A front page article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) proves, once again, that the Law of Unintended Consequences is not dead yet. In this case, as applied to the No Child Left Behind Act, the unintended consequence appears to be that it is the smartest kids who are being left behind, as schools cut back on programs for exceptional kids in order to fund the otherwise-unfunded NCLB mandates.

Some statistics from the article:

* 22% of school districts in Connecticut reduced or eliminated gifted student education last year
* Illinois shifted its entire state program for gifted students into programs for lagging students
* California cut its gifted programs by 18%, far more than other educational programs

There is a legitimate question about whether it is better to spend the money on the most talented or the most at-risk students; ideally, we would do both, but it seems that our country does not place enough importance on education to afford that (which is a sad commentary in itself).

Growing up, I benefitted greatly from gifted student programs in our public school, so I know the importance of making an effort to nurture talent. There is a group of kids who are both very bright and very energetic. Without direction and challenge, these kids will quickly become bored in school, and direct their energy elsewhere--often to the detriment of both themselves and society as a whole. We lose the potential of a generation of scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

I have other issues with the No Child Left Behind Act , mostly that it sounds great in theory, but in practice, it is impossible to achieve 100% perfection. NCLB is structured in such a way as to require that every single student meet certain goals, no exceptions, or the district faces a series of increasingly draconian penalties. Even without the possibility that a student might intentionally fail a test to extort some service from the district (this is a matter of when, not if), the goal is simply impossible.

But if we're also going to be shifting money away from educating the most talented in order to meet the NCLB's mandates, let's at least have an honest debate about the relative merits of remedial vs. gifted education.