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A Brief History of Gifted and Talented Education

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A Brief History of Gifted and Talented Education

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A Brief History of Gifted and Talented Education

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Across the land, the very idea of gifted and advanced education is under attack. This summer, as he prepared to wrap up his tenure, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the city's elementary schools to stop testing for giftedness, adopt "accelerated learning" for all, and devise a new system of subject-specific accelerated coursework. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the education chair of the NAACP's Seattle chapter thundered, "We want the [gifted] program just abolished. Period. [It] is fundamentally flawed, and it's inherently racist."

Earlier this year, California's Instructional Quality Commission adopted a new mathematics framework that urges schools to do away with accelerated math in grades one through 10. When pressed on whether this would stymie children with a particular aptitude or interest in math, the commission was blunt: "We reject ideas of natural gifts and talents." That sentiment is what's at the heart of the current debate around gifted education.

Of course, gifted programs should be inclusive and should be reformed as necessary to ensure that ... [+]
The Washington Post via Getty Images

In Fairfax County, Virginia's famed Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school ranked as the nation's top high school by U.S. News, eliminated its admission exam last year due to concerns that the school had too many Asian students and not enough black and Latino ones. Down the road in Charlottesville, the school district changed its protocol for identifying gifted students, reporting this summer that 86 percent (that's not a typo) of students in grades three through 11 are now deemed gifted. Given that nearly every student is now gifted, the district announced a new model in which gifted students will no longer receive specialized instruction and in which "gifted resource specialists" will instead be placed in conventional classrooms to provide instructional support.

Since his election as de Blasio's successor in New York City, Mayor-elect Eric Adams doubled down on his pledge to undo de Blasio's push to end gifted programs. And, in an encouraging turn, the president of the United Federation of Teachers union, Michael Mulgrew, even said he looks "forward to working with Adams to expand the gifted and talented program."

But the issue is much larger than one locale. Of course, gifted programs should be inclusive and should be reformed as necessary to ensure that they are. At the same time, Nobel laureate David Card has concluded that "a separate classroom environment is more effective for" gifted learners-especially those who are disadvantaged. Educators and policymakers shouldn't shrug off the problems with gifted education but neither should they settle for gauzy promises of "accelerated learning" for all.

It's useful to ground this discussion by asking two straightforward questions. First, when it comes to chess, soccer, trumpet, singing, or dance, do some children have exceptional gifts and stand to benefit from exceptionally challenging instruction? Second, does this also apply to endeavors like writing, algebra, and biology?

If one accepts that people are born with an array of talents, and that students and society benefit when schools cultivate those talents, the conversation about gifted education should be how to do it fairly, responsibly, and effectively.

Unfortunately, de Blasio-style attacks on gifted education are likely to disappoint on all of those grounds. After all, when schools abandon gifted learners, affluent families have options: They'll move their kids to private schools or pony up for tutors, enrichment programs, and online courses. It's low-income students who will get lost along the way. Former Washington, D.C. math teacher Colin Seale has noted: "I often get the side-eye when I mention gifted education and equity in the same sentence [but] shutting down gifted programs only deepens the inequities for brilliant, underrepresented students of color and adds another barrier to unlocking their genius . . . Since when does equity mean everyone gets nothing?"

There are, of course, real issues to address with gifted education. Researchers have indeed raised important, legitimate concerns about the fact that minority students are less likely to be selected for gifted programs. In New York, two concerns have a lot of merit. One is the fact that gifted admission is based on a test given to 4-year-olds. The second is that the results are used to sort students into gifted programs for all of elementary school. These issues deserve to be addressed, but that can be done without dismantling gifted education. Children should have the chance to be retested and admitted to gifted programs at multiple points; all kids should be tested be tested for eligibility, or at least given the opportunity; and schools need to develop on-ramps into and off-ramps out of gifted programs.

Most Americans support these programs but they also want to be confident that they're rigorous, inclusive, and fair. The public is comfortable, perhaps surprisingly so in our equity-conscious age, with merit-based selectivity. Phi Delta Kappan reported last year that 83 percent of adults think it appropriate to use test results when determining eligibility for "special" academic programs. Parents like the promise of these programs, especially in low-income communities where they want their kids to enjoy the same opportunities for rigor and advancement that are available elsewhere.

Three years ago, in the "Culturally Responsive Equity-Based Bill of Rights for Gifted Students of Color," a group of academics argued that "gifted students of color" need skilled gifted educators, gifted programs committed to recruiting and retaining them, and access to gifted programs and services like Advanced Placement and magnet schools. At a time of seemingly intractable ideological debates, this is an agenda that offers broad, practical appeal and is full of opportunities to pursue both equity and excellence.

