According to a report by the National Association for Gifted Children entitled “State of the States in Gifted Education,” opportunities for gifted students are being reduced for two major reasons. First, the amount of federal funding available for education is already too small and, second, the majority of the funding that is available goes toward helping struggling students rather than gifted students. As a result, many parents of gifted children are struggling with finding a good educational setting for their children.

According to the report, the majority of federal funding is spent on poor students, low-performing students and minority students. As a result, states and local school districts are left with trying to obtain the funding for gifted classes on their own. Since many schools simply cannot afford to support these types of programs, many gifted students go through school without being pushed to reach their fullest potential.

A recent article in USA Today reports that the federal government spent $7.5 million last year on grants and research for gifted children. While this may seem like a large number, it is important to remember that there are an estimated 3 million gifted students in the United States. As such, the federal government has only spent about $2.50 on each of these children. Obviously, that is not enough funding to help them achieve their fullest potential. To make matters worse, both the Obama and the Bush administration have attempted to have the funding eliminated completely. Thankfully, Congress has put the funding back into the budget each year.

As a result of the amount of funding available for gifted programs, some students have literally no options available to them. While some counties may offer multiple programs for gifted students, others may not offer any.

“The quality of gifted services is dependent on geography, and it shouldn’t be,” said Laura Carriere, who is the president of the Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education, in the USA Today article.
Sadly, the study conducted by the National Association for Gifted Children found that only six states provide full funding to their schools for gifted programs, while 13 states do not provide any funding at all. As a result, those schools that are in rural locations or poor urban locations typically have no money leftover to pay for educating their highest achieving students. Thanks to the economic downturn, many of the states that did provide funding for gifted programs made cuts to these programs in an effort to balance their budgets.

“There is a markedly insufficient national commitment to gifted and talented children, which, if left unchecked, will ultimately leave our nation ill-prepared to field the next generation of innovators and to compete in the global economy,” said the report.

While the federal No Child Left Behind Law has helped increase the scores of low-performing students, a separate study conducted by the Fordham Institute found that gifted students are not enjoying the same types of gains.