As presidential campaigning heats up, it will be difficult to avoid all the radio and TV advertising. And even young children can get caught up in the passion. But how does one know what is true?

The Horace Mann Companies and teacher Alan Haskvitz have put together Rea ch Every Child, a website full of resources for teachers and students. One of the features on this website is called Help identify propaganda. The site leads its readers to other pages that will teach them "how to dissect an ad, interpret a debate, analyze a poll, view news critically and more." And that's just one link.

Acad emic Games Leagues of America, AGLOA, is a national nonprofit organization that encourages academic excellence through organized competitions. AGLOA offers six games that academically gifted students in grades 4 through 12 can compete in each school year. Half of the games are board games - On-Sets, Equations and LinguiSHTIK - and half are played through a moderator who asks questions - World events, Presidents, and Propaganda. Students compete individually and in five-person teams.

In September, Academic Games launched Presidents On-line, in which students must identify a president based on clues given about his personality, political decisions and other events, and Propaganda On-line, where students learn what techniques of persuasion are being used in everyday language. Click here to play!

On September 20, 2004, the Templeton National Report on Acceleration, A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, was released. Copies of the report were and are downloadable from their websit e and print copies are also available at no charge.

Now the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education at the University of Iowa invites participation in a research study that involves completion of a brief (less than 10 minutes) online survey on the impact of the report A Nation Deceived. The purpose of the study is to evaluate how the release of A Nation Deceived three years ago has influenced attitudes, practices, and policies about academic acceleration.

So if you have read the Templeton report and are in a position to have experienced or observed any impact, please consider completing this survey. Surveys submitted after October 31 will be used for presentations at national and international conferences. For more information, please contact Nicholas Colangelo, Ph.D., nick- colangelo@uiowa.edu by email or call 319-335-6148 or 800-336- 6463.

Speaking about acceleration, the Minnesota Legislature passed new legislation in the 2007 session. The new wording for Minnesota Statutes, section 120B.15 is as follows:

(c) School districts must adopt procedures for the academic acceleration of gifted and talented students. These procedures must include how the district will: (1) assess a student's readiness and motivation for acceleration; and (2) match the level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum to a student to achieve the best type of academic acceleration for that student.

For more information, go to the Min nesota Session Laws 2007, Chapter 146.

Theater is such a creative option for our bright young people. One of our clients, while in high school, has had the opportunity to serve an internship with a local group, Theatre de le Jeune Lune. She is so excited about what she is doing that she is sending invitations to everyone she knows to come see the troupe's current production, The Deception, before it closes on November 25. To see a trailer of the play, go to Jeune Lune's website

"I must still be enjoying this internship," said our client, "because I'm already slated to be a part of their next production which opens this February (it is tentatively titled Cat in the Bag)."