Now that remote learning has become omnipresent, every qualified high school student should have ready access to a full slate of Advanced Placement classes. Those in the worlds of charter schooling and school choice should support efforts to launch and expand schools that offer gifted or advanced instruction, especially in communities where such options are hard to find.

There's much to be done. But it starts with embracing notions of excellence and giftedness, not by trying to tear them down.
Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

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thomas jefferson high school for science and technology

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Across the land, the very idea of gifted and advanced education is under attack. This summer, as he prepared to wrap up his tenure, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the city's elementary schools to stop testing for giftedness, adopt "accelerated learning" for all, and devise a new system of subject-specific accelerated coursework.

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Three Models for Understanding Gifted Education

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Three Models for Understanding Gifted Education

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Three Models for Understanding Gifted Education

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Is There a Gifted Gap? Gifted Education in High-Poverty Schools

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Is There a Gifted Gap? Gifted Education in High-Poverty Schools

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Schools have long failed to cultivate the innate talents of many of their young people, particularly high-ability girls and boys from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. This failure harms the economy, widens income gaps, arrests upward mobility, and exacerbates civic decay and political division.

To address these issues, researchers Christopher Yaluma and Adam Tyner examined the extent to which access to and participation in gifted programs vary for different groups of students nationally and in each state, particularly in high-poverty schools. Here's what they found:

More than two-thirds of elementary and middle schools have gifted programs.

Overall, high-poverty schools are just as likely as low-poverty schools to have them.

Yet students in low-poverty schools are more than twice as likely to participate in such programs.

Even when black and Hispanic students have gifted programs in their elementary and middle schools, they participate at much lower rates than their peers.

In schools with gifted programs, only Maryland, Kentucky, and New Hampshire enroll more than 10 percent of the state's black and Hispanic students in those programs; in twenty-two states it's less than 5 percent.

Increasing the participation of qualified yet underrepresented students in gifted programming in elementary and middle schools would change the trajectories of these children and gradually lessen social and economic inequality. We offer three recommendations to help on this front:

1. Consider universal screening and other ways to streamline identification processes and make them more equitable.

2. Identify students for gifted programs using local norms.

3. Counter bias in identifying and serving minority gifted students.

For tomorrow's leaders to reflect America's diversity, today's schools must cultivate able kids from every kind of background. Toward that end, first-rate gifted programming in high-poverty schools can contribute a great deal.

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Is There a Gifted Gap? Gifted Education in High-Poverty Schools

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Schools have long failed to cultivate the innate talents of many of their young people, particularly high-ability girls and boys from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. This failure harms the economy, widens income gaps, arrests upward mobility, and exacerbates civic decay and political division.

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High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind

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High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind

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This publication reports the results of the first two (of five) studies of a multifaceted research investigation of the state of high-achieving students in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era.

Part 1: An Analysis of NAEP Data, authored by Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, examines achievement trends for high-achieving students (defined, like low-achieving students, by their performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP) since the early 1990s and, in more detail, since 2000.

Part 2: Results from a National Teacher Survey, authored by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett of Farkas Duffett Research Group, reports on teachers' own views of how schools are serving high-achieving pupils in the NCLB era.
Slideshow presentation of the findings Mike discusses the report on Fordham Factor In A Nutshell brief of the report Tom Loveless responds to this review of the study.
Video coverage of our panel event on the report:

High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.
5:30 - Tom Loveless, Brookings Institution
19:05 - Steve Farkas, Farkas Duffett Research Group
33:25 - Josh Wyner, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
41:15 - Ross Wiener, Education Trust
48:30 - Question & Answer
Download:
Tom Loveless's slideshow
Steve Farkas's slideshow
Speaker bios

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High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind

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This publication reports the results of the first two (of five) studies of a multifaceted research investigation of the state of high-achieving students in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era. Part I examines achievement trends for high-achieving students since the early 1990s; Part II reports on teachers' own views of how schools are serving high-achieving pupils in the NCLB era.

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Social & Emotional Needs of Gifted Students from the Davidson Institute

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Social & Emotional Needs of Gifted Students from the Davidson Institute

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Gifted Social & Emotional Needs of Gifted Children

Many gifted behaviors and traits include an emotional or social component. Parents of gifted children find that both the challenges and the joys of raising a gifted child extend beyond the classroom.

How Does Being Gifted Affect Social and Emotional Development?

