ABSTRACT
Never before in our history have gifted children been exploited so blatantly. With today’s mania for testing everything, year after year after year, to “prove” whether or not our public schools are any good, gifted children have been used to shore up academically weak schools. Some high achieving students are taking matters into their own hands. In test-frantic Texas, Mia Kang, a straight-A freshman at MacArthur High School in San Antonio, boycotted the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test in 2005 by writing an essay on her answer sheet, stating how these tests are damaging her learning. Gifted children need the same degree of freedom to opt out of not being a top performer in everything they do.
