From Yvonne Golczewski:
The Need for Equity
Gifted learners can be found in every conceivable demographic population. Contrary to what our media would have us believe, they do not have a stereotypical appearance.
They come in every skin color and are from every culture and economic strata. They can be found anywhere in the world. They can even be found in the special education student population.
The Problem
Because many gifted students do not fit our preconceived ideas, many are inadvertently overlooked or underserved, leading to underrepresented demographic populations in gifted education programs. Some minority groups of gifted learners, particularly Black, Hispanic American, and Native American, may be underrepresented by as much as 30 to 70%, with an average of 50%.1
According to the report, Mind the (Other) Gap! The Growing Excellence Gap in K–12 Education, “Reardon (2008) examined the Black-White academic gaps among initially high- and low- achieving students. In a longitudinal study, he found that even though both Black and White students initially had the same reading and math skills when entering kindergarten, Black students tended to fall well behind their White peers in later grades. In addition, the Black-White gaps grew faster among students who were initially above the mean of reading and math skills than those below the mean. Reardon suggests that Black high-achievers may be attending schools with less challenging learning experiences and fewer resources.”2
Another alarming fact is that gifted learners tend to drop out of school at the same rate as non-gifted classmates. Some studies cite between 18-20% of dropouts may be gifted.
Gifted dropouts were generally from a lower socio-economic status family and had little or no access to extracurricular activities, hobbies, and computers.3
Two Underlying Causes
The Need for Training
Some gifted learners, especially from underprivileged backgrounds, do not start school with an advanced bank of knowledge or vocabulary. Some may not speak English or may have a learning disability that hides their intellectual ability. Others may not have been raised in a family that emphasizes education, and therefore lack a strong drive to achieve.
Some may just be very shy and quiet. There are a multitude of reasons why some gifted learners are harder to identify.
Unfortunately, many education programs in universities do not provide the training necessary for teachers to work effectively with gifted learners. Even after graduating, the Fordham Institute found that 58% of teachers have received no professional development focused on teaching academically advanced students in the past few years.4
Educators must receive the training necessary to understand and identify the true traits of gifted learners so they can be recognized in every classroom. This is the first step to repairing the underrepresentation problem.
Once they are identified, educators must be trained in how to meet the educational needs of these students if they are going to help them to reach their potential. A gifted student with an IQ of 130 is just as different from the average student as one with an IQ of 70.
Gifted learners process information differently than the vast majority of other students.
The regular classroom’s curriculum is inappropriate for these students. And, contrary to popular myth and as evidenced by the statistics stated above, they are not teaching themselves or succeeding on their own.
According to the NAGC (National Association of Gifted Children), “teacher training is critical to the success of these students. Just as one would not expect a star athlete to reach his or her potential without the guidance of a coach, the same is true for GT learners. Students with high abilities need gifted education programs and services led by trained educators in order to enable them to make continuous progress in school. Without properly trained teachers, students cannot excel to their highest potential, and often find themselves bored and frustrated in school.”5
Inconsistent Program Availability
There are wide disparities in the availability and quality of gifted programs from district to district and from school to school across the state. Many districts, including Harford County, leave the decisions regarding gifted identification and programs up to individual schools. Some schools effectively identify their gifted and talented students and provide a significant number of appropriate programs while others provide little, if any.
We can be proud that our county’s Prospect Mill Elementary (in 2011) and Halls Cross Roads Elementary (in 2010) won the prestigious EGATE (Excellence in Gifted and Talented Education) award from the Maryland State Department of Education. Only a handful (5-7) of schools in the state met the rigorous criteria for the award. Yet, in many of our schools, gifted children spend their school days working on material they have already mastered in the regular classroom. The disparity is glaring.
Curiously, guidelines and oversight are consistently mandated across the district and the state regarding the identification of special education students and the proper education programs for these and regular classroom students.
This inconsistency is an equity issue. Access to appropriate gifted programs should not depend on where you happen to live. Until this is rectified, underrepresentation of minority and special populations, including English language learners, students living in poverty, and special education students will continue unabated.
Conclusion
Correcting the inequality does not have to be an expensive hardship on schools. There are some budget friendly ways to solve this issue. Online teacher training courses, acceleration methods, and curriculum compacting are just a few. The NAGC provides current, research-supported information about effective training and program options on its website and in its publications. See: http://www.nagc.org/.
As citizens, we need to advocate for ensuring identification and programming quality, consistency, and oversight from our education authorities. How can you help? Attend the HCPS Board of Education meeting this Monday, October 8, 2012 at 6:30pm, to support the GT Citizens’ Advisory committee’s report to the Board. The Board welcomes comments form the public at their public meetings. You can also write to them. Seek out or start parent groups to synergize your efforts. Join MCGATE, the Maryland organization that provides information and support for parents on gifted education issues at http://www.mcgate.org/MCGATE/Welcome.html.
Let us not stand aside quietly and allow this tragedy to continue any longer. We need to do what is right for the children, our society, and the future of our nation.
By Yvonne Golczewski, Harford County parent,
Chair, HCPS Citizens’ Advisory Committee for Gifted Education,
Vice President, Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education (MCGATE),
Member, MSDE Maryland State Advisory Council for Gifted and Talented Education
1 Ross, P. et al. (1993). National Excellence: a Case for Developing America’s Talent. Washington,DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Programs for the Improvement of Practice.
