What happens to academically gifted students when the federal government demands that schools focus on getting low-performing children up to grade level?

For advocates of gifted education, it means the top students get shortchanged. Some of them scoff that the federal No Child Left Behind program should be called No Child Allowed Ahead. The program mandates that all students must be at grade level by 2014.

Supporters of gifted education complain that the federal program has made it even harder to get more money or teachers focused on gifted students. Nationally, No Child Left Behind has led school districts and states to redirect resources from gifted students toward boosting the achievement of lower-performing students.

"No Child Left Behind is making teachers teach to the test, so the bottom and the [average student] know the subject, but the gifted child is not being taught well outside magnet schools," said Beverly Hurley, whose son is a gifted student at Leesville Road Middle School in Raleigh.

Melissa Segal, a parent who sits on a Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system committee on gifted education, said monitoring lagging students now gets more attention than challenging the advanced ones.

"They focus so much on testing that they're negatively impacting gifted education," she said.

How to better serve gifted students has recently surfaced as a local and state issue.

Last week, Wake County school administrators said they want to more than triple the local funding for gifted students. But that proposal comes on the heels of a state audit that found that state education officials are not monitoring how school districts support and run their gifted programs. State education officials will report this week on what can done to improve oversight of the programs, which receive $63.3 million in state money.

Statewide, 153,211 students were identified as academically gifted last school year, about 11 percent of public school enrollment. They're usually identified in the third grade by scoring high on national tests.

Once classified as academically gifted, or AG, students are put on a path toward receiving additional classes and services appropriate for children of their higher ability level.

'Pockets of adequacy'

Parents are more satisfied with the services provided to gifted students in high school. That's because these students can pick the advanced classes they want to take.

But in elementary and middle schools, gifted and nongifted children are usually in the same classes.

Teachers are trained to "differentiate" their instruction so that students get different assignments based on their ability level. Carol Horne, coordinator for gifted education for Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, argues that differentiated instruction works.

"We'd all love to have more money, to have greater resources," Horne said. "But our research does show that the majority of our parents believe they receive appropriate differentiated instruction."

Parents of gifted students often complain that differentiation doesn't challenge their children enough.

"You don't have the consistency of service being provided," said Tom Johnson, president of the Wake County Partners for the Advancement of Gifted Education, an advocacy group for gifted students. "There are pockets of adequacy."

Gifted students may attend classes strictly with their gifted peers, but that's not the norm. For instance, the academically gifted teacher at most Wake elementary schools will work with students for only one or two 45-minute classes a week.

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