Bell Curve

434 Living Together The Leveling of American Education 435The Neglect of the GiftedAnother factor in the declining capabilities of America's brightest studentsis that the decline occurred when, in policy circles, disadvantagedstudents were "in" and gifted students were "out." When the first significantaid went to secondary education at the end of the Eisenhoweryears, it was for the brightest students who might become scientists orengineers. In 1965, with the passage of the Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act of 1965 (ESEA), the funding priority turned 180 degrees,and it has remained anchored in the new position ever since. As of 1993,the ESEA authorized forty-six programs with budgets that added up to$8.6 billion. Most of these programs are specifically designated for studentsin low-income areas and students with special educational needs.Even the programs that might apply to any sort of student (improvementsin science and mathematics education, for example) often areworded in ways that give preference to students from low-income areas.Another set of programs are for support services. And, finally, there areprograms designated for the gifted and talented. This is the way that the$8.6 billion budget broke out for fiscal 1993:'~"Programs for the disadvantaged 92.2%Programs that might benefit any student 5.6%Support and administration of ESEA programs 2.1 %Programs for the gifted 0.1%This breakdown omits other federal programs with large budgets aimedat the education of the disadvantaged-more than $2 billion for HeadStart (funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, notthe Department of Education), more than $3 billion for job trainingprograms, plus a scattering of others.48Theoretically, programs targeted at disadvantaged students could alsobe programs for the cognitively gifted among the socioeconomically disadvantaged.But that's not the way it has worked. Disadvantaged as usedby three decades of administrators and school boards using ESEA fundshas consistently meant not just students who are poor or living in an inner-cityneighborhood but students who exhibit learning problems. Programsfor the intellectually gifted but otherwise disadvantaged attractlittle support and, occasionally, hostility. A case in point is BannekerHigh School in Washington, D.C., a special academic high school inthe middle of the black northeast section of the city, established by aformer superintendent of schools with the school board's reluctant permissionin 1981.The establishment of Banneker High followed a proud tradition inWashington, where once-elite Dunbar High had turned out many of thenation's black leaders. But throughout the 1980s, Banneker was underfundedand repeatedly threatened with closure. Banneker was "elitest,"said an influential school board member, a luxury for parents who "hadtheir children in private school and can no longer afford it and bringthem back to essentially a private school at the public expense."49 Banneker's"elitest" admissions policy? Applicants had to write an essay, beinterviewed, be in the top 18 percent of their class, and read and computeat grade level-a broad conception of "elitist" indeed. Throughoutit all, teachers competed to teach at Banneker and students competedto attend. Banneker placed large proportions of its graduates in collegeand had no significant problems with discipline, drugs, crime, or theother ills of contemporary urban schools.50 And yet, as we write, Bannekercontinues to be barely tolerated by the school system. Banneker'sstory has numerous counterparts in other urban centers. Funds for theeccmomically and socially disadvantaged have meant, for practical purposes,funds concentrated on the cognitively disadvantaged as well.A POLICY AGENDAWhat are the implications for policy? The pros and cons of the specificreforms on the table-national achievement tests, national curricula,school choice, vouchers, tuition tax credits, apprenticeship programs,restoration of the neighborhood school, minimum competency tests,ability grouping, and a host of others-involve nuts-and-bolts issuesthat are better argued out in detail, on their merits, in works that arespecifically devoted to them. We also leave for other settings a discussionof the enormous potential of new technologies, from the personalcomputer to laser disks to the information superhighway, to enrich andbroaden educational resources. Here we concentrate on certain strategicimplications about educational reform that flow from our accountfirst,regarding attempts to upgrade American education as a whole, andthen regarding the education of the gifted.