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Educational Innovations Series
Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students
2016 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice
In this provocative volume, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Brandon L. Wright argue that, for decades, the United States has done too little to focus on educating students to achieve at high levels. The authors identify two core First, compared to other countries, the United States does not produce enough high achievers. Second, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are severely underrepresented among those high achievers. The authors describe educating students to high levels of achievement as an issue of both equity and human talented students deserve appropriate resources and attention, and the nation needs to develop these students’ abilities to remain competitive in the international arena.
The authors embark on a study of twelve countries and regions to address these issues, exploring the structures and practices that enable some countries to produce a higher proportion of high-achieving students than the United States and to more equitably represent disadvantaged students among their top scorers. Based on this research, the authors present a series of ambitious but pragmatic points that they believe should inform US policy in this area.
This candid and engaging book takes a topic that is largely discussed behind closed doors and puts it squarely on the table for public debate.
In this provocative volume, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Brandon L. Wright argue that, for decades, the United States has done too little to focus on educating students to achieve at high levels. The authors identify two core First, compared to other countries, the United States does not produce enough high achievers. Second, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are severely underrepresented among those high achievers. The authors describe educating students to high levels of achievement as an issue of both equity and human talented students deserve appropriate resources and attention, and the nation needs to develop these students’ abilities to remain competitive in the international arena.
The authors embark on a study of twelve countries and regions to address these issues, exploring the structures and practices that enable some countries to produce a higher proportion of high-achieving students than the United States and to more equitably represent disadvantaged students among their top scorers. Based on this research, the authors present a series of ambitious but pragmatic points that they believe should inform US policy in this area.
This candid and engaging book takes a topic that is largely discussed behind closed doors and puts it squarely on the table for public debate.
312 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2015
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178 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 10, 2015
Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students
Book Description:
In this provocative volume, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Brandon L. Wright argue that, for decades, the United States has done too little to focus on educating students to achieve at high levels. The authors identify two core problems: First, compared to other countries, the United States does not produce enough high achievers. Second, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are severely underrepresented among those high achievers. The authors describe educating students to high levels of achievement as an issue of both equity and human capital: talented students deserve appropriate resources and attention, and the nation needs to develop these students’ abilities to remain competitive in the international arena.
American Education has focused on equity for several decades--on making sure that children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds reach a minimum level of proficiency. And there has been some success in closing that gap.
On the other hand, bright and high ability children are often neglected with the assumption that they will do fine anyway. The authors are concerned with those children for whom the minimum provides no challenge. How have these children been served? And how do our most capable students stand in relation with students from other countries?
In 2012, 27 of 34 countries did better than we did on the math section of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) exam. (More information about the findings can be found here.) And this is just one assessment that reveals our less than stellar educational results compared to other countries.
While the authors make a strong case for better opportunities for all children with high ability or who are high achievers, they are even more concerned about the neglect of high ability students from disadvantaged homes in which academics are not a priority, students whose parents are unaware of what is offered or don't have the financial means to take advantage, students who live in areas where transportation to a better school is not available or practical, and of students who speak another language at home. Untapped and neglected potential that we cannot afford to waste. Why are other countries doing better at reaching these students than we are?
OK--I knew this was going to be a problem. How to review a book that has so much information and that I've highlighted perhaps over-zealously? (I had to keep switching highlight colors to bring out important details in important passages.) There is so much information to ponder!
In spite of the numerous acronyms for educational programs and assessments, the book is surprisingly readable. I enjoyed reading about the way the eleven countries in the study handled the problems of trying to provide both equity and excellence, their strengths and weaknesses, and what the U.S. might learn from their efforts.
To avoid bogging down in details that I find fascinating, I'm going to direct you to reviews that might give you a better idea about the importance of the book:
NPR review http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/0...
Wall Street Journal review http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-brigh...
NetGalley/Harvard Education Press
Education Theory. Aug. 28, 2015. Print length: 312 pages.
Book Description:
In this provocative volume, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Brandon L. Wright argue that, for decades, the United States has done too little to focus on educating students to achieve at high levels. The authors identify two core problems: First, compared to other countries, the United States does not produce enough high achievers. Second, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are severely underrepresented among those high achievers. The authors describe educating students to high levels of achievement as an issue of both equity and human capital: talented students deserve appropriate resources and attention, and the nation needs to develop these students’ abilities to remain competitive in the international arena.
American Education has focused on equity for several decades--on making sure that children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds reach a minimum level of proficiency. And there has been some success in closing that gap.
On the other hand, bright and high ability children are often neglected with the assumption that they will do fine anyway. The authors are concerned with those children for whom the minimum provides no challenge. How have these children been served? And how do our most capable students stand in relation with students from other countries?
In 2012, 27 of 34 countries did better than we did on the math section of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) exam. (More information about the findings can be found here.) And this is just one assessment that reveals our less than stellar educational results compared to other countries.
