I've just received an excellent excerpt from the above book, just published (Aug/08) from Education Consumers Clearinghouse. I've ordered it and expect it will be so useful in our struggles for education reform. Here is the quote on Gifted Children (p 144-7)

 Quote:
Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality, Charles Murray

If academically gifted children come to the end of middle school reading enthusiastically and enjoying the challenge of intellectual tasks, their test scores are irrelevant. The school has done its job. Conversely, the gifted child who reaches the end of middle school hating classes and contemptuous of the homework he is given is in big trouble. Perhaps a brilliant teacher can turn him around in later grades, or perhaps he will have a transforming experience that unleashes his potential. But the chances of that are far from certain. It is possible for academically gifted children to come out of middle school with their potential permanently crippled.

The solution is obvious and simple. Let gifted children go as fast as they can. If a third-grader is reading at the sixth-grade level, give that child sixth-grade reading. If a third-grader can do math at the sixth-grade level, give that child sixth-grade mathematics. It is a solution that should be welcomed by every reader who can remember sitting in elementary school surreptitiously reading a book while the teacher was teaching things to the rest of the class that you already knew. It also corresponds to an extensive technical literature on giftedness. Academically gifted children do well when they are given a curriculum that is complex, accelerated, and challenging, and when they have teachers with high expectations. Academically gifted children do best when they are with peers who share their interests and who do not tease them for being nerds.

Should gifted students skip grades or get advanced material within their age-appropriate grade? That’s a technical issue with different answers for different children, and can be sorted out by the experts—including the child’s own parents. For our purposes, two problems need to be taken seriously: wrongly leaving some children out of the accelerated education, and the stigma that special treatment of the gifted might create for everyone else.

Regarding wrong assignments: The solution is communication and openness to change. If parents feel that their child belongs in an advanced class, or the child asks to be in an advanced class, the school’s first step should be to communicate to child and parents exactly what that class demands. It the parents and child still want to try, the school should agree, on this condition: Nothing in the content of the course, the way it is taught, or the way it is graded will be affected by that child’s admission to the course. If he does well, then the school has corrected a placement error. If the student gets a C in the advanced course, it is up to the student to decide whether he wants to get Cs in advanced courses or go back to regular courses in which he can get As. If the student flunks, the student flunks. Such a policy pursued over time—anyone can try, but without allowances—will ensure that it must be invoked only in the uncommon cases where a genuinely questionable placement has been made.

Regarding stigma, these two realities about children and childhood must be recognized: First, adults do not have the option of concealing the truth. Kids know, no matter what. When children of widely varying abilities are mixed in classes, their differences are highlighted, not obscured. If the teacher calls on the children equally, then the deficits of the slower children are put on display for all their classmates to see. If the teacher calls only on the brighter children who know the answers, the kids quickly figure out what is going on. Children understand that academic ability varies and know the intellectual pecking order in every classroom. The slower children will get labeled whether or not they are grouped. It will be hurtful to them, to varying degrees. Educators do not have the option of preventing that hurt. What educators can do is put the relationship of performance in the classroom and merit as a person into perspective. People who are academically gifted can be fickle, humorless, dishonest, and cowardly. People who are not academically gifted can be steadfast, funny, honest, and brave. Merit as a person and academic ability are different things.

The second reality is that every child is miserable about some personal defects. It is part of being a child. The things that make children most miserable are likely to involve shortcomings in interpersonal ability—not being one of the popular kids. Many of the sources of pain come from physical appearance—having acne, being too short, being too tall, being fat, being skinny, wearing thick glasses. Poor performance is just one of a long list of things that make children cry into their pillow at night. It is not even close to the top of the list. Performing poorly in the classroom is not a big deal socially. Performing conspicuously well is often a social liability.

I will spend no time on the argument that special treatment of the academically gifted is elitist. It has no moral standing. A special ability is a child’s most precious asset. When it comes to athletic and musical ability, no one considers withholding training that could realize those gifts. It is just as senseless, and as ethically warped, to withhold training that can realize academic ability...