Educators also worry that too few teachers and parents know about the plan, which will have a dramatic impact on how the state educates its brightest children. I'm worried about the child who thinks and speaks in another language. I'm worried about underachievers who don't have the test scores. I'm worried about the child that does not have an advocate at home. The concerns about the new plan underscore the difficulty inherent in the task.
Most educators agree that the old plan needed to be revised or scrapped altogether.
The lawsuit and settlement served to force a change already in the works. Now comes the task of creating an identification process that is not so broad that any smart child would qualify and not so exclusionary that deserving children would be left out. By any standard, Karen Cherian is an exceptionally bright child. The eighth-grader at Memorial Middle School in Tampa recently won a countywide math competition. Her bright classmates work on algebra, while she works on calculus through a program with Stanford University.