While the authors make a strong case for better opportunities for all children with high ability or who are high achievers, they are even more concerned about the neglect of high ability students from disadvantaged homes in which academics are not a priority, students whose parents are unaware of what is offered or don't have the financial means to take advantage, students who live in areas where transportation to a better school is not available or practical, and of students who speak another language at home. Untapped and neglected potential that we cannot afford to waste. Why are other countries doing better at reaching these students than we are?
OK--I knew this was going to be a problem. How to review a book that has so much information and that I've highlighted perhaps over-zealously? (I had to keep switching highlight colors to bring out important details in important passages.) There is so much information to ponder!
In spite of the numerous acronyms for educational programs and assessments, the book is surprisingly readable. I enjoyed reading about the way the eleven countries in the study handled the problems of trying to provide both equity and excellence, their strengths and weaknesses, and what the U.S. might learn from their efforts.
To avoid bogging down in details that I find fascinating, I'm going to direct you to reviews that might give you a better idea about the importance of the book:
NPR review http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/0...
Wall Street Journal review http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-brigh...
NetGalley/Harvard Education Press
Education Theory. Aug. 28, 2015. Print length: 312 pages.
November 15, 2015
Finn & Wright picked a challenging and interesting topic but didn't do it justice. Their concerns are that gifted students are being deprived by our educational systems of an opportunity to develop their talents and, through that failure, our society is losing out on the benefits that might accrue if they were properly nurtured. The book's first section looks at the issues in the United States with defining and identifying giftedness and with developing and funding educational programs. The second part of the book looks at 11 developed countries to learn about their programs and ideas that might be applied in the U.S. The last section is a summary and a series of recommendations utilizing ideas from outside the United States.
While the book's goal of improving outcomes for gifted and talented students is certainly worthy, I think its implementation is weak. Much of this can be blamed on the disagreement (discussed a bit in the book) about defining and identifying giftedness. Thus the authors rely on results from international tests like PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS, and assume that if a country has a lot of high scorers on those tests that the country is helping gifted students succeed. As the authors acknowledge the existence of forms of giftedness that are not academic, I question their use of those tests as the basis for their judgements.
They also question the choice in some countries and states to limit participation in gifted programs to a small percentage of the population. Some places have limits as low as 2-4%, others go as high as 10%. While not disagreeing with the idea that every student has a talent or gift worthy of developing, I can't tell where they draw the line for finding students who are ill-served by traditional schools and those who just need a little extra enrichment.
Their strongest arguments are about the failure to identify students from disadvantaged populations and the tremendous personal and societal loss from that failure. A few countries with successes in that area are discussed along with some discussion of failures.
Overall, the book is worth reading for its collection of international data and methods used elsewhere for identifying and helping the gifted population. However, the reader should also consider the validity of numbers that rely on academic achievement measures only.
While the book's goal of improving outcomes for gifted and talented students is certainly worthy, I think its implementation is weak. Much of this can be blamed on the disagreement (discussed a bit in the book) about defining and identifying giftedness. Thus the authors rely on results from international tests like PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS, and assume that if a country has a lot of high scorers on those tests that the country is helping gifted students succeed. As the authors acknowledge the existence of forms of giftedness that are not academic, I question their use of those tests as the basis for their judgements.
They also question the choice in some countries and states to limit participation in gifted programs to a small percentage of the population. Some places have limits as low as 2-4%, others go as high as 10%. While not disagreeing with the idea that every student has a talent or gift worthy of developing, I can't tell where they draw the line for finding students who are ill-served by traditional schools and those who just need a little extra enrichment.
Their strongest arguments are about the failure to identify students from disadvantaged populations and the tremendous personal and societal loss from that failure. A few countries with successes in that area are discussed along with some discussion of failures.
Overall, the book is worth reading for its collection of international data and methods used elsewhere for identifying and helping the gifted population. However, the reader should also consider the validity of numbers that rely on academic achievement measures only.
May 14, 2017
I was a science teacher for 35 years and I was frequently conflicted about whether I was doing enough for the high ability students in my classes. Students with learning disabilities get a lot of attention and with full inclusion and heterogeneous grouping it's very difficult to address the needs of all the students in a classroom. The education system is selling "differentiated instruction" as the magic bullet to address this but as the author points out, when it is mentioned in presentations for large groups of teachers, you can often hear muffled chuckling in the audience. I could really relate.
We have made some progress in improving the math and reading skills in the lower grades but we are doing a dismal job of educating our students to compete with students of other nations. We view our brightest kids as not needing any additional attention, our culture generally rejects gifted education as elitist and we continue to get far too many of our best and brightest in science and technology not from our own graduates, but from the highly educated and skilled graduates of other countries who come to the United States for employment opportunities.
Certainly money plays a role in this but it's not the answer. When comparing the number of students achieving at the highest levels from highly educated parents to those with low educated parents, we don't measure up. Obviously students from highly educated parents are often more affluent and can provide their children with better schools and better educational opportunities. But the ratio between children from highly educated parents achieving at top levels to those achieving at top levels from low educated parents in the US is approximately 6:1 in math, 6:1 in reading and 12:1 in science. Compare this to other countries like Korea, Germany, Japan, the UK where the ratios are roughly half of ours.
