Acceleration/A Nation Deceived

In 2002, the John Templeton Foundation provided a grant to the Belin-Blank Center to generate a national report on academic acceleration. The 2004 report, A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, was coauthored by Nicholas Colangelo, Susan Assouline, and Miraca U. M. Gross, and reviewed and synthesized the previous 50 years of research on acceleration. A summit of leading researchers and scholars in the field of gifted education was held in 2003 at the University of Iowa. From this summit came the guidelines for the report.

The report A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students consists of two volumes. Volume I is a synthesis of the research on acceleration, covering approximately 50 years. Volume II is an edited volume of articles by leading researchers, and provides the research background for the synthesis of Volume I.

The report concludes that America's schools routinely avoid academic acceleration, the easiest, most effective, and most efficient way to help highly capable students reach their full potential. While the “popular” perception is that a child who skips a grade will be socially stunted, 50 years of research show that accelerating bright students in fact more often makes them happier.

The term acceleration refers to advancing a student through the traditional curriculum at rates faster than typical. There are 18 forms of acceleration, which include grade skipping, early entrance to school, single-subject acceleration, and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Acceleration is appropriate educational planning because it means matching the level and complexity of the curriculum with the readiness and motivation of the student.

Research shows that students who are accelerated tend to be more ambitious and to earn graduate degrees at rates higher than other students. Interviewed years later, an overwhelming majority of accelerated students have said that acceleration was an excellent experience for them. Accelerated students feel academically challenged and socially accepted, and they are less likely to fall prey to the boredom that plagues many highly [Page 10]capable students who are forced to follow the curriculum for their age peers.

The report provides information about entering school early, skipping grades in elementary school, the AP program, and entering college ahead of their peers. Included are comments by accelerated students, deans of colleges of education, a superintendent, and a schoolboard member. Every sentence in Volume I is supported by the research in Volume II of the report.

With all this research evidence, why haven't schools, parents, and teachers been more willing to accept the idea of acceleration? A Nation Deceived presents reasons why schools hold back America's brightest students:

• limited familiarity with the research on acceleration;
• philosophy that children must be kept with their age peers;
• belief that academic acceleration hurries children out of childhood;
• fear that acceleration hurts children socially;
• political concerns about equity; and
• worry that other students will be offended if one child is accelerated.

The cost of the national report, both online and print, was covered by the John Templeton Foundation. The editors of A Nation Deceived hope to change the conversation about educating bright children in America. A Web site (http://www.nationdeceived.org) has been established to encourage dialogue on academic acceleration across the nation and throughout the world.

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