can chose chidren for LVA based on additions in theatre , dance and art , why not test our gifted children an math , science and english and give them a similar opportubity. Gifted children need the socialization of school, not homeschooling. Why are we not fostering our best and brightest? Most every other large school district, puts resources into these children. By failing to do so, and lowering standards for magnet schools to be more inclusive,(creating a pool of less qualified children) we are failing our gifted children. Use the test NY and Boston use, Place your top 300 students in school A, the next 300 in school B. This must be done without any manipulation concerning racial, sexual or economic demographics. Smart/Gifted children need to be challenged, by being educated with similarly smart/gifted children. This allows them to grow both academically and socially. An investment in these children will pay off in the future.
If they offer a gifted school, the city may be able to attract better residents. A reason that some educated adults don't want to live in Las Vegas is that they don't want to send their kids to the schools here, but they also don't want to home school.
Too bad, the district spends a bunch trying to teach dullards 2+2, with predictable results.
One of the stated goals of No Child Left Behind was to narrow the "achievement gap." Unfortunately, this has been done by focusing time and money on the lower achieving students while totally ignoring our gifted students. It is time to focus on our gifted students--they deserve the best education possible. We need an elementary school that supports our gifted students here in CCSD.
Simple fix: take ALL funds that go to ESL, and use it for gifted programs.
Wow, something that everyone on here agrees on for a change! Support the gifted children.
We're sharing this opinion because we're standing on the heads of giants. We all recognize that genius is the kind of resource that multiplies the leaps of mankind. Not spending money on the little smart ones means no computers, electricity or cars.
We're all about toys. And smart kids invent coool toys!
Why is there no equivalent to the Davidson Academy in Las Vegas? We certainly have a lot more residents. This seems rather odd. Is Reno more educationally progressive or is CCSD just focusing on trying to get the test scores up and increase minority graduation rates?
Maybe CCSD can eliminate a few consultants and overpaid administrators to fund the program. It's time we paid more attention to students who actually want to learn.
Yo Libra,
in Vegas? LOL A school to HELP KIDS LEARN???
That goes against the grain. See, learning would enable them to LEAVE. Vegas needs those those young hard bodies and their willing, trusting naivete so we can USE them! And we need them DUMB.
The notion of something like Davidson among the swine conjures rabble-rousing dissent and uprising youth with a plan to take flight and become themselves. Preposterous!
We certainly need a school like DAvidson. We also need schools for very smart children who may not have the 145 IQ, but who are neglected in our current school system. A 5th grader who is able to take ALgebra has no where to go. A 6th grader who could easily master Biology is stuck w/ lower level sciences. Our high schools offer more remedial classes than AP classes. Magnets are not the answer. Magnets don't take the best and the brightest. They are adjusted to account for geographical, racial, and economic criteria. Schools for high achieving students, based soley on perforamance and academic achievement are a necessity. MAybe if we hire an educator to run our school system, rather than a bean counter, things will begin to change.
Our kids would do way better if we had 12 - 18 kids in a class instead of twice that, if we had a way of relocating the unprepared and unwilling, and we had teachers motivated not by nappy-headed monetary drive, but by the far superior internal driver - the will for these youngins to find the flow, the natural learning mechanism occurring when curiosity and capability combine in equal parts.
Burdened by standards, teachers take the route of least resistance. Meanwhile we have lots of kids isolated by school because they don't get heard, seen or considered.
Most parents think their kids are "gifted". This child Asa Zink is apparently "profoundly gifted"....whatever that means.
While I support all parents right to choose home schooling or public/private schooling, I think the home schooled children grow up lacking certain social skills because they are not exposed to different types of children from different backgrounds. The benefit however is a much better educated child than one from a public school.
The proposed - and laughably small, despite industry laments - increase in gold mining taxes proposed by PLAN would provide about $300 million annually while subtracting about $50 from the industry's $1,300 ounce of gold. In other words, we could open more than 100 schools for gifted students on that revenue.
Instead, too many of Nevada's money-and-power elite will give the shaft to our children to preserve their relationship with an industry that cares little or nothing about the future of our state.
I'm surprised one of the many million/billionairs in town doesn't step up and donate the funding required and have the school named after them, this would be a huge PR and benefit for the city, and they can write it off. (HINT HINT)
While I am pleased that "Noindex" supports the right of parents to homeschool their children, the statement that such children "grow up lacking certain social skills because they're not exposed to children [from multifaceted] backgrounds" isn't necessarily correct. The "social skills" many children learn in school often consist of spitting, cursing, insulting, bullying, intimidating and the like -- or perhaps of comparing Hannah Montana experiences. Homeschooled children can be and often are exposed to far more than that -- they are exposed to children who love to learn, who value curiosity and exploration, and who work together -- and individually -- to solve difficult problems, although this is far more true for secular than for religious approaches. Through extracurricular activities, including sports, karate, chess, painting and more, they how to interact physically, psychologically and intellectually.