We give lip service to the value of education and as long as we do, we will continue to fall behind other nations. Until our culture changes so that education is truly a priority, I don't see any educational reform fixing this.
If you are interested in educational systems in other countries and ways in which we might improve our own system, as well as some interesting statistics on test scores from various nations, this book is worth reading.
We have made some progress in improving the math and reading skills in the lower grades but we are doing a dismal job of educating our students to compete with students of other nations. We view our brightest kids as not needing any additional attention, our culture generally rejects gifted education as elitist and we continue to get far too many of our best and brightest in science and technology not from our own graduates, but from the highly educated and skilled graduates of other countries who come to the United States for employment opportunities.
Certainly money plays a role in this but it's not the answer. When comparing the number of students achieving at the highest levels from highly educated parents to those with low educated parents, we don't measure up. Obviously students from highly educated parents are often more affluent and can provide their children with better schools and better educational opportunities. But the ratio between children from highly educated parents achieving at top levels to those achieving at top levels from low educated parents in the US is approximately 6:1 in math, 6:1 in reading and 12:1 in science. Compare this to other countries like Korea, Germany, Japan, the UK where the ratios are roughly half of ours.
We give lip service to the value of education and as long as we do, we will continue to fall behind other nations. Until our culture changes so that education is truly a priority, I don't see any educational reform fixing this.
If you are interested in educational systems in other countries and ways in which we might improve our own system, as well as some interesting statistics on test scores from various nations, this book is worth reading.
September 24, 2016
Definitely addressed some glaring failures in our system and suggested some changes that could improve the education of talented kids who are not receiving everything they need. With America falling woefully behind other developed nations, it's about time everybody steps up and looks toward helping our high-ability and gifted students.
February 16, 2020
My attention was captured by the title of this book simply because it was the first time I had heard someone talk about improving the educational experience of high-ability students. The rarity of this conversation is something that the authors emphasize as the reason why these students are at risk of wasting their potential. Unabashedly making the argument that our education system should strive to maximize the learning opportunity of all students, they seek to compare educational systems around the world to see what works and what doesn’t in fostering a culture of excellence for high-achieving students. Analyzing ten country-specific case studies, they talk about the need for early identification and the special attention needed for kids coming from low socio-economic status. They further argue for the switch from an age-based grouping to a skills-based grouping, thus allowing kids to move up groups based on the speed at which they master a subject. All in all, the authors are able to articulate a strong argument for not just raising the bar of competency but also that of excellence.
January 23, 2024
3.5 star. This book gave a factual and opinionated intense look into the gifted education “apocalypse” in both America and abroad. I particularly liked the beginning and end of the book that gave an in-depth analysis of why gifted students should be identified, how, and then how they should best be served. The middle of the book was my least favorite because it went around the world showcasing America’s competitors and what gifted Ed looks like in their countries. It was extremely thorough, and this is where I got bogged down. It was hard to recall the differences and then similarities got redundant. I do not think this was the fault of authors’, just a mere reflection of the myriad of philosophies regarding gifted Ed and humanity.
January 21, 2018
I think I have finally found a book that addresses the elusive “rigor” everyone seems to expect but cannot clearly define. Perhaps the mysterious nature of what “rigor” is because it’s been in plain sight all along; hovering in possibility around our highest achievers yet never solidifying in form because that’s not part of education goals...we determine the highest level of achievement ALL students can reach and ignore the possibilities beyond that point.
Requiring no child be left behind unfortunately limits how far some students could go :(
Requiring no child be left behind unfortunately limits how far some students could go :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 20, 2019
This book is a persuasive account of the need gifted students have for a curriculum that is engaging and challenging for their intellectual abilities. My only criticism of this book is that it did not seem to provide enough solutions for educators to challenge gifted students in a positive way. This book focused mainly on how different countries around the world are achieving and working towards keeping their gifted students engaged. I wish there were more specific tips on how to modify classroom assignments for gifted students because it would be more practically useful for teachers.
January 5, 2018
This book was a really interesting look at the variety of educational systems around the world. What struck me the most was how sad it is that basically nowhere in the world is doing a good job of finding and educating very able students from disadvantaged backgrounds. So important!
June 6, 2020
There was nothing here of value for me.
Read
April 12, 2016Finn and Wright have provided an overview of how, in comparison with other nations, the United States has been "failing our brightest kids." American schools are not facilitating academic growth among our highest ability students; the most serious failure is to provide appropriate support to disadvantaged students who have great potential to achieve. The authors compare educational systems from a dozen other regions/countries.
Read
March 25, 2016left off on page 92 - so far interesting
Read
April 22, 2016371.95097 F5141 2015
Want to read
September 24, 2017Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews