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While the politics of "No Child Left Behind" are questionable, the underlying mandate is admirable. As educators, we should provide for the educational needs of all our students. The focus tends to be on struggling and disadvantaged students, while "gifted and talented" programs are left to languish. In part this stems from a lack of teaching staff and classrooms to accomodate even more specialized classes. The idea that such programs are elitist, giving an unfair advantage to some students, while making the rest feel inferior by comparison, is the other primary stumbling block.

A gifted and talented program is not intended to be elitist. It is designed to help students develop their abilities and advance their knowledge, as with every other student. Students are not all equal in ability - a fact that everyone acknowledges when it comes to struggling students. Some students do have greater talent in certain areas. This may be inherent in their genetics, it may have grown from a child's natural curiousity in a subject, or it may stem from involved parents who have nurtured their child's intellect at home. The last is the one that seems unfair to many people. Parents who have a solid college education are better able to pass on learning to their children independently of school. The college educated parents also tend to have the higher paying jobs, so that money and talented students often appear to be linked.

The truth is, yes, having money and a college education does help when raising a child. It is not, however, a guarantee that a child will be gifted or talented, nor is it a barrier to the children of non-college graduates. Child rearing also imparts values and outlooks - work ethic, competitiveness, self-improvement, helplessness, resentment - students will tend to emulate whichever traits their parents model for them. Those factors combine with the child's natural inclinations and abilities to determine what their educational needs and goals are.

For the child who has innate gifts in one or more subject areas, and has been encouraged to develop them, a gifted and talented program is truly a necessity. A student who has already learned on their own much of the course content will be bored at best in the regular classroom, or worse, come to resent school and stifle their future learning potential. A gifted and talented program will offer more work, more challenges and more learning to those students who are motivated enough to want it. They do not benefit

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