We’ve all heard of special-needs vouchers for children with disabilities.  But what about vouchers for the gifted?

First, let’s briefly review the rights granted to special-needs children under federal law.  (NOTE: This is merely a description of what is supposed to happen under the law; how strictly public schools actually adhere to this is a matter for another blog post.)

Under IDEA, if either a parent or teacher believes a student is in need of special assistance, the school is required to set up an IEP (Individual Education Program).  Essentially, the parent(s), teacher, special education teacher and school psychologist meet and decide as a team what sort of extra attention the child needs.  The team can include any other therapists or specialists that may need to be included based on the child’s needs.

The child’s placement–where the IEP will be carried out–is of particular interest.  I’m quoting the bulk of this passage for the benefit of context:

What type of placements are there? Depending on the needs of the child, his or her IEP may be carried out in the regular class (with supplementary aids and services, as needed), in a special class (where every student in the class is receiving special education services for some or all of the day), in a special school, at home, in a hospital and institution, or in another setting. A school system may meet its obligation to ensure that the child has an appropriate placement available by:

    * providing an appropriate program for the child on its own;
    * contracting with another agency to provide an appropriate program; or
    * utilizing some other mechanism or arrangement that is consistent with IDEA for providing or paying for an appropriate program for the child.

The placement group will base its decision on the IEP and which placement option is appropriate for the child. Can the child be educated in the regular classroom, with proper aids and supports? If the child cannot be educated in the regular classroom, even with appropriate aids and supports, then the placement group will talk about other placements for the child.

So there’s all sorts of flexibility under the law as to how a special-needs child may receive additional help.  If the school doesn’t have the means to help the child, the district may contract with an outside agency to provide assistance. 

Well, we know all about McKay vouchers for children with disabilities.  But what about students who are in the same situation, just on the other end of the spectrum?  Let’s turn to a lawsuit argued last week in front of the California Supremes.  Levi Clancy, a child prodigy from Los Angeles, is now 13.  At 5 months old he began walking; at 5 years of age he was reading high school-level books in two languages.  Not surprisingly, LAUSD isn’t exactly equipped to handle a child of his caliber, so he began attending community college at age 7.  Last year he enrolled at UCLA.  As his single mother can’t afford it, she wants the state to pay for it.  From the press release:

Court papers filed by the California Department of Education acknowledged Clancy’s mother is "attempting to obtain the functional equivalent of a voucher for her son’s university-level education," but insists the agency does not owe a "constitutional duty" to the child in this case.
 
[Clancy's lawyer, Richard] Ackerman argues any failure to provide a suitable education is a violation of the federal Equal Protection Clause.
 
The Sacramento trial court that first heard the case indicated in its now appealed ruling that the plaintiffs would just have to face the potential that the child prodigy would have to drop out of UCLA and see what happens because he does not have "special needs" under the law.

This is a press release, which is entitled to editorialize.  But that last paragraph really isn’t much of a stretch.  Check this out (scroll down):

Since the state requires the boy to attend school, but the public schools in Los Angles [sic] cannot provide an adequate education, the state should pay his college expenses, lawyer Richard Ackerman argued.

Allan Keown, a lawyer for the California Department of Education, said Clancy was welcome back in public school but not entitled to a special college tuition "voucher" from the court.

In summary, the law both requires the kid to be in school and entitles him to a taxpayer-funded education that is not serving his needs.  The state’s response: "Well, that will have to do, because we’re not providing you with any other options."  Franz Kafka, call your office! 

All joking aside, the legal reasoning is pretty straightforward.  He has a condition that his school is unable to properly address.  As already noted, under IDEA public schools are permitted to contract with third-party providers for special-needs children, so to pay to send this kid to a university–a state-sponsored school, no less–isn’t really that much of a stretch.  Financially, it’s a no-brainer: as Ackerman said, the $9,000 per year spent to send him to UCLA is still less than LAUSD’s average per-pupil expenditure of $12,000. 

Here’s the interesting thing.  The disabled and gifted are both outliers, and public schools have done a pretty bad job of serving both.  This Time article from 2004 illustrates the issue pretty well; partially it’s a function of the difficulty of determining whether a child is actually gifted, but it’s also an issue of educators reluctant to allow for accelerated learning.  And just like impaired students, if gifted students are not properly helped, they can have problems in the future.  (Which may be just one reason that some have proposed IEPs for the gifted.)

I think at least one reason the gifted tend to get overlooked is because it’s incorrectly assumed they come from higher-income families with the means to enroll them in private schools.  However, I think NCLB is partially to blame as well.  The law rightly focuses a great deal of attention on the weakest students, but as the WSJ pointed out a while back, the law seems to be doing so at the expense of gifted children:

The 2001 law, championed by the Bush administration, calls for all public-school students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Schools must make steady progress toward these goals. They face penalties if they don’t continually raise their proportion of proficient students, both overall and within various racial and other categories. Schools that miss milestones can be required to pay for outside tutors and let parents transfer children elsewhere. But a school faces no penalty if top students tail off as long as they remain proficient.

To abide by the law, schools are shifting resources away from programs that help their most gifted students. Because "all the incentives in No Child Left Behind are to focus on the bottom or the middle," says Stanford University education professor Michael Kirst, "reallocating resources there makes sense if you want to stay out of trouble."

If the best kids end up falling behind while the weakest kids catch up, the end result of NCLB will mediocrity for all, which I think would be a great leap backward.  So with NCLB reauthorization coming up next year, here are some suggestions:

• Amend IDEA to make the language inclusive of accelerated children.  The framework is already there for disabled students; it shouldn’t take much to make the gifted part of the mix. 
• Find a way to make it easier for kids to skip grades.  As pointed out in the Time article linked above, this is one of easiest (not to mention one of the most affordable) remedies available.  And in spite of the reservations of many educators, it isn’t nearly as harmful to children as one might think.
• For the truly exceptional kids like Clancy, make it easier for the district to outsource those students to local colleges or universities.  Our post-secondary system is one of our assets, so let’s use it to our advantage.  (As noted elsewhere, increasing numbers of kids are already skipping high school to go to college, so if a kid can handle it, why not send ‘em on their way?)

UPDATE: For an example of how poorly gifted students are treated, check this out.