Tamra Stambaugh

A five‐state analysis of gifted education policies

A paucity of research exists regarding the relative strengths and limitations and effects on practice in gifted education state policies. The purpose of this five‐state study is to shed light on selected states’ gifted education policies. Four data sources were probed and comparisons were made within each state and across the five states. Additionally, a deductive analysis was conducted of each states written policies against the National Association for Gifted Children program standards (NAGC, 1998), which serve as benchmarks for evaluating policies and services. Suggestions are given for policy development and research, based on five‐state findings of existing gifted programs, services, and student accountability systems and the way in which selected policy components are integrated within state school reform efforts.

Placement of Students Who are Gifted

Abstract Placing gifted and talented students together organizationally is not a substitute for appropriate services. The placement or program model fundamentally serves as a vehicle to group or organize students together but programming, in practice, sometimes referred to as a service delivery model, is not the same thing as service. Placement is a management strategy. It must be coupled with curriculum and instructional modifications in order for substantial and positive academic and social–emotional effects to occur for gifted and talented students. Specifically, the program placement model is only as good as the curriculum and instructional models provided within that placement. This chapter provides descriptions and research evidence of the macro program models used for serving gifted students and more commonly used program placement models for grouping gifted students together within the traditional school day and beyond. Non-negotiable components and future directions are also discussed within the context of placement.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Gifted Students From Low-Income Households:

This special issue on gifted and high-ability students from low-income backgrounds provides a set of perspectives on the problems and concerns that surround children of poverty as they negotiate the schooling process from kindergarten through college. It also highlights promising interventions to promote their achievement and success. This issue also provides reviews of extant literature over the past 25 years and breaks new ground with studies that are contemporary. Disparate perspectives are seen in researchers who use qualitative methodological inquiry as well as those who use quantitative analyses to increase our understanding of how the concept of poverty translates into the individual lives of students and educational policy. Current intervention studies and historical perspectives from Javits grants and U.S. Department of Education contracts chronicle the use of an evidence-supported curriculum model for this population and document the effectiveness of targeted curriculum interventions from past to present. The need to attend to poverty as a condition of children attending U.S. schools is well-documented in all of the articles in this issue. There is also strong agreement among several authors to think about poverty in new ways, not just as a threshold level of income that allows students to access free or reduced price lunch. Some authors also suggest that poverty as a construct is more systemic and may be in part perpetuated by schools or be so entangled with racial issues as to be difficult if not impossible to interpret as a distinctive phenomenon. There are also problems with formally identifying students of poverty, even when we know who they are, for purposes of providing interventions. Thus, some researchers have focused on providing access to services first and then identifying students who respond well to these higher level interventions. Several of the articles provide a rich backdrop from the vantage points of the processes used by schools to address the needs of high-ability and low-income students and the ways in which we apply the concept of poverty to that task. Four articles provide literature reviews of different aspects of the problem of poverty. Olszewski-Kubilius and Corwith detail the literature on identification and programming for these students over the past two decades, suggesting that the processes used to find low-income gifted students are changing in respect to the use of multiple measures and the de-emphasis on the sole use of tests. At the same time, promising programs do exist and have been able to demonstrate longitudinal gains for students in key areas of learning and advanced development, including both in and out of school services. VanTasselBaska outlines the successful use of the ICM curriculum model and resultant curriculum interventions that have been used for the past 25 years to address the classroom needs of these students in core subject areas. She also highlights the research-based classroom instructional practices that have been found effective with this population over that same period of time. Plucker and Peters discuss the different definitions of poverty that have been used for purposes of research and program development in the field of gifted education and beyond as well as the implications of this for policy and practice. And, Goings and Ford critique the research conducted over a 15-year period in respect to its focus on children of color who come from poverty and question its lack of emphasis on the need to change systems rather than individuals. Also concerned about the need to eradicate deficit thinking about students of color and poverty, they found that the majority of our researchers have not systematically addressed this issue in their work. The Hamilton et al. article explores the overall likelihood of whether students who are low income will be identified as gifted. Using large data sets from three different states, they found that low-income learners were less likely to be identified as gifted, even after controlling for achievement. The authors explain that schools themselves, typically Title I, are a limiting factor in finding and serving this population. Findings from this study also suggest the need for more targeted state policies, universal screeners, and resources aimed at identification and service delivery to this population of learners. Other articles present new research findings on the success of interventions to meet student needs through program interventions and specific curriculum opportunities. Little, Adelson, Kearney, Cash, and O’Brien chronicle the positive impact of a summer-based math program with young gifted children in several school districts, noting significant growth gains for all students, including those who are low income. 737619 GCQXXX10.1177/0016986217737619Gifted Child QuarterlyVanTassel-Baska and Stambaugh introduction2017