Study On The Development Of Gifted And Talented Education In High School In America

Competition between countries around the world is finally the talent competition. Education is the key point of the talent cultivation. To cultivate whom and how to cultivate them is the basic issue of education to solve. The "National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020)" took talent cultivation as the core aim and put forward to build early cultivation mechanism of top innovative talent. At present, how to promote the cultavition of top innovative talent in high schools become the pressing problem in our country.Gifted and talented education is designed for gifted and talented students to provide appropriate education for their capacity development and learning needs. Given its importance of the talent development and social development, gifted and talented education is concerned and emphasized by the countries around the world. In the process of its many year development, the gifted and talented education in the United States has formed mature framework at the three levels of the theory, policy and practice. Therefore, we can learn much from it for the development of Chinese gifted and talented education. Based on the above, this dissertation explores the all-round aspects of the development of gifted and talented education in American high school, which include the theoretical basis, policy assurance, education practice, influential factors and the issues it confronts broadly and systemically.This dissertation argues that, at the theoritical level, the development of gifted and talented education in American high school has successively gone through three paradigms, namely, gifted child paradigm, talent development paradigm and differentiation paradigm. Three paradigms differ in the understanding of the giftedness and talent, education purpose, object and strategy, which are the theoretical bases for the development of gifted and talented education in American high school.At the political level, the gifted and talented education policy in American high school has been through four phases, such as attention period, swing period, stable period and deepening period. The gifted and talented education policies of US federal government and state government provide political guarantee for the practice of high school gifted and talented education, which includes such five aspects as the identification of gifted and talented students, teaching service, support of financial resources, professional development of teacher, as well as management and services. These policies reflect the government’s attention to the development of gifted and talented education in American high school.At the practical level, the practice of the gifted and talented in American high school reflects the cooperation between the high schools and the organizations outside school. During these organizations, gifted and talented high schools are the main education agencies to carry out gifted and talented education for US high school students, including traditional elite private high schools, exam high schools which are old and elite public schools as well as emerging governor’s high schools. In addition, the education programs implemented in ordinary high school, such as the AP curriculum, IB curriculum and double registration project, as well as the education programs implemented by social institutions, such as summer school program, online education program and competition program and so on, are part of the high school gifted and talented education practices. All of these education practices have similarity in education aim, student selection, curriculum and teaching, teachers, school funding and so on. It is concluded that, the practice of gifted and talented education in American high school takes the aim of educating all-round talent, provides challenging education, and gets a variety of government support.It finds that the development of gifted and talented education in American high school is not smoothly, but confronting with issues both outside and inside. On one hand, it is gone through the public controversy for its rationality, education form, admission standard and education effect; on the other hand, it also has internal issues, such as the single object of education, differences in education quality as well as the affect of standardization reform, etc. After in-depth analysis, it is found that, the development of gifted and talented education in American high school is supported or impeded by different cultural traditions, educational philosophy, political position and value orientation.In all, there are rich experiences of the development of gifted and talented education in American high school, for example, it realizes the collaborative development of the theory, policy and practice; it has a specific orientation of national interests; it has been awarded strong social support; and it always forwards in the controversy and tolerance. Therefore, these are important emplication for the development of the high school education, especially the high school gifted and talented education in our country.Based on the above, specific suggestions are forwarded for the high school gifted and talented education in our country. First, it needs to establish reasonable cognition of high school gifted and talented education, and realize the value of the existence of model high school. Second, the government should shoulder primary responsibility in the development of gifted and talented education in high school, such as providing policy support, financial investment and making communication connection with educational researchers to promote its development. Third, the practice of gifted and talented education in high school should be improved through diverse ways, which can be realized by broadening the scope of gifted and talented education, adopting multiple selection criteria, providing abundant courses and strengthening the capacity building of gifted and talented teachers. Fourth, it suggests to encourage the cooperative participation of different forces inside and outside high schools in gifted and talented education with the establishment of quaternary support system. Finally, gifted and talented education in high school should strengthen the links with general high school education, using its own high-quality educational resources to drive the development of general high school education, so as to lead the development of quality education for all.