2 Reardon, S. (2008). Differential growth in the Black-White achievement gap during elementary school among initially high- and low-scoring students. Institute for Research on Education Policy & Practice Working Paper 2008-7. Plucker, J., Burroughs, N., Song, R., Mind the (Other) Gap! The Growing Excellence Gap in K–12 Education, Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Feb. 2010 (p.2),
https://www.iub.edu/~ceep/Gap/excellence/ExcellenceGapBrief.pdf
3 Myth: Gifted Students Don’t Need Help; They’ll Do Fine On Their Own, National Association for Gifted Children, Retrieved October 24, 2011, from http://www.nagc.org/index2.aspx?id=5064
4 Farkas, S., & Duffet, A. (2008). High-achieving students in the era of NCLB: Results from a national teacher survey (p 53). Washington, DC: Fordham Institute, Retrieved from NAGC website, 9/24/12, Myth: Teachers Challenge All The Students, So Gifted Kids Will Be Fine In The Regular Classroom, http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx
5 Common Gifted Education Myths, National Association for Gifted Children, Retrieved October 24, 2011, from http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx
Well said.
Great post, Yvonne, and thank you for sharing!
Every school district in the U.S. is required to provide a legally binding IEP for students with learning disabilities to ensure that their particular needs are met while in the public school setting.
Pennsylvania, and many other states, require school districts to identify gifted students and provide them with a similar, legally binding GIEP (or gifted individualized education plan) so that THEIR individual needs are also met in the public school setting. Maryland has no such law in place.
In my experience in HCPS, gifted classes end after elementary school and those students are then grouped heterogenously in middle school. There is no legal obligation for teachers to provide those students with appropriate challenges (although many do under their own moral obligation). Gifted students’ interest and passion in academics and the arts often wanes when they are held back and are not provided with the necessary challenges and the enrichment they deserve.
Maryland takes great care to ensure that students with special needs are provided with a “least restrictive environment” for learning. When will we wake up and provide the same accomodations for our gifted learners? It is shocking that we do not see a need for GIEPs, gifted education case managers, or homogenous grouping in middle school.
This is not an elitist demand that we “take all the smart kids” out of regular classes but a request that we begin to challenge ALL of our learners to meet their very highest potential.
To be fair IDEA was orginally going to require this but the gifted lobby did not want to be included in that plan!
That’s very interesting, CDev. I should definitely read up a bit on the history of IDEA and the role of the gifted lobby in the development of the laws and requirements.
So, did individual states then take it upon themselves to pursue the GIEP? It’s a shame that Maryland was not one of them. Do the individual states fund gifted education initiatives? I’m surprised that with the Race to the Top funding, more hasn’t been done to push for national standards for gifted Ed.
Now I’m cetainly interested in reading more about this particular issue. Thanks CDev and Ms. Golczewski for the useful information.
As an educator of Honors and AP students at the high school level in HCPS, this topic is one that evokes a passionate response from me every time it enters a conversation! I apologize if I seemed to rant and rave a bit in my last post!
Yes individual states, and in our state, LEAs decide what if any gifted programs to offer. Harford does a poorer job than some counties. Of course counties that do better tend to meet the Thorton funding recomendations.
With R3T you will see more in the way the Common COre will require differented Instruction (now called UDL). In MD curiculum will be required to be written with a UDL approach.
Harford County does provide schools with Enrichment Teachers to work with designated students during the school day. In addition, one of the pillars of classroom instruction, is differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students. Harford County is meeting the needs of all children in their schools. I think further investigation would support that gifted children are challenged each school day.
RETIRED TEACHER – you are correct that HCPS does provide enrichment teachers for gifted learners. but they are few and far between. some are splitting their time between two schools. there are none at the middle school level. And based on the committee’s finding, HCPS is not meeting the needs of it’s gifted learners.
I urge you all to attend the Board of Education meeting tonight at 6 PM. The committee will be reporting on it’s findings and an action plan going forward. You all will be very enlightened, and it will be time well spent.
Jeff
You are absolutely correct. There is a huge disparity as to how GT resources are spread throughout the county and it doesn’t take much thinking to figure out what areas receive most of those resources.
We were redistricted and found a large difference between the two schools my children attended. Further research led to discovering an enormous disparity among offerings in all schools in the county. I believe that retired teacher probably did his/her job well, but not everyone had the energy, time, or resources to challenge the children everyday. My child truly was not challenged everyday. This year more is being done, but it should be being done everyday of every school year.
Last night at the board meeting we were reminded that it takes time. Well, time is precious to a child…I will not stop fighting for all children.
The solution for some parents is easy. Get them out of HCPS and in to a challenging private school. Not a good solution for HCPS as gifted students leave but HCPS needs to learn to fix the problems it has. Another solution might be home schooling but I can’t endorse that because I still am amazed that home schooling works as well as it seems to work. I can’t refute the results but I am amazed that so many students can do so well being schooled at home. It forces me to confront the question “Are parents that good at educating children at home or are our public schools . . . . . . ?” You fill in the blank.
To be fair Alex have you seen some of the failures? I have. they return to their original school just shy of the 2 year mark and are no further than they left but now they are two years behind!
There is nothing extraordinary about homeschooling other than parents making the decision to be take personal responsibility for the education of their children. Their success is a reflection of parental dedication to their children and willingness to step outside the norm. Many consider it but feel intimidated or under the impression they and not skilled enough. This is simply not the case and there are many organizations willing to offer support for homeschooling families. Even HCC has recognized this and offers a variety of classes specifically to meet the needs of home-schooled students.