The majority of the public schools (but not all, as there are exceptions) are constrained by No Child Left Behind, by an anti-meritocratic, egalitarian attitude that all outcomes should be equal, by the myth that all children's abilities are equal when it comes to the mind, although somehow not when it comes to sports, where even the dullards can immediately see the difference between a Peyton Manning and a Ryan Leaf. It is much harder to admire and promote one more intelligent than you, especially when "you" are an adult (perhaps a teacher) and the "one" is a 9-year-old child reading Gauss or Euler. There is no greater disgrace nationwide than the fact that most in this nation, and almost all in the educational establishment, hate genius, hate real differences, hate being shown up for being wrong, and hate achievement for its own sake, while seeking comfort in the company of their own fellow mediocrities. And it is the gifted, particularly the profoundly gifted, who get screwed, and derivatively, we as a nation who lose the engagement of the minds and the people who might one day cure cancer and eliminate disease, while those who drink themselves into a stupor or inject their daily dose of ersatz happiness are the beneficiaries of billions of dollars in Federal, State and other programs.
Perhaps if we were able to run our school district the way that we wanted it run, instead of the way some bureaucrats in Washington D.C. decided that we should have to run it, we would be lifting kids up, not catering to the lowest common denominator.
We need to end social promotion.
Sounds like most are in agreement that more support for our gifted students is wanted. As a teacher, I agree with that. Our gifted students aren't being pushed as much as our struggling students. But if we think that any services will be added in this economic climate, we are in dreamland. I think Launce is the only one thinking straight here (addressing the way to pay for it). Why waste time making a wishlist that includes creating a school for the gifted, when there many services on the chopping block? The districts regular GATE program is always one of the first things considered when discussing programs to cut. And even if we did increase a tax for mining, the state will have to undo many of the budget cuts implemented recently before adding new programs. This is unfortunate, but I just think it's crazy to think about extra services, when I know it is impossible to get them. Those of you wondering how Reno can fund the Davidson Academy, I am wondering how long it will be before that academy is cut. I hate to be so negative about such an important issue, but our budget crisis is bad (understatement of the year).
Sorry, looks like more than just Launce addressed the money issue. Didn't mean to leave anyone out.
If the LV population is shrinking, why not reorganize schools and use one school building for a gifted center?
GATE is an elitist program that often has as much to do with politics and favoritism as it does a child's ability. Chances are if the child is an advanced reader, he lacks social or athletic ability. Perhaps the "gifted" child should be spending an extra hour in physical education and not a bunch of "creative" activities that would be worthwhile for ANY child to engage in.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the retromingent attitudes exemplified by "lvsreader"'s posting emerge. First, lvsreader, numerous gifted children have both social and athletic ability. To assert that they, on average, lack such traits is as prejudicial and as narrow-minded as to insert "black" for "gifted" in your sentence. Second, we are not talking about some abstraction of "creative" activities. Are you telling me it would be worthwhile for a 1st grader who can barely read and who cannot even multiply to engage in a study of advanced algebra; for a 5th grader who is struggling with 1st-order equations to engage in a study of calculus or population genetics? It is unfortunate that you have absolutely zero understanding of the fact that all children, gifted or otherwise, require by their very nature to be challenged intellectually in a manner consonant with their abilities. When those abilities are off the scale, then the challenges must be too or you end up with a bored child whose mind is deadened day after day after day. School becomes a prison where the mind is buried six feet under rather than an opportunity to learn, to investigate and to develop passions about living. But, lvsreader, having no personal or other experience with the genuinely gifted, you ignorantly join the chorus of those who wish to bury minds, eliminate hope and destroy futures. You, unfortunately, exemplify why intelligence, creativity and ability are still regarded by most as defects to be remedied by an Orwellian bureaucracy and why so many truly gifted children start life full of potential only to have it crushed by those filled with envy.
The first commenter had it right. The CCSD has almost nothing to offer these kids, but the Magnet schools have advanced Math and Science classes that the regular schools can not offer. Unfortunately, they often don't get in due to the lottery. It's all the district has to offer, which isn't much, and they won't even give priority to Gifted Kids. But thats CCSD.
manoflogos: what a bunch of romantic crap you spew about intelligence. How many "average" or "remedial" children's "spirits are crushed" by being de facto labeled "not gifted," despite the many areas they might be gifted that do not fall under narrowly traditional definitions of "gifted"? And we must generalize to make, um, generalizations. It's another term for theory.
Lvsreader: "average" or "remedial" children's spirits are not crushed when they are challenged; but certainly an average 6th grader's spirits would be crushed by being asked to recite the alphabet daily. That's what it's like for a highly or profoundly gifted 1st grader to "learn" how to read. There's another word for that: torture. As to your point about a so-called average or remedial child's not falling under a traditional definition of gifted, you are partially correct: should, say, a mechanical genius be forced to do nothing but color workbooks, s/he, too, will be bored. But most people who actually understand the gifted also understand that there are multifactorial axes along which giftedness can occur. But it is also true that there are strong correlations between apparently disparate areas of giftedness: I think of the world-class clarinet player who is also a Harvard professor and Nobel Laureate in chemistry, for example. Many people conflate giftedness with pure knowledge, instead of with the ability to see connections between apparently disparate facts and entities -- you know, the sort of thing that Einstein, who also despised school, was able to do. Rather than spend your energies promoting a broader definition of giftedness and also recognizing the value that traditional IQ tests can measure, it seems you prefer to bring all of the gifted -- traditional or non-traditional -- down to the lowest common denominator, so that all can suffer. If some can't be given the opportunity to succeed, why not just metaphorically lobotomize everyone? You are the Inquisitorial Church while the gifted are the silenced Galileo.
