Every Child's Right: Academic Talent Development by Choice, Not Chance

No child should have to be identified as “gifted” in order to benefit from a rich, challenging learning experience. In Every Child's Right, the authors tell an important story of possibility…the possibility for significant academic achievement and intellectual engagement of children and youth across race, ethnicity, and social class. They show us students learning together, sharing interests and aspirations, and accomplishing more than might seem possible. This is not an account of all our children developing academic talent. Instead, it is a blend of theory and very concrete educational practice with compelling visions of greater possibilities, more broadly distributed, for the academic education of American youth.

Advocating for a different, inclusive view of academic talent, this valuable book:

• Broadens the concept of academic talent beyond conventional practices and provides examples from a long-standing program to illustrate this new concept.
• Describes practices that have been successful with elementary students as well as high school students preparing to enter college.
• Offers compelling portraits of real children delighting in intellectually demanding and engaging learning.
• Identifies what is required of society and schools to offer these opportunities to all children in all classrooms.

Lauren A. Sosniak (deceased) was a professor of education at San José State University in California. Nina Hersch Gabelko is director of the Academic Talent Development Program at the University of California at Berkeley.