Gifted Education In America

In 2015, I wrote about my personal philosophy of the gifted learner. I stated in my paper that, “Giftedness is not a one, set definition. The definition of gifted must encompass intellect, ability, creative talent as well as emotional awareness. It cannot be micro-managed and be a “one size fits all” definition” (Dauber, 2015). People, who are gifted, need differentiation and opportunity to express, demonstrate and show their giftedness. Educators must be able to provide opportunities for the gifted learner to express his/her abilities and/or talents. Gifted students learn differently and require special educational experiences in order to grow academically and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, the education field must be able to understand not only the cognitive side of a gifted learner but the affective or social/emotional aspects too.

Van Tassel-Baska, J. (2000). Theory and research on curriculum development for the gifted. In K.A. Heller, F.J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg & R.F. Subotnik (Eds.). International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 365–386). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

2 & 3. Use the most current versions of standardized tests that are going to be used to make a decision about admission into a gifted program and that norms are up-to-date and a good representation of

The students within Northern Secondary School’s 2014-2015 Gifted Program graduating class slid into AP and gifted classes like they were made for them. Since the beginning of their middle school careers, these gifted high school students have been spoonfed a thought-provoking and comprehensive education. At Wong’s public gifted elementary school, Cummer Valley, the faced-paced and in-depth curriculum not only stimulated his intellectual capacity and unlocked his potential, but “compelled him to achieve higher academic standards and established a strong foundation to build upon for high school.” Wong claims that he entered Earl Haig, a non-gifted public high school, with a knowledge base practically a grade higher than the majority of his subordinate

One of the difficulties in identifying the needs of low-income students is the profound cultural barriers which exist that prevent their strengths and deficits from being identified. Children from low-income homes frequently have poorer vocabularies and a weaker basis of the type of knowledge that is frequently considered 'intelligence' on most forms of assessment. A low-income child's IQ may be high, even though he lacks a framework of accepted middle-class knowledge. "In January 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the seeming overrepresentation of minorities in special education and underrepresentation of those students in gifted education. The NRC reported that, nationwide, 7.47 percent of all white students and 9.9 percent of Asian students are placed in gifted programs. Meanwhile, 3.04 percent of African-American students, 3.57 percent of Hispanic students, and 4.86 percent of American Indian students are classified as gifted" (GT-minority identification, 2003, ERIC Clearinghouse). The discrepancy, the NAS believed, could not be solely explained by talent alone but was at least partially rooted in the methods of identifying students labeled as gifted. Biases in standardized and other tests identifying student strengths, combined with prejudices, however unintentional, amongst educators and administrators lead to under-identification of the gifted

Validity is the assessment of the test’s informational construct, content, and criterion (Jarosewich, Pfeiffer, & Morris, 2002). Despite the fact that GATES does not reference any giftedness theory or theory of support, content validity is confirmed for GATES since the test was developed based on literature reviews, critiques of existing rating scales, and academic and test construction experts of the field (Jarosewich, Pfeiffer, & Morris, 2002, p. 330). A combination between federal guidelines on giftedness and a confirmatory item analysis is the basis of GATES creation.

Public education in America aims to benefit communities by teaching the democratic principles and common values of society through equal opportunities for learning. The education system in the United Sates has created unbiased processes which are open to all individuals and give them a chance (Dai, 2013): equal opportunities do not create equal outcomes. Conflict theory views education in capitalist society as a means of maintaining social inequality and preserving the economic, and political power for the dominant population; the underlying hidden curriculum serves to indoctrinate the accession of working classes into the lower positions in society (Turner, 1975). The struggle for power, wealth, and excellence has been built into the public institutions of capitalist society, and continue to maintain disparity between the classes (Collins, 1971).

