tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167365232009-11-29T18:22:10.026-08:00Welcome to Gifted Exchange, the blog about gifted children, schooling, parenting, education news and changing American education for the better.Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.comBlogger3942625tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-3036935610904729752009-09-02T05:49:00.000-07:002009-09-02T05:51:55.459-07:00

My column on self-regulation and academic achievement, called "The Secret of School Success," ran in USA Today this morning. I'll be participating in a live chat at theforum.usatoday.com at 2pm Eastern, today, and anyone who'd like to is welcome to join!

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-80139301494086158702009-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:002009-08-31T12:32:19.302-07:00

Barring major breaking headline news, I will have a column running in USA Today on Wednesday (9/2) about self-regulation and school success. Barring me being in labor, USA Today will be hosting a "live" chat with me at 2pm eastern time about the topic. I'd love to have some Gifted Exchange readers drop by. I will post a link on Wednesday. Thanks!

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-74206241745800058972009-08-28T12:13:00.000-07:002009-08-28T12:35:25.955-07:00

The New York Times ran an interesting op-ed yesterday from Tom Loveless and Michael Petrilli called "Smart Child Left Behind." It made the point that many Gifted Exchange readers have made in recent years: that No Child Left Behind is a wash at best for top achieving kids. This has the advantage (if you wish to look at it that way) of narrowing the achievement gap, though it's not clear that

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-65319527242022122882009-08-26T10:12:00.000-07:002009-08-26T10:39:20.877-07:00

This week, the College Board released information about college-bound seniors who took the SAT in 2009. The New York based non-profit, which oversees the famous college admissions test, definitely tried to spin the results in a positive manner. The headline on the website? "2009 College-Bound Seniors Are Most Diverse Group Ever to Take SAT® As More Minority Students Prepare for Higher Education."

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-77320198561390141882009-08-24T05:57:00.000-07:002009-08-24T06:15:54.006-07:00

Back in 2007, with the help of a $1.7 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the folks at Johns Hopkins' Center for Talented Youth launched a new website called Cogito, devoted to math and science. The target market? Gifted young people who are comfortable with technology, want to meet other kids like them, and need a safe place on the web to do it. Building up content and readership

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-13603293684769890562009-08-18T08:33:00.000-07:002009-08-18T08:52:36.447-07:00

I've been reading NurtureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's new tome about research-based approaches to education and parenting.It's a fascinating book in many respects, aiming to show how little of what we think is obvious is actually backed up by any data. Of course, to do this, Bronson (whose voice carries the book) has to make a bit of a gee-whiz fuss over research that does exist and

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-83869997736141327832009-08-14T05:52:00.000-07:002009-08-14T06:16:52.475-07:00

The Reno, NV-based Davidson Institute for Talent Development announced its 2009 Davidson Fellows this week. These young people, who will receive $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000 scholarships, are profiled here.They're a fantastically talented group of students, as usual, and my one regret is that I'm probably not going to meet them in person this year (since my baby is due right before the awards

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-8197943572209826622009-08-12T11:14:00.000-07:002009-08-12T11:16:21.654-07:00

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts on little girls and princesses (per the previous Gifted Exchange post on this). My column, The Princess Problem, ran in USA Today this morning.

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-26113318897506022842009-08-11T09:17:00.001-07:002009-08-11T09:42:21.953-07:00

Richard Whitmire, author of the upcoming Why Boys Fail, and immediate past president of the National Education Writers Association, and I have a commentary in this week's Education Week called "What Ever Happened to Grade Skipping?" You can read the top with the link though you have to register for the entire piece. It is also in the print edition. And Richard seems to have put it up on his

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-5897084601329251642009-08-09T13:14:00.000-07:002009-08-09T13:44:45.101-07:00

I am back from vacation, and slowly gearing up to post more on Gifted Exchange as the school year resumes!In my inbox this week -- a fascinating story from LA that is not about gifted education per se, but gets at one of the major problems in American education: a failure to reward and nurture excellence. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez recently wrote "A Lesson from a Good Teacher" about a young

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-77604857661331206442009-07-26T14:57:00.000-07:002009-07-26T18:34:11.537-07:00

Education makes up a large share of any state budget, and with states facing falling tax revenue, it's inevitable that education budgets will take a hit. In Illinois, for instance, state education officials had to recently figure out a way to cut $146 million from funding levels from the year before. I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that, according to this article from the Chicago

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-37244123624920078822009-07-22T07:20:00.000-07:002009-07-22T07:45:56.723-07:00

The New York Times ran a fascinating article a few weeks ago called Newark Starts a Summer School Aimed at Advanced Placement. Advanced Placement, or "AP" classes, are accelerated high school classes originally designed to help students earn college credit early. Newark, NJ, a highly troubled urban district, is trying to offer more AP classes and -- more importantly -- make sure kids are prepared

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-90740154105556534462009-07-16T11:11:00.001-07:002009-07-16T11:25:29.861-07:00

