Scientifically Gifted

In the post-Sputnik years of the 1960s and 1970s, a surge of interest in science education dominated, along with mathematics, the federally funded mandates in curriculum and pedagogy in the United States and by other governments internationally. Not entirely inconsequentially, the emergence of international comparison testing of student performance in mathematics and sciences has become an industry in and of itself. A nation's relative and absolute rankings on tests of math and science achievement carry the status level of award programs on a par with the entertainment industries. These rankings have become a fairly stable mechanism for predicting surges in fiscal [Page 774]support for mathematics and science education expenditures by national governments. In the United States, issues of pipeline recruitment of high-ability, gifted, and talented, ...