A Gifted and talented (G/T) student” is “one who . . . exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area, possesses an unusual capacity for leadership, or excels in a specific academic field” (Aldine ISD Board Policy Manual, 2014). The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides a state plan, which outlines the standards for Texas schools to be in compliance. It also offers the educational opportunities these students should receive. In fact, there are performance measures for five aspects of G/T programs including student assessment, service design, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and family and community involvement. The plan assists districts in delivering these comprehensive services to

First, the use of local norming when identifying students for gifted programs. As Worrell (2013) points out, academic performance is substantially influenced by socio-economic factors, and social and cultural issues in the home and school, thus “relative strengths are as important for identifying talent as absolute strengths for students in under-represented subgroups” (p.392). It is important to use local norms and opportunity-based norms (e.g. similar SES, ELL, parent education levels) as well as national norms to find the students that are achieving at the top of their subgroup. Another strategy may be to use performance task to measure achievement, as they are domain specific, assess fluency and complexity of responses, allow for multiple correct responses, focus on problem solving, encourage the use of metacognition, and require a dynamic assessment approach on the part of the assessor (VanTassel-Baska, Johnson, & Avery (2002). Instituting differentiation and other instructional models in the classroom, as well as in gifted programs is a strategy that can be utilized to ensure a student’s specific interests and needs are being met with respect and knowledge of potential social and cultural differences/backgrounds. Lastly, I believe that Rimm’s Trifocal Model (2008) could be a great strategy for supporting and encouraging success amongst these underrepresented groups. Dr. Sylvia Rimm created her Trifocal Model to assist underachieving students, however gifted students from underrepresented groups are just that, in some ways. In short, Rimm suggests that we make school and education meaningful by accessing a student’s interests. For these subgroups, this could mean infusing curriculum and instruction with content meaningful to their culture. Next, she states that parents and teachers should stop reinforcing underachieving behaviors,

I am a proponent of ability grouping. I believe that the best way to make progress is taking students and breaking them up into leveled sections so that they can achieve to their highest potential. To me, this is the only thing that truly makes sense. In an article from Newsweek.com entitled America Hates it's Gifted Kids (2014), by Chris Weller, while No Child Left Behind from 2001 did help to improve the scores of underachieving students across the nation, by some degree, we did terrible things for our gifted students. Many of these were left to fend for themselves. Gifted programs were often unfunded in order to handle the needs being created for underachieving students. When our gifted children may someday become our inventors, engineers, and doctors of the future, why on earth is their education and growth not as important as a student with special needs, or anyone else? We build individualized education plans for students who struggle, those with needs, yet we ignore other special abilities. Why can't we build a plan for them as well? Why don't we build a plan for each student, so that instead of a one-size-fits-all education, we provide a track for all students to run on based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, all can continue to grow. There is nothing that says a student who begins in one group cannot move up. There is nothing that says a student who struggles in math couldn't be a high achieving reader. In the Education Week (2004) article on tracking, the major concern against ability grouping has to do with labels. That the majority of students in low level ability groups are poor and minority, and that ability grouping sets a stigma on that particular population. Yet that is where they achieve! By giving specialized instruction at each individual level, all have a chance to grow, instead of lagging further behind, stagnating, or creating a greater challenge when their unique needs aren't met, and further

Many educators feel that teachers aren’t trained to teach gifted students. Teaching accountability has teachers focus more on

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

gifted students within those states, and are not consistent across the United States. “Seven states

This led to rather of lot of boredom, and it did not help that the teachers at the tiny army base school I attended were not prepared to handle gifted students. My boredom led me to act out, and that got me branded a problem child. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is for students who move to a new place, only to find that their classmate are well ahead of where they were in their old school. Implementing a set of national educational standards in math and English would ensure that children in these circumstances are more likely to be in roughly the same place as their classmates in their new

In this case, some people refute that gifted students are practically children with adult minds who are capable of diving into the real-world while they have merely begun to test the waters. Others counter with the belief that pushing gifted youth to tackle subjects above the average student of their grade is socially damaging. However, K. Elijah (2011) explains that gifted students who are not being challenged can develop an extreme boredom in school which can lead to disruptive behaviors that will evolve into dropping out of school. In the same article, gifted students are credited with learning quicker, more deeply, and tend to practice material for memorization less (Elijah, 2011). Also, “Acceleration of Gifted Students” (2003) further clarifies that when gifted students are properly assisted in developing an educational program, they report to be satisfied emotionally and academically. Students also tended to have more self-confidence, and no negative effects of acceleration were reported in a survey of non-gifted and gifted students (“Acceleration,” 2003). Assisting gifted students is imperative whether it be through homogeneous grouping, heterogeneous grouping, and/or acceleration in order to provide proper instruction that will benefit these