"When the idea of IMSA was first conceived," says student Willis, "it was meant to be a test school. If things went well, other gifted residence schools were meant to be built in other parts of Illinois. It's obvious that IMSA has been a success, but the board decided it would cost too much money and chose to not build other academies across the state.

"The techniques IMSA uses -- small class sizes, highly educated teachers and a commitment to ethical leadership -- are universally known as necessary in an educational environment," Willis says. "But other schools aren't given the money, so the students suffer."

"The whole definition of 'giftedness' and of 'gifted education' is questionable," Klonsky adds. "Why not change the local school to accommodate the needs of the so-called gifted, instead of segregating these kids in a separate residential school? High schools are the anchor of strong communities.

"We have to ask: What is traded off in removing high school students from the bosom of their families and from their neighborhoods?" she continues. "What do we lose by removing, as a matter of state policy, the highest-achieving students from the community?"

"Our students have higher-level thinking skills," argues IMSA counselor McGrath. She cites the application process, during which the IMSA staff considers applicants' interviews, essays and letters of recommendation along with grades and test scores, to ensure that the school accepts "critical thinkers, not just test-takers."

"Kids like ours need the academic challenge provided by peers of similar ability. And being a residential school, we can give our students access to resources -- laboratories, computers, teachers -- during the day, in the evenings and on weekends. They get extended learning time for mentorship and leadership opportunities."

Extended learning time means diminished family time -- a distinct downside, McGrath avers, of IMSA student life. "To be here, obviously, our students must be removed from their families. They're separated from Mom and Dad, from the family dog, from people in their church, their home community. Those people become a step removed from the lives of these children. They communicate more by e-mail and phone than in person. Of course there's a loss with that.

"But for the vast majority," McGrath says, "the gains far outweigh what they have to give up or do in a different way. Girls, in particular, benefit from the strong sense of community at IMSA, from the built-in acknowledgment that girls are good in mathematics and science, from the readily accessible female role models on our faculty and staff."

"At some points, I wish I were just a normal high school student without much work, who could drive around with friends and party," says Jessica D'Souza. "But being here is worth the sacrifice."

Klonsky concedes, "IMSA is not the problem. It's a symptom of the essential problem -- which is that schools are too big and too impersonal, teaching loads are too large and it is too difficult for teachers to unearth or recognize the individual gifts of their students. If schools were smaller and more able to customize their programs to meet the needs of each child, there would be less need to create special programs to meet special needs and talents."

Whatever one's opinion of "giftedness," or residential schooling, or any of the other particularities and peculiarities of IMSA, the school's existence and achievements prove a simple, disturbing truth. All handwringing and campaign speeches notwithstanding, IMSA proves that we know how to educate our children, and educate them well. We know how much it costs, and when we decide it's worth paying for, we know how to find the money.

As Klonsky says, if we choose to allocate IMSA-level resources to all of our public schools, we might discover that all of our children are gifted in ways that we can't yet imagine and don't presently value. And if those gifts were to be noticed and nurtured, maybe we wouldn't need schools like IMSA -- or Tupperware bowls full of Prozac, or juvenile halls -- as much as we seem to need them now.

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