'No Child' Law May Slight The Gifted, Experts Say

'No Child' Law May Slight The Gifted, Experts Say: "'We don't find any evidence that the gifted kids are harmed,' said Chicago economist Derek A. Neal. 'But they are certainly right, the gifted advocates, if they claim there is no evidence that No Child Left Behind is helping the gifted.'"

Are they even looking for harm?

The sad thing is, is that it will likely take 20 years for us to notice the harm. The self-motivated are not the ones we need to worry about.
The ones in the greatest danger are the ones that are directionless. They may be bright but they also have learned the first lesson of school, don't make waves. It you have been burned a few times and no one has stood up for you you'll just drift along, a good student but bored.

There is an old saying of you can manage what you can measure. If you are not measuring it, you are not managing it.

It also means if you are measuring the wrong things you will be managing the wrong way. During the dot.com era they were measuring eyeballs or page views, which was worthless, you need to measure what people are buying from you. It makes a difference, Those who stayed with eyeballs went away in the dot.bomb.

For this is will become even worse. The schools have traditionally focused on the middle, which is just fine. The middle is pretty big and the ends can deal with it well enough.

Now they are focusing on the bottom or at least the bubble group near the pass/fail on standardized tests. They will be ignoring the vast majority, even the middle group, because they are so focused on the numbers that bubble group generates. You manage what you measure.