Being gifted is part of an individual's identity and, as such, does not only apply to academic settings. Profoundly gifted children experience their emotions and social development in a way that can significantly differ from neurotypical children. Supporting your gifted child includes looking at their emotional needs at home and helping them build social skills outside of a school setting in addition to providing opportunities for intellectual growth.

How Does Giftedness Affect Emotional Development?

While every gifted child's experience is different, two of the main terms associated with the emotional development of gifted children are intensity and asynchrony.

Intensity as described by Christine Fonesca is, " gifted individuals approach life. At its best, intensity is the driving passion that enables some people to achieve amazing things - in any domain. But at its worst, it is the turmoil that has the power to consume these same individuals from time to time as they learn how to manage that aspect of their personality." Linked to emotional development, intensity in gifted children may manifest when their peers or the world at large fail to align with their inner compass for how the world ought to be in their eyes. Examples may include feeling troubled over ethical issues, rigid rule-following at play time, a vivid imagination, and even existential questioning at a very young age. Highly gifted children often struggle to express this intensity and may either direct this energy inwardly, presenting as moodiness or anxiety, or direct this energy outwardly as tantrums or yelling and outbursts.

Asynchrony is also closely linked to the gifted child's emotional development. Asynchronous development in gifted children means that their growth, academically, emotionally, physically, or socially, is not uniform. Profoundly gifted children in particular may be intellectually operating at a 10 th grade level at age 9 but have not mastered riding a bike or handwriting at the same time. In the emotional domain, gifted children experience the frustration of an intellect that is miles ahead of their physical self and their educational setting. Furthermore, asynchrony can mean that gifted children may lack the emotional coping skills to process their big feelings and rich inner life.

How Does Giftedness Affect Social Development?

The social development of gifted children is often most strongly shaped by a lack of like-minded peers who share their interests, especially early in life. Extroverted and introverted gifted children alike often describe feeling that they lack a "true friend." The social development of many gifted children mirrors their academic development in that they are often ready for a more mature friendship at an earlier age compared to their age-peers who might only be concerned with having someone to play with.

may occur for gifted children who feel that no one understands them. Gifted girls in particular are at risk for going "underground" and hiding their abilities to fit in with their age-peers. Helping these gifted students succeed socially and emotionally is often linked to finding the appropriate academic outlets though as gifted students may find like-minded peers once accelerated, through an academic summer experience, or by engaging with a niche interest and meeting others who share their passions. Anxiety and social struggles

How Can Parents Nurture the Social-Emotional Development of Their Gifted Children?

Parents play an important role in nurturing the social-emotional development of their gifted children by being advocates for their children in school and beyond. This can help address problems with self-image, perfectionism, uneven development and depression. Here are some ways parents can improve their gifted child's social-emotional learning:

Provide opportunities for enrichment through programs and activities outside the classroom

Enhance peer relations by allowing the child to connect with intellectual peers who are a similar mental age

Establish a professionally guided, ongoing support group of parents of gifted children who can share their experiences of raising their gifted children

Continuously enlighten educators who may not be able to recognize the needs of their gifted child

Most of all, it is important to remember gifted children are children first. They need guidance and understanding to help them learn to regulate their emotions and overcome social challenges they may be experiencing. The Davidson Institute works with families of profoundly gifted students to provide support in addition to hosting social experiences where these children can feel seen by their cognitive peers.

More Social & Emotional Resources for Gifted Children:

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Social & Emotional Needs of Gifted Students | Davidson Institute

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Parents nurture the social-emotional development of gifted children by being advocates for their child's school and enrichment experiences.

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Social and Emotional Challenges of Gifted Kids

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Social and Emotional Challenges of Gifted Kids

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Social and Emotional Challenges of Gifted Kids

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What are the social and emotional needs of gifted children? Understand the characteristics that can lead to behavioral problems, underachievement, and more.

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What it Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well

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What it Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well

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Some people suggest that gifted education is just sort of "fluffy" or enriching-gravy on the potatoes, perhaps, but not anything especially substantial or critical in the way of mental fare. Others propose that all gifted education is what's good for all students. Unfortunately, those two criticisms sometimes stem from observing classrooms where gifted learners are taught inappropriately.

So what does it mean to teach a highly able student well? Of course it will vary some with the age of the child, the subject, the learning style of the student-and possibly even the child's gender or culture. Certainly appropriate instruction for such learners varies for a child who comes to school rich with experiences vs. a child who is equally able but lacks richness of experience. And it will vary with a child who has immense potential vs. a peer with somewhat less capacity. Nonetheless, there are general indicators of appropriate curriculum and instruction for highly able students (in their areas of strength)-and general indicators of inappropriate curriculum and instruction for such learners.

