ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give several reasons why gifted education is in the current quagmire that it is—and has been for decades—and then provide concrete ways to advocate for readers' gifted children’s needs in whatever school situation they find themselves, whether in an elite and expensive private school, the neighborhood high school, or Sister Patricia’s classroom of 50 children. Back then, educators were not afraid to place children in special programs depending on their readiness to learn. Some called it “tracking,” and others called it “ability grouping,” but the most sensible educators called it this: “common sense.” The error of inclusion and its “solution” of differentiation have done enormous harm to the appropriate education of gifted children—readers' gifted children. Elementary school principals hate when parents come to them and request a specific classroom teacher for their child.