Oh yeah way to go , keep football and all other sports for the dorky jocks and punish the academ ics. Da da Da , Idiots.
Again, these programs are as much about selecting and reproducing certain values labeled as "gifted" than they are about feeding any one kid's "starved intelligence." Little Reuben is a prolific reader of Harry Potter and likes to play chess. He must be "gifted." Little Johnny (or Jorge) who devours comic books and sports magazines is not. And this is judged by the schoolmarmy English teachers and the likes of you, who speak so eloquently and passionately with such big colorful words, you must be "gifted." You show you own true snobbery when you write in an earlier post (a rather gross generalization I might add): "children learn in school often consist of spitting, cursing, insulting, bullying, intimidating and the like -- or perhaps of comparing Hannah Montana experiences."
If you have experience in gifted education or giftedness, let's continue this discussion. Does anybody know why the school district can not/will not select magnet school students based on test scores? Can this "inability" be changed? Having an entrance exam score requirement seems to be a simple solution. (Selecting the appropriate test is another discussion in itself.) The school building and teachers are already in place. We just need the gifted students to attend the school. University admissions have minimal GPA and SAT score requirements. Why can't our primary education be modeled similarly? Other large cities such as Boston and New York have "select" public schools. If public funds should not support elitist plans, then why can a public university such as UCLA demand a certain score for entrance?
My response to lvreader: I agree with you that GATE does next to nothing to feed the "starved intelligence." GATE kids receive 2.5 hours PER WEEK of enrichment. But what about the other 27 hours per week of regular classes where the advanced child learns nothing because the teacher is attending to the lowest denominator? Our public education model is designed so that children below the bar are pulled up and those above the bar are pulled down (egalitarian at its finest).
I think it is a sad situation to suppress our most talented minds . Would you want to foster the young mind of the future neurosurgeon who will be excising your brain tumor or do you think anybody or everybody is capable of such abilities? If everybody was created equal, then each person could design their own cars, cure their own diseases, and fly themselves to the moon! Why do most people accept varying levels of talents in sports (varsity vs JV or professional vs amateur) and yet are psychologically intimidated by varying levels of intelligence? Each person is special; this is why the one-size-fits-all model of education does not work.
Unfortunately our brightest and most talented are being left behind. They are not reaching their potential because teachers are being over loaded in the classrooms. Our schools have been dummyed down and our standards lowered to accomodate children from third world countries. Our school district is top heavy with adminstrators sucking up funds that could actually be used for educating child. America and Nevada is well on the path to ruin.
We have a child who, like the boy featured in the article, is a Davidson Young Scholar and profoundly gifted, with a 145+ IQ. Our child is currently in a very strong gifted program in our current school district, which offers many "GT centers" where gifted students can receive a challenging education as early as 3rd grade. We recently considered moving back to Las Vegas, but the state of the education system there and the relatively little emphasis placed on the gifted program persuaded us to stay away.
I have two highly gifted children. When I complained to the school about No Child Left Behind I was told to sue the school district. I am now home schooling one with a tutor at $30 an hour...which is a deal. But to find the right tutor took years. Highly gifted can push your buttons and send your head spinning if you don't know what you are up against. Not a bad trait, but one that has no room in a classroom full of 30 kids moving at a snails pace. Why in this country do we spend so much time and money supporting people that will not move this country ahead in the world but possibly hold us back? I don't mean any disrespect for people at the other end of the scale, but to ignore these potential brilliant minds is insane and not economically smart either. If the $600K was earmarked for this program...I would like to know what it was spent on. More worthless employees at the Ed Shed on Flamingo? Please fill out the CCSD Superintendent survey looking for public opinion on the qualifications for the Superintendent that will replace Ralffs this summer. I wrote not to promote an educator but rather a savvy business person who has a background in budgets, grants and government shenanigans.
Go to ccsd.net and find the survey - it's easy.
There is a common misconception in our society that the label "gifted" is a judgment on the value of a child. This is why people react so emotionally, and why they make nonsensical statements like, "All children are gifted." This statement is, in effect, what some posters in this thread are saying.
Saying that a child is "gifted" just means that they scored highly on a standard intelligence test, which is a good but imperfect measure of their potential to learn academic subjects. Calling a child "gifted" is no different from saying that he/she is tall, or has medium brown skin. None of these are value judgments.
Our local GATE program may not be the greatest, but that doesn't mean that gifted education in general is a bad idea. The fact is, children learn at different rates. A one-size-fits-all education is just like a clothing store that carries only one size!
My daughter is also a 6-year-old profoundly gifted, homeschooled Davidson Young Scholar. I welcome those with similar experiences to join us in our discussion at City Data:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/las-vegas...