Good Instruction for Gifted Learners

1. Good curriculum and instruction for gifted learners begins with good curriculum and instruction. It's difficult, if not impossible, to develop the talent of a highly able student with insipid curriculum and instruction. Like all students, gifted learners need learning experiences that are rich. That is, they need learning experiences that are organized by key concepts and principles of a discipline rather than by facts. They need content that is relevant to their lives, activities that cause them to process important ideas at a high level, and products that cause them to grapple with meaningful problems and pose defensible solutions. They need classrooms that are respectful to them, provide both structure and choice, and help them achieve more than they thought they could. These are needs shared by all learners, not just those who are gifted. But good instruction for gifted learners must begin there

2. Good teaching for gifted learners is paced in response to the student's individual needs. Often, highly able students learn more quickly than others their age. As a result, they typically need a more rapid instructional pace than do many of their peers. Educators sometimes call that "acceleration," which makes the pace sound risky. For many gifted learners, however, it's the comfortable pace-like walking "quickly" suits someone with very long legs. It's only "fast" for someone with shorter legs. On the other hand, it's often the case that advanced learners need a slower pace of instruction than many other students their age, so they can achieve a depth or breadth of understanding needed to satisfy a big appetite for knowing.

3. Good teaching for gifted learners happens at a higher "degree of difficulty" than for many students their age. In the Olympics, the most accomplished divers perform dives that have a higher "degree of difficulty" than those performed by divers whose talents are not as advanced. A greater degree of difficulty calls on more skills-more refined skills-applied at a higher plane of sophistication. A high "degree of difficulty" for gifted learners in their talent areas implies that their content, processes and products should be more complex, more abstract, more open-ended, more multifaceted than would be appropriate for many peers. They should work with fuzzier problems, will often need less teacher-imposed structure, and (in comparison to the norm) should have to make greater leaps of insight and transfer than would be appropriate for many their age. Gifted learners may also (but not always) be able to function with a greater degree of independence than their peers.

4. Good teaching for gifted learners requires an understanding of "supported risk." Highly able learners often make very good grades with relative ease for a long time in school. They see themselves (and often rightly so) as expected to make "As," get right answers, and lead the way. In other words, they succeed without "normal" encounters with failure. Then, when a teacher presents a high-challenge task, the student feels threatened. Not only has he or she likely not learned to study hard, take risks and strive, but the student's image is threatened as well. A good teacher of gifted students understands that dynamic, and thus invites, cajoles and insists on risk-but in a way that supports success. When a good gymnastics coach asks a talented young gymnast to learn a risky new move, the coach ensures that the young person has the requisite skills, then practices the move in harness for a time. Then the coach "spots" for the young athlete. Effective teachers of gifted learners do likewise.

Inappropriate Instruction for Gifted Learners

1. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it asks them to do things they already know how to do, and then to wait for others to learn how. Many advanced learners regularly complete assignments calling on materials, ideas and skills they have already mastered. Then they wait for peers to catch up, rather than being pre-assessed and assigned more advanced materials, ideas and skills when they demonstrate competency.

2. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it asks them to do "more of the same stuff faster." Reading more books that are too easy and doing more math problems that have ceased being a challenge are killers of motivation and interest.

3. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it cuts them loose from peers and the teacher for long periods of time. Asking a highly able student to sit at a desk in the back of the room and move through the math book alone ignores a child's need for affiliation, and overlooks the fact that a teacher should be a crucial factor in all children's learning. It also violates the importance of meaningful peer interaction in the learning process, as well as in the process of social and emotional development.

4. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it is structured around "filling time." Highly able students are often asked to go write a play, complete a puzzle, or do classroom chores because they have completed required tasks that take others longer. It would be difficult to defend such practices as a high-quality use of educational time.

5. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when they spend substantial time in the role of tutor or "junior teacher." All students need to be colleagues for one another, giving a hand or clarifying procedures when needed. That's quite different from when advanced learners spend chunks of time on a regular basis teaching what they already know to students who are having difficulty. Some educators suggest that doesn't harm highly able learners because their test scores remain high. That begs the question of the extended learning these students might have garnered had the same amount of time been spent in pursuit of well-planned new ideas and skills.

6. Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it is rooted in novel, "enriching" or piecemeal learning experiences. If a child were a very talented pianist, we would question the quality of her music teacher if the child regularly made toy pianos, read stories about peculiar happenings in the music world, and did word-search puzzles on the names of musicians. Rather, we would expect the student to work directly with the theory and performance of music in a variety of forms and at consistently escalating levels of complexity. We would expect the young pianist to be learning how a musician thinks and works, and to be developing a clear sense of her own movement toward expert-level performance in piano. Completing word-search puzzles, building musical instruments and reading about oddities in the lives of composers may be novel, may be "enriching,"(and certainly seems lacking in coherent scope and sequence, and therefore sounds piecemeal). But those things will not foster high-level talent development in music. The same hold true for math, history, science, and so on.

