Today, I submitted written testimony to the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, recommending that the Subcommittee direct the Department of Education to strengthen its efforts identifying and supporting exceptionally talented students in K-12.
Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Robert Bellafiore. I am managing director for policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank focused on promoting innovation, strengthening governance, and advancing national security. I write to urge the Subcommittee to direct the Department of Education to strengthen its efforts identifying and supporting exceptionally talented students in K-12.
America’s continued security and prosperity depend on nurturing those students with exceptional ability in mathematics and science who will make the next breakthrough discovery or invention. The potential for great scientific achievements is not evenly distributed; instead, a very small share of high-aptitude minds are responsible for making the greatest discoveries. The top 1 percent of inventors are 5–10 times more productive (as measured in the number of patents) than the average inventor, and the top 1 percent of scientists account for more than a fifth of all academic citations. In artificial intelligence, only a few hundred scholars are driving the progress of the entire industry.
These STEM achievements then benefit the entire nation. America’s continued national security depends on maintaining military and technological superiority over its adversaries; economic growth and prosperity require boosting productivity, developing new markets, and becoming the global leader in emerging technologies and industries. In each case, these outcomes result from the efforts of each generation’s brilliant minds.
It is therefore essential that we successfully identify those minds early and support their ability to learn and progress as far as possible. These students deserve “accelerated” or “advanced” education: an education that recognizes and champions their great potential, rather than leaving them bored in an average curriculum.
America’s education system does a poor job supporting advanced education, however. For more than half a century, education policy has prioritized reducing achievement gaps and ensuring that low-performing children are not left behind—important goals, but ones that have left little room to focus on high-aptitude students. To maintain America’s prosperity in the face of serious geopolitical and fiscal challenges, this long-time emphasis on closing achievement gaps and supporting children who are at risk of falling behind should be complemented by a focus on identifying and supporting our most talented students.
To that end, I recommend that the Subcommittee require the Department of Education to review all Department programs and activities for the sake of 1) improving the few programs currently involved in advanced education, and 2) developing new efforts to support advanced education. (In light of the ongoing efforts to move programs out of the Department of Education into other departments, the below recommendations would apply equally to whichever department ultimately becomes responsible for such programs.)
Particular suggested reforms for various department activities include the following:
The Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program
The Javits Program, which received $16.5 million in FY2024, conducts “evidence-based research, demonstration projects, innovative strategies, and similar activities designed to build and enhance the ability of elementary schools and secondary schools nationwide to identify gifted and talented students and meet their special educational needs.” The Subcommittee should provide additional funding for this program to support additional research and programming to enhance educational opportunities for gifted and talented students. Furthermore, the Subcommittee should require the Secretary of Education to publicly provide annual recommendations to state and local education leaders and parents related to best practices identified through the decades of research funded by the Javits Program.
The Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program
The EIR program received $259 million in FY2025 to “create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; and rigorously evaluate such innovations.” The Subcommittee should provide additional funding for EIR and direct the Department to prioritize opportunities in EIR to provide advanced talent development for high-need students through EIR-funded projects.
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
IES is “the nation's leading source for rigorous, independent education research, evaluation, and statistics.” The Subcommittee should require IES to prioritize advanced talent development in its many research projects. For example, IES could be directed to issue new grant awards for projects aimed at identifying high-aptitude students, developing best practices for interventions and policies to support academic acceleration and excellence, and bringing national attention to the need to refocus on high-potential students. Similarly, IES could be directed to direct grant recipients to develop tools or guidance to help school district and school district leaders identify high-potential students.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
The Subcommittee should require NCES, through its work collecting education statistics, to collect and publish information from states and local education agencies about issues related to advanced talent development. Relevant topics could include universal screening, automatic enrollment, funding for advanced education programming, and other topics.
Every Student Succeeds Act
Through the Every Student Succeeds Act and Title I funding to states and school districts, the Department of Education can issue guidance related to how states test students annually in grades 3 through 8 and report information to the public. The Subcommittee should require the Department to issue voluntary guidance encouraging states to use federally required assessments for identifying high-potential students and to require additional detailed reporting about students scoring “advanced” on state assessments.
Collectively, these reforms would help ensure that America’s education system meets its obligations to its brightest children and empowers them to realize their full potential, thereby strengthening the nation’s economic, scientific, and technological position.
