A bill that would remove gifted children from the realm of special education was introduced in the Kansas Legislature on Monday.
And dropped Tuesday.
According to The Wichita Eagle, Rep. Sue Boldra, R-Hays, said her goal was not to eliminate gifted programs, but to separate them from special education.
Gifted-education advocates have fought for years to receive more support from the state. House Bill 2630, introduced Monday in the House Committee on Education, was similar to a bill they fought last year.
About 14,000 Kansas students are identified as intellectually gifted, meaning they’re approved to receive special-education services after assessments.
House Bill 2630 sounds like another example of legislators looking for ways to trim the budget and “fix” things even if they don’t have a clear understanding of how things work and what their proposals would do. In January we got House Bill 2504, which proposed consolidation of school districts so that any county with fewer than 10,000 students will have one county-wide school district.
Sometimes there is enough public outcry that a bad bill is dumped, but there’s always the danger of a crazy law passing.