It's Actually Simple-In Theory

What it takes to teach gifted learners well is actually a little common sense. It begins with the premise that each child should come to school to stretch and grow daily. It includes the expectation that the measure of progress and growth is competition with oneself rather than competition against others. It resides in the notion that educators understand key concepts, principles and skills of subject domains, and present those in ways that cause highly able students to wonder and grasp, and extend their reach. And it envisions schooling as an escalator on which students continually progress, rather than a series of stairs, with landings on which advanced learners consistently wait.
It's not so hard to articulate. It's fiendishly difficult to achieve in schools where standardization is the norm, and where teachers are supported in being recipe followers, rather than flexible and reflective artisans. In schools where responsive instruction is a carefully supported indicator of professional growth, the capacity to extend even the most capable mind is a benchmark of success.

This article reprinted from the May 1997 issue of Instructional Leader, with permission from the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors

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What it Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well

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By Carol Ann Tomlinson, Ed.D, The University of Virginia Some people suggest that gifted education is just sort of "fluffy" or enriching-gravy on the potatoes, perhaps, but not anything especially substantial or critical in the way of mental fare. Others propose that all gifted education is what's good for all students.

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Gifted kids - they're not all Hermione or little Sherlocks that we can easily point out in a crowd. (Although, okay, some are like that too!) While many of us may have heard the term "gifted" or maybe even had a Gifted and Talented (GT) program at our local public school, the general public knows very little about who these kids are. Gifted kids are a diverse group that come from all socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. In this article we'll be reviewing the basics about this special population such as the early signs of giftedness, their unique characteristics, and the challenges associated with raising gifted kids.

Who are gifted kids?

We first must start with understanding what the term "gifted" means. It is often vaguely defined and used by different groups to different ends. To keep it simple, gifted means advanced in one or more areas which may manifest as intellectual, creative, or even physical prowess. These kids may appear more driven than their age peers, more quirky, more aware, more curious, or generally more intense in one area or another. Sometimes though, they may not appear like anything out of the ordinary at all. Many gifted students are twice exceptional meaning they have an advanced strength in one or more areas but also a learning difference. This can result in where their strengths and challenges cancel each other out, and the student appears average. Similar misconceptions around who gifted kids are and how they behave can also lead to the under-identification of gifted minority students. This is why gifted students can't always be easily recognized at first glance by parents or educators without proper information and training on gifted identification.

What are the early signs of giftedness?

Gifted children may have strengths in any number of subjects, but some of the early signs of giftedness seem to be fairly consistent across this population. This may include:

Developmental milestones for motor skills are often reached earlier

Language development and reading skills are often acquired before Kindergarten

Math concepts like addition and subtraction are often understood before grade school

Intensely interested in certain subjects or activities like puzzles, dinosaurs, imaginative play, the cosmos, or taking apart household objects

Grasps abstract concepts early which may lead to existential questions about life and death at a surprisingly young age

A high occurrence of one or more of the forms of Dabrowski & Piechowsk's over excitabilities: Sensual, Psychomotor, Imaginative, Intellectual, or Emotional OE.

Insatiable curiosity coupled with unending questions

Parents may find it help to consult additional lists on the early signs of giftedness. Of course, no one student may present all signs at once, and there may be additional factors like learning disabilities that complicate the child's cognitive profile and presentation. Kids with gifted characteristics may benefit from an individual gifted assessment for parents to gain a better understanding of their child's strengths and weaknesses as well as professional education recommendations.

What are some of the challenges of raising a gifted child?

If your child has been identified as gifted, you might be worried about what that means for their development. While some things may come easy to them, like their favorite subject, gifted kids often come with other challenges. Asynchronous development in gifted students is very common, which means they may be many ages at once. For example, a gifted 5 th grader might be intellectually age 17, physically age 11, and emotionally age 9. This can create challenges for parents and educators who may have trouble finding the appropriate academic materials like advanced books without adult themes. Parents may feel bewildered by their gifted kid who can talk to them about chemical bonds one minute and leave for school without their shoes the next. This uneven developmental trajectory can be a frustrating experience for all involved that requires patience and understanding.

