Dear Editor,

A recent Associated Press story, “Report: Gifted students take backseat,” centered on a report, “State of the States in Gifted Education,” by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) which presented and compared data from the various states’ policies and practices on gifted education. The report concluded that academically advanced children are languishing, as the focus of the federal government’s education initiatives and funding are geared toward helping low performing students achieve basic proficiency in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The NAGC report stated that federal and state efforts mostly ignore the needs of gifted kids, with federal spending for research and grants held at $7.5 million for the estimated 3 million gifted children in the United States, only 2 cents for every $100 of federal education funding spent.

Dr. Ann Robinson, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and President of the National Association for Gifted Children states, “Forty years ago, we realized the impact of a sustained commitment to academic excellence when we celebrated the landing of a man on the moon. Future breakthroughs and discovery in science, medicine, and technology will be impossible if we fail to identify and serve today’s brightest young minds. The time to act is now.”

A new opportunity for South Carolina’s 70,000 gifted children is the establishment of the state’s first Gifted and Talented Charter School, Palmetto Scholars Academy (PSA). Opening in August 2010, PSA will be one of only seven gifted and talented charter schools in the nation. PSA will be located in the Tricounty area and, as the first regional public school, will enroll students from any county. Grades six through eight will be offered the first year and a higher grade will be added each year until it encompasses a middle school and a high school with 504 students total.

Dr. Shelagh Gallagher, a nationally-recognized leader in gifted and talented curriculum, has been retained as PSA’s curriculum consultant. The curriculum at PSA, Dr. Gallagher states, “will move faster through standard content and will also emphasize exploring information in greater depth and complexity, with an emphasis on conceptual reasoning and connecting intellectual knowledge with experiences that bring abstract ideas to life.”

Dr. Gallagher explains: “Like all other kids, gifted kids tend to develop their skills in reasoning when they are challenged. The difference between gifted kids and others is that it takes advanced content to really challenge them. If all they ever get is the regular curriculum, they may end up good at memorizing but relatively poor at reasoning, and that’s quite a waste, not only for the students but for the rest of us as well. Gifted students I’ve known who attended specialized schools like this have had a central role in the development of the World Wide Web, have been influential in the field of sustainable development and have discovered planets—not because we told them they had to change the world, but because we helped them to fully become who they wanted to be.”

Per its mission, PSA students will engage with leading innovative organizations in higher education, business, the arts and science. This early hands-on learning will give PSA students a head start on their career development PSA’s future plans include serving the needs of gifted and talented students across the state through Summer Institutes at the school, through opportunities for undergraduate and graduate university students to learn how to teach gifted and talented students, and through research on gifted and talented education.

PSA is now accepting applications for students and faculty. Applications can be downloaded directly from www.palmettoscholarsacademy.org. In addition to information about the school, visitors to the Web site can also link to gifted education resources and view a video of Dr. Shelagh Gallagher explaining the curriculum and focus of the school.

Dr. James Gallagher, father to Shelagh Gallagher and himself a pioneer in gifted education, stated, “…Failure to help gifted children reach their potential is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure but is surely great. How can we measure the loss of the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society.”

Palmetto Scholars Academy is being founded by South Carolinians committed to providing gifted children in our community the opportunity to reach their potential and, in the process, help to realize a better future for our state and nation.

Stacey Lindbergh

Chairman, Charter Committee

Palmetto Scholars Academy

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