Failing Our Brightest Kids

2016 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

In this provocative volume, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Brandon L. Wright argue that, for decades, the United States has done too little to focus on educating students to achieve at high levels. The authors identify two core problems: First, compared to other countries, the United States does not produce enough high achievers. Second, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are severely underrepresented among those high achievers. The authors describe educating students to high levels of achievement as an issue of both equity and human capital: talented students deserve appropriate resources and attention, and the nation needs to develop these students' abilities to remain competitive in the international arena.

The authors embark on a study of twelve countries and regions to address these issues, exploring the structures and practices that enable some countries to produce a higher proportion of high-achieving students than the United States and to more equitably represent disadvantaged students among their top scorers. Based on this research, the authors present a series of ambitious but pragmatic points that they believe should inform US policy in this area.

This candid and engaging book takes a topic that is largely discussed behind closed doors and puts it squarely on the table for public debate.
About the Author: Chester E. Finn, Jr. is the distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. His previous positions include Professor of Education and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, counsel to the U.S. ambassador to India, legislative director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Research and Improvement. He has also been on the research staffs of the Brookings Institution, the Hudson Institute, and the Manhattan Institute, and has taught high school social studies in Massachusetts. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than twenty books and has written more than four hundred articles in a wide array of scholarly and popular publications. He is a regular contributor to Fordham's Education Gadfly Weekly, a contributing editor of Education Next, and a contributor to such online outlets as NationalReview.com, Politico, and Atlantic.com. He serves on the Maryland State Board of Education and the boards of the National Council on Teacher Quality and the Core Knowledge Foundation and has spoken at hundreds of seminars, conferences, symposia, and meetings across the United States and in many other countries. He is the recipient of awards from the Educational Press Association of America, the National Association for Gifted Children, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Education Writers Association. He holds three degrees from Harvard University and an honorary doctorate from Colgate University.

Brandon L. Wright is a managing editor and policy associate at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he has worked since graduating from American University Washington College of Law in 2012 with a Juris Doctor. During law school, he clerked for an education law firm that advocates for students with special needs and was a senior staff member of the Administrative Law Review. He also holds a bachelor's degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Michigan.

Both authors are also products of gifted-education programs of very different kinds. Finn was able to accelerate in mathematics in the Dayton Public Schools and later graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, a selective-admission private high school. Wright participated in a full-time gifted pull-out program from grades 4 through 8 in his Michigan public school system.