Gifted children and friendships can also be a source of challenge for many families. Because of their asynchrony and niche interests, many gifted kids feel as though their age-peers at school don't understand them. These children often feel pressure to dumb themselves down to fit in at school or may forego connecting with their classmates altogether, which can lead to social struggles and anxiety. Many gifted kids find their true peers by pursuing their interests through extracurriculars, clubs, or summer experiences.

What is the best way to support a gifted child?

Gifted children thrive both academically, socially, and emotionally when parents and educators take a strengths-based approach to their learning. Giving gifted students room to explore and grow in the subjects that they're passionate about while proving support in areas of challenge helps students foster their gifts with a growth-mindset. It may also prevent underachievement in gifted students, both intentional and unintentional, when gifted kids are recognized and placed in the appropriate educational environment. Parents might consider any number of acceleration options for gifted students as a cost-effective solution that has decades of research backing its benefits both intellectually and socially for this population.

Because being gifted doesn't always mean high achieving at the onset, it is important for parents and educators to learn about who these gifted children are to nurture their abilities. Gifted tests and assessments can help identify giftedness and provide insight into the individual student and how they learn best. Most of all, it is important to remember gifted kids are kids first. They need a loving, safe home and guidance and understanding from the adults in their life to help them navigate their development and overcome challenges.

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Gifted Kids: What You Should Know - Davidson Institute

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Gifted kids often learn more quickly than children of the same age. Learn about early signs, characteristics, challenges and more.

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Editor's note: This is an edition of "Advance," a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more. You can subscribe on the Fordham Institute website and the newsletter's Substack.
We have ample evidence that a number of education programs targeted at advanced students significantly improve their learning outcomes. Because of that, high-quality gifted education-or what would be better labeled "advanced education"-has two primary benefits. One, it helps maximize the potential of participating students, which is something every child deserves. And two, in better developing the talent of these advanced students, it supports America's economic, scientific, and technological prowess in an increasingly competitive global market. It's therefore important that more school leaders adopt these policies and implement them well.

As Jonathan Plucker, Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development at Johns Hopkins University, explained in a Fordham Institute article a couple years ago, the two interventions with the most robust evidence behind them are acceleration and ability grouping-with enrichment, such as summer and residential programs, having generally positive results, too.

Acceleration is "an academic intervention that moves students through an educational program at a rate faster or at an age that is younger than typical," reports the highly-respected Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa. It comes in at least twenty forms, with the most common being whole grade skipping and receiving higher-level instruction in a single subject. It is "one of the most-studied intervention strategies in all of education, with overwhelming evidence of positive effects on student achievement," writes Plucker. One study that looked at approximately 100 years of research on the intervention's impact on K-12 academic achievement, for example, found three meta-analyses showing that "accelerated students significantly outperformed their nonaccelerated same-age peers," and three others showing that "acceleration appeared to have a positive, moderate, and statistically significant impact on students' academic achievement." The Belin-Blank Center also offers an excellent and thorough summary of the evidence related to acceleration.

Numerous high-quality studies have also found that flexible ability grouping-arranging students by academic achievement in the same or separate classrooms-is a net positive for advanced students and isn't detrimental to their peers. The aforementioned review of a century of research, for example, looked at thirteen meta-analyses of ability grouping, and three models boosted outcomes: within-class grouping, cross-grade subject grouping, and special grouping for the gifted. Moreover, there seemed to be little downside for medium- and low-achieving students, and often upside. Research on curriculum models can also be placed under the ability-grouping umbrella, and " those studies suggest that pre-differentiated, prescriptive curricula lead to significant growth in advanced learning," writes Plucker.

Because these interventions work, we ought to use them. Why? Because doing so benefits both the individual students and the country in general. Each and every child deserves an education that meets their needs and enhances their futures, and advanced students are no different. They have their own legitimate claim on our conscience, our sense of fairness, our policy priorities, and our education budgets.

What's more, many of them also face such challenges as disability, poverty, ill-educated parents, non-English-speaking homes, and tough neighborhoods. Many also attend schools awash in low achievement, places where all the incentives and pressures on teachers and administrators are to equip weak pupils with basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Such schools understandably invest their resources in boosting lower achievers. They're also most apt to judge teachers by their success in doing that and least apt to have much to spare-energy, time, incentive, or money-for students already above the proficiency bar.

It's advanced students from these disadvantaged and oft-marginalized backgrounds who most need these programs-but they're also the least likely to have access to them. A Fordham study in 2018 called Is There A Gifted Gap? found, for example, that White students constitute 47.9 percent of the student population but 55.2 percent of those enrolled in advanced learning programs, while the comparable figures for Black students are 15.0 and 10.0 percent, and for Hispanic students, 27.6 and 20.8 percent. And these forces contribute to widening gaps as they progress through grades. Those latter student groups are 49 and 23 percent less likely, respectively, to participate in Advanced Placement than their peers, and 62 percent and 51 percent less likely, respectively, to take part in International Baccalaureate courses when attending a school that offers them. Better-designed programming for advanced students in more places, implemented well, would help change that.

