Bethesda World News

Schools to Scrap ‘Gifted & Talented’ Label, Because When You Get Right Down to it, Everyone’s the Same

After years of fielding complaints that the Gifted and Talented label is unfair and discriminatory in singling out students who are a lot smarter than other students, the county has decided to eliminate the classification.

Some parents contend that students who were only Sort of Smart were being labeled Gifted, and that this was unfair to the Supremely Gifted.  Others argued that the range of student’s special gifts was not being taken into account.

“The theory of multiple intelligences says there’s more to giftedness than solving a Rubik’s Cube,” insisted one parent.  “My son can make 40 spitballs in under a minute.  How many kids can do that?”

The smartest students will still be identified through testing, but they will not be given material that’s more advanced than that available to other students.

“Giving smarter students more challenging work is unfair to stupid people as well as to the merely average,” said Larry C., spokesman for the Office Formerly Known as Gifted & Talented Services and now known as the Office of Everyone’s Special.  “Stupid people deserve every possible chance to prove their worth, just as brainiacs deserve to be able to slide through school, making everyone around them jealous,” he continued. “Our office is dedicated to making sure the smartest kids are not treated any differently than other kids, unless you count being smashed into a locker now and then, along with the occasional wedgie, to take them down a notch.”