Who needs intelligence anyway?

The good news: Alabama schools in the last five years have identified 51 percent more children as intellectually gifted, including huge increases among black and Hispanic students as school leaders have broadened their gifted criteria beyond IQ.

The bad news: Alabama doesn't have any money to fund gifted education, and the No Child Left Behind Act does nothing to encourage extra book-learnin' for children who are already smart, so local systems are on their own. This, of course, results in dramatic funding inequities among systems and disadvantages poor kids, but the state is used to that sort of thing by now.