Kentucky has the most gifted and talented kids in the nation??!!

– Yeah, Right!

I was really surprised by this one. A new report from the National Association for Gifted Children actually says, “In the 21 states that reported data, the percent of students identified as gifted ranges from less than 2% in Utah and West Virginia to over 25% in Kentucky.”

How’s that again?

Here is a graph from the report, with my added highlight about Kentucky being that special, on-the-top state.


Note that the next state in the list has at least a five percent lower identification rate.

In fact, the vast majority of the 21 states with data identify a far lower proportion of their students – at least 10 points lower – as gifted than we do in Kentucky.

Something definitely looks wrong here! Kentucky’s educators must be seriously over-identifying kids in this program.