Education Week - November 27, 2019 - 15

Survey: Gifted
Services Uneven

Sarahbeth Maney for Education Week

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Zachary is a 'twice exceptional' 5th grader in Sacramento, Calif., where district leaders have endeavored to identify more students like him.

trict changed the testing standards so that
a wider range of students could get into the
program. Still, she said, the first year that it
happened, she felt "surprise" at the range of
students in the class. What she likes about
twice-exceptional students like Audrey,
though, is "seeing what they can do," saying
that it is like "opening a surprise box."
Another gifted education teacher, Kevin
Hubble, also saw the gifted population
changing. "Over the years I think that the
kids have become less, what I would say less
[traditional] GATE [Gifted and Talented
Education]," she said. She noted that her
middle daughter didn't get into GATE initially but now would likely qualify.
Sharon Leonard, a 2nd grade gifted
teacher, said that in the past parents had
more influence on getting their children
into the gifted and talented program than
she thought they should have. Still, she did
not think the changes were necessarily beneficial to students.
"I feel like the kids who are at the really
top, the 98 and 99 [percentile], they need
a different experience," she said, "and so
we're pulling in kids really with low scores
and, and it's harder for them."
"I don't want children to feel like they are
the S-word as we say, which is stupid," she
said, because they are in a class with more
traditional high scorers.

Testing Backlash
Teachers said more professional training
is needed to work with these newer populations. Currently the district does not provide
training specific to gifted education.
And testing in general has been a contentious issue for district teachers. In 2016
the teachers' union signed an agreement
memorandum with the district that lowered
the number of overall tests that the district
gives to students. Ultimately, this cut the
number of academic interim assessments
that were available to the GATE department
to identify additional students to participate
in gifted and talented services.

Hanson-Smith noted that during the
2015-16 year, two math and two language
arts assessments were given out, and by
2016-17, those numbers were reduced to
one math and one language arts assessment during the last weeks of the school
year.
This lowered the percentage of newly
identified 1st and 3rd grade gifted and talented students during the 2016-17 school
year. For twice-exceptional students, the
proportions dropped from about 13 percent
for 1st graders in 2015-16 to 10 percent in
2016-17 and, for 3rd graders, from about
4 percent to just over 1 percent.
In a recent letter to the teachers' union,
district Superintendent Jorge Aguilar said
federal civil rights officials had noted that
the lack of multiple assessments for GATE
identification had a negative impact on underrepresented student populations. For
that reason, Aguilar said, he decided that
the district would once again implement
consistent interim assessments.
Hanson-Smith, the gifted coordinator
who implemented the changes, almost lost
her job last spring in a budget-cutting proposal that ultimately failed. Because California does not require schools to identify or
serve gifted and talented students, she said,
she will always be worried about "losing the
ground that we have made."
But "what really keeps me up at night,"
she said, "is the inequity that a twice-exceptional student living in my district has
the chance of being found and supported,
but there is another kid who is such a similar learner living [in another district] on the
other side of the river who will not be found
or even if found, will not be supported. And
that breaks my heart because that doesn't
have to happen."
Coverage of the experiences of low-income,
high-achieving students is supported in
part by a grant from the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation, at www.jkcf.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the content
of this coverage.

Defining
Which of these factors is addressed in your district's
definition of gifted/talented? Select all that apply.
Intellectually
gifted

79%

Academically
gifted

Creatively/
artistically gifted

Specific
academic areas

Gifted with
a disability

Highly or
profoundly gifted

Culturally/
ethnically diverse

25
23

Leadership

ESL/ELL

Low SES

Underachieving
I don't know

Geographically
isolated/rural

Athletically
gifted

in gifted education.
There was nearly an even split on
whether respondents thought white
students and children from high-income families in their districts were
overrepresented in gifted education.
Respondents in large or urban districts were much more likely to report
that students living in poverty were
underrepresented in their gifted programs.
In conversations with Education
Week, survey participants from several states reported grappling with a
host of issues, but ensuring that all
gifted and talented students have access to services was at the forefront.

Building Equity
The Lindbergh, Mo., schools-a
7,000-student majority white district
in suburban St. Louis-began universal screening this school year for some
elementary students, after decades of
relying solely on parent and teacher
referrals for gifted screening.
The district has a wealth of options
for gifted education, including magnet
schools that draw tuition-paying students from other districts, a setup that
Tracy Bednarick, the district's coordinator of gifted programming, said was
a "bit of an elitist program."
"If somebody was advocating for
their child, they got noticed," said Bednarick, who participated in the survey.
Universal screening should "help
build that equity, not just on the racial
demographic level, but also on the socioeconomic level."
Survey respondents split on whether
their districts were taking similar steps
to broaden access to gifted programs.
Roughly one-third of the participants
said their districts put little or no effort
into ensuring equitable representation in gifted education in the past five
years. But a similar share, 30 percent,
indicated that their districts were pushing to increase the odds that students
from traditionally underrepresented
populations are screened and identified as gifted.
In the 54,000-student Clayton
County, Ga., schools, a high-poverty
district in suburban Atlanta where a
majority of students are black, Misha
Thompson faces a different challenge:
identifying gifted students who are
transient or English-learners.
Thompson, an elementary school
gifted education teacher who leads a
districtwide team that verifies student
eligibility for gifted services, encourages all adults, including support staff,
to refer students for screening.
"It could be a cafeteria worker that
they have a good relationship with,"
said Thompson, another survey participant. "We open the process to
anyone who has knowledge of the
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Education Week - November 27, 2019

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