The second big reason for more and better advanced education interventions is that the country needs these children to be highly educated to ensure its long-term competitiveness, security, and innovation. They're the young people most apt to become tomorrow's leaders, scientists, and inventors, and to solve our current and future critical challenges. The same point was framed in different words in the 1993 federal report titled National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent: "In order to make economic strides," the authors wrote, "America must rely upon many of its top-performing students to provide leadership-in mathematics, science, writing, politics, dance, art, business, history, health, and other human pursuits."

But the U.S. and its schools have long underperformed many of our competitor countries, according to two respected international metrics: the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), in which dozens of countries participate. PISA tests fifteen-year-olds in math, science, and reading, and organizes its scores into seven levels, from 0 to 6, with high scorers generally being those who reach level 5 or 6. TIMMS assesses fourth and eighth graders in math and science and splits its scores into five levels, with a high achiever judged as one who reaches at least 625 on the relevant scales.

Using these cutoffs on the most recent math assessments-2018 for PISA and 2019 for TIMSS-illustrates the magnitude of the problem.

In the TIMSS results, the U.S. ranks eleventh in grade four and eighth in grade eight. In both, America landed behind Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Russia. Worse, the top-performing countries have two, three, and in the case of Singapore, almost four times the proportion of advanced students as does the U.S. The only silver lining is that many of these countries are small. America's vast scale means that we have a decently large number of high achievers in raw numbers.

PISA paints an even worse picture for high-achieving high school students in the U.S., mirroring our dismal NAEP results for twelfth-graders. Rankings include all members of the OECD that took the assessment, plus Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and a quartet of Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang). That's a total of forty jurisdictions. The United States comes in thirty-fourth, behind all participants in Asia and every participant in Europe except Spain, Turkey, and Greece.

The problem, of course, is not that the United States lacks smart children. It's that such kids aren't getting the education they need to realize their potential, allowing other countries like China to forge ahead. Using other international test data, for example, economists Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann estimate that a "10 percentage point increase in the share of top-performing students" within a country "is associated with 1.3 percentage points higher annual growth" of that country's economy, as measured in per-capita GDP. Which is to say, if the U.S. propelled more of its young people into the ranks of high achievers, it would be markedly more prosperous-with faster growth, higher employment, better wages, and all that comes with these. As the United States faces ever-steepening economic competition from China and elsewhere-not to mention mounting challenges to our national security and wellbeing, including climate change, intergenerational poverty, growing partisanship, and much more-the stakes are high and rising.

The good news is that we have evidence-based methods for reversing these trends: acceleration, ability grouping, and enrichment programs. When well-designed and carefully implemented, these interventions have long proven to boost the achievement of advanced students. This in turn gives these young people the education they deserve, and helps ensure American competitiveness, prosperity, and security for future generations. Sadly, far too many schools don't offer these services or don't implement them well, and there's a misguided push to eliminate them in more places. Instead, more districts should adopt them-the sooner the better.

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QUOTE OF NOTE
"A group of U.S. children could be set up for failure, despite the fact that they have a notable academic advantage over their peers. Gifted children fall victim to a belief shared by parents, educators, and legislators alike that they 'will be fine on their own.'"

" When the 'gifted' kids aren't all right," Deseret News, Addison Whitmer, November 22, 2022

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THREE STUDIES TO STUDY "Who Is Considered Gifted From a Teacher's Perspective? A Representative Large-Scale Study," by Jessika Golle, Trudie Schils, Lex Borghans, and Norman Rose, Gifted Child Quarterly, Volume 67, Issue 1, 2023
"Teachers play important roles in identifying and promoting gifted students. An open question is: Which student characteristics do teachers use to evaluate whether a student is gifted or not? We used data from a representative sample of Dutch primary school teachers (N = 1,304) who were asked whether or not they thought the students (N = 26,720) in their class were gifted. We investigated students' cognitive and noncognitive attributes as well as demographic factors that might be relevant for this judgment. In sum, the findings revealed that teachers considered students to be gifted when, in comparison with their peers, students were superior in cognitive domains, especially with respect to academic achievement, scored higher on openness to experience and lower on agreeableness, were male, were younger, and came from families with higher parental education."
"The Experience of Parenting Gifted Children: A Thematic Analysis of Interviews With Parents of Elementary-Age Children," by Jodi L. Peebles, Sal Mendaglio, and Michelle McCowan, Gifted Child Quarterly, Volume 67, Issue 1, 2023 WRITING WORTH READING
"Promises, Pitfalls, and Tradeoffs in Identifying Gifted Learners: Evidence from a Curricular Experiment," by Angel H. Harris, Darryl V. Hill, and Matthew A. Lenard, Annenberg Institute at Brown University, July 2022

