<p>Our school does have a small budget they are supposed to be spending on gifted education. What they do is use it to run programs like Mathcounts and robotics. These are fine programs, and they are a lot more worthwhile than what is going on in the regular classroom instruction. </p>
<p>But there are a few issues I see with spending the extremely limited gifted funding on those activities. First, there is some idea that gifted kids are ok with regular instruction because they can pursue everything that’s really appropriate for them on their own time outside of school. And my daughter has been doing this with a lot of commitment and energy, but the result is that she has almost no free time. Second, the way things are scheduled, some kids aren’t able to participate. Should you have to choose between being gifted and being a musician? Third, if regular math teachers can simply run it in other schools then there doesn’t seem to be much point to having a “gifted program”–how is it in any way better? Fourth, most of the activities funded by this program are overwhelmingly preferred by boys and there really isn’t much equivalent available that attracts gifted girls for them to have opportunities to work with one another. I’d say 90% of the money is being spent on boys, and also that more of the gifted money is being spent on boys who aren’t gifted than on girls who are. The vast majority of the gifted girls aren’t getting anything. </p>