Almost 2 percent of Connecticut’s school-aged children have extremely high IQs, and hence are considered “gifted students.” Nationwide, there are 3 million gifted students.
But what sets Connecticut apart from 44 other states is that the state appropriates no funding for programs to cater to these students’ learning needs, according to the National Association for Gifted Children.
And federal funding has been completely cut over the past few years.
Deseret News out of Salt Lake City has a good rundown of the state of gifted education, including details of a study that was completed in Stamford, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s hometown.
“It’s a bad time to be a gifted child in America,” Sally Reis, professor of education at the University of Connecticut, told Deseret News. She says research suggests that gifted children perform better academically when instructed with peers who have similar abilities.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
