<p>For those of you whose kids participated in CTY, or one of the talent search programs, their founder, Julian Stanley of Johns Hopkins, died Friday. I once had the pleasure of an extended telephone conversation with him, and found him to be full of excellent advice. From the NYT:</p>
<p>"Dr. Stanley was a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, where he began an early and influential study of mathematically talented children in 1971.</p>
<p>His research, known as the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, was an effort to measure the abilities of select students before they entered high school. Dr. Stanley had the students take college entrance exams and other standardized tests, which he found to be more reliable indicators of ability than tests geared specifically to elementary-level age groups. The study, which continues, is focused on students age 13 or younger who score 700 points or higher of a possible 800 on a part of the SAT, a score achieved by about one student in 10,000 in the younger age bracket.</p>
<p>Dr. Stanley, who began his career as a high school math teacher, used the results to persuade schools and universities to better accommodate high achievers. In 1979, Johns Hopkins opened its Center for Talented Youth to encourage younger students to pursue college-level courses on weekends and during summer sessions, and other universities soon followed suit. Duke, Northwestern, the University of Denver and other institutions have added similar programs."</p>