This comes more under the "parenting" category of posts than anything related to gifted education, but I'm hoping that Gifted Exchange readers can provide some insight nonetheless. I am fascinated by the Disney Princess cultural juggernaut (and the prevalence of princess images in other shows, toys, etc. marketed to very young girls). I am hoping to write more broadly about it, tied to some other

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-8860577736834645102009-07-12T19:25:00.000-07:002009-07-12T19:48:19.018-07:00

Per request, today's post is on giftedness and sibling love and rivalry. As any parent of two or more kids knows (and I will find out when baby number 2 arrives in September), just because kids are related doesn't mean they're anything alike. They have different interests, different temperaments, and in some cases within families, some children are highly gifted and others are not. What happens

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-30744464787897107282009-07-01T11:48:00.001-07:002009-07-01T12:25:12.112-07:00

We're on our summer posting schedule here at Gifted Exchange (read: infrequent), but I'm always looking for topics so please send ideas along!In the meantime, today's post covers summer reading. As part of my attempts to "make over" my time to get more out of days and weeks, I've been trying to read more fiction. I read a lot of non-fiction (often for book reviews) but as life gets busy, I often

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-69774987096412293162009-06-23T13:15:00.000-07:002009-06-23T13:44:29.648-07:00

I wanted to call readers' attention to a new report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute for Advanced Study called "The Opportunity Equation." This report takes a broad look at math and science education in the US, sets a number of goals, and makes recommendations. There's some interesting food for thought. The big goal is that all young Americans should be "STEM capable" -

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-65347016303113719282009-06-19T08:39:00.000-07:002009-06-19T08:51:07.487-07:00

While doing some background research on a group called the East Meets West Foundation, I came across a fascinating press release about the new Kon Ray Boarding School in Vietnam. Providing an adequate education for the ethnic minority students in Vietnam's central highlands has long been a problem for this developing country. Families are scattered, which means that kids have to walk long

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-24857614548895717512009-06-16T05:58:00.001-07:002009-06-16T06:04:46.173-07:00

I have a column in USA Today this morning called "The Permanent Recession." It touches on some topics we discussed here in recent weeks -- namely, that mediocre schools have an economic cost, and that underachievement is not just a problem confined to poor students in poor districts. It affects most students at most schools. Scores for the top 10% of US 15-year-olds on international tests are way

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-62458393830478264472009-06-15T06:09:00.000-07:002009-06-15T06:19:05.338-07:00

I was particularly struck by this headline from ABC News the other day: Should Genius Kids Know Their IQs?The question came up due to the media attention received by some precocious children. If headlines are blaring a kid's IQ scores (problematic though some of the higher ones may be due to controversies about the test used for 160+ scores) it's pretty hard to keep that under wraps. But what

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-62819834518611609282009-06-10T05:00:00.000-07:002009-06-10T05:40:47.026-07:00

As some of you know, I am deep in the throes of writing another book, called 168 Hours, to be published by Portfolio about a year from now. There are 168 hours in a week, and this book is about how successful, happy people get the most out of them (I'm still looking for people to profile, and people to "makeover" their schedules, so if you know anyone who's interested, let me know! Lvanderkam at

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-46032920185828775322009-06-04T20:26:00.001-07:002009-06-04T20:44:12.197-07:00

While it's become an article of public faith that almost all high school graduates should go to college -- because a college degree is critical in a knowledge economy -- it turns out that many colleges are doing a lousy job of helping their students finish. According to this article in USA Today about an AEI study, 4-year colleges in the US only graduate 53% of their students in 6 years. While

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-41390434616949120442009-06-02T05:40:00.000-07:002009-06-02T05:43:03.538-07:00

The online version of my story in the spring 2009 City Journal called "LAPD High" finally went live. Back in January, I visited the Reseda Police Academy Magnet, one of a handful of LA schools sponsored by the local men (and women) in blue. They're getting reasonable results for at-risk kids, and suggest an interesting model of career-focused education.

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-48609215037326900152009-05-28T13:49:00.000-07:002009-05-28T14:04:04.475-07:00

According to a new report from the US Department of Education (discussed by USA Today here), 1.5 million US children are now being homeschooled. This is up from less than a million in 1999, and puts the homeschooling rate at just shy of 3%. The homeschooling rate is much higher among college-educated parents; indeed, nearly 7% of college-educated parents now homeschool their children. Also,

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-11999619694118666972009-05-27T06:13:00.001-07:002009-05-27T06:32:51.094-07:00

The New York Times had an interesting article the other day on the principals who've graduated from the New York City Leadership Academy, the city's new boot camp for school leaders. Under Chancellor Joel Klein, the city has been trying to change the job of principal from a position that one takes after climbing up the teaching ranks, to one that attracts top Ivy League grads, trains them in

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-10529310024222142372009-05-22T04:55:00.000-07:002009-05-22T05:33:27.701-07:00

The SAT has a fascinating history as a test. Started as more of an "aptitude" assessment designed to find highly intelligent children who hadn't had top-notch academic preparation, it later turned into an "achievement" test designed to cover high school coursework. It was "re-centered" in the mid-1990s to push declining average scores back toward 1000 on a 1600 point scale. Then, four years ago,

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4