"Disparities in gifted representation across demographic subgroups represents a large and persistent challenge in U.S. public schools. In this paper, we measure the impacts of a school-wide curricular intervention designed to address such disparities. We implemented Nurturing for a Bright Tomorrow (NBT) as a cluster randomized trial across elementary schools with the low gifted identification rates in one of the nation's largest school systems. NBT did not boost formal gifted identification or math achievement in the early elementary grades. It did increase reading achievement in select cohorts and broadly improved performance on a gifted identification measure that assesses nonverbal abilities distinct from those captured by more commonly used screeners. These impacts were driven by Hispanic and female students. Results suggest that policymakers consider a more diverse battery of qualifying exams to narrow disparity gaps in gifted representation and carefully weigh tradeoffs between universal interventions like NBT and more targeted approaches."

"This qualitative study aimed to delve deeply into the phenomenon by interviewing parents of elementary-age gifted children. We conducted 12 interviews with parents whose children attended gifted schools. The interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify key themes related to the experience of parenting gifted children. Themes identified included the parents' description of a "child-driven" approach to parenting, experiencing social isolation due to a lack of understanding, and physical and emotional feelings of exhaustion. The findings are particularly important for parents of gifted children, and other professionals who would benefit from a better understanding of the day-to-day experience of raising gifted children."

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" Does growth mindset matter? The debate heats up," Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay, December 5, 2022

" From a formerly gifted and talented kid, now burnt-out adult: Slow down and take care of yourself," The Flat Hat, Vivian Hoang, December 5, 2022

" Teens embrace AP class featuring Black history, a subject under attack," Washington Post, Sydney Trent, December 2, 2022

" NYC's 'gifted and talented' application timeline moves up," Chalkbeat, Michael Elsen-Rooney, November 30, 2022

" Should your child take AP or IB classes? It could save them thousands in tuition." Green Bay Press-Gazette, Danielle DuClos, November 29, 2022

" Schools for gifted students: What to know," U.S. News, Andrew Warner, November 29, 2022

" Michigan to start notifying parents of AP eligibility," News-Herald, Matthew Fahr, November 24, 2022

" When the 'gifted' kids aren't all right," Deseret News, Addison Whitmer, November 22, 2022

"$1.5 million NSF award will power scholarships and support for high-achieving, low-income engineering students," Temple Now, Sarah Frasca, November 18, 2022

" We need to rethink gifted and talented education in NC," The Daily Tar Heel, Georgia Roda-Moorhead, November 15, 2022

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Editor's note: This is an edition of "Advance," a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.

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What Role Does Culture Play in Shaping Children's School Experience?

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What Role Does Culture Play in Shaping Children's School Experience?

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One way to think of culture is as a context in which we learn and develop. We share, live, perform, and experience culture through our participation in daily activities, customs, and routines with social others. Culture helps us make sense of our social worlds and shapes our actions, thoughts, and feelings. For example, culture plays a role in the way we experience emotions, construct our self-concepts, and learn and problem-solve.

With increasing migration and the movement of people in the twenty-first century, many children in the US and worldwide are attending school in formal settings where cultural norms and practices at home may conflict with those children encounter at school. This experience places children in the position of having to navigate two different social worlds-home and school. One broad question we can explore is: "what role does culture play in shaping children's school experiences and academic success?" Let's visit three specific areas: parental beliefs and socialization practices, teacher perceptions, and school curricula and children's learning.

Parental beliefs and socialization practices

Parental expectations, beliefs, and attitudes about education shape children's academic experiences. Many parents in diverse cultural communities view education as a path to future success. For example, as a group many Asian and Asian American children attain academic success. What role does culture play in these outcomes? Chang notes that as a group, Chinese and Taiwanese parents place a high value on education. Kim and Park note the same is true for Korean parents. Parenting approaches in these communities highlight training and disciplining children, parent self-sacrifice, and devotion to children. Parents believe perseverance and hard work is the key to success and socialization practices reinforce these values and traits. These cultural practices help children internalize the values their parents place upon education and behaving according to social norms. Children acquire these values and are loyal, appreciative, and dedicated to their parents for their support and encouragement. In part, they attain academic