Time magazine’s cover article, Failing Our Geniuses, points to a tragedy of NCLB legislation: the massacre of gifted and talented programs that has caused the brightest students to be left behind. But I’m not completely at ease with the author’s solutions.

In the short-sighted effort to bring low achievers up to par with other students, it has made it possible for our best students to spiral into low achievement. This is not democratic education. These are the children that have the most potential to be out next leaders. It is that leadership role that we should cultivate in these students.

Admittedly, that takes pretty special grooming. And that’s not to say that our leaders only come from the brightest, but we tend to like it that way and statistically, it happens. The article’s author, John Cloud, likes the unique schools and grade skipping to help the highest achievers. And as a short term solution to get our education system fixed, I would agree. But we can do better.

As we look down the road to education reform, or just look into exemplary schools like the MET School in Providence, project-based learning dominates. Students work on individual projects and collaboration exists to provide peer support. That creates an environment for leadership development. The MET works. Individual project-based learning works.

At the MET, kids enter at all levels. It’s not just a school of high achieving students. In fact, it’s important that there be a mix. Leadership development doesn’t come from throwing a bunch of bright kids together and expecting them all to come out leaders. There must be the opportunity, naturally, to lead.

High achieving students showing by example and providing elaborate descriptive support to middle achievers. Middle achievers doing the same for low achievers. It needs to trickle down a step at a time. This is described in Noreen Webb’s paper (1991)* on collaborative groups in mathematics. She summarizes what happens to learning when you mix kids into groups:

1. High achievers + Middle achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (High achievers end up helping low achievers with too simple explanations and middle achievers are left out. High achievers don’t get to excel at elaborate explanations which strengthen their own learning.)
2. High achievers + High achievers = Less effective. (High achievers don’t talk since they assume they all know the answers.)
3. Low achievers + Low achievers = Less effective. (They can’t adequately provide explanations to each other.)
4. Middle achievers + Middle Achievers = Effective.
5. High achievers + Middle Achievers = Very Effective. (High achievers can use elaborate explanations to provide support, strengthening their own learning.)
6. Middle achievers + Low Achievers = Very Effective. (Middle achievers explain to low achievers strengthening their own learning.)

Instead of isolation or grade skipping (individual project-based learning is grade neutral), let’s allow them to do their own projects and give them opportunities to foster their leadership development.

*Task-Related Verbal Interaction and Mathematics Learning in Small Groups, Noreen M. Webb, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Vol. 22, No. 5 (Nov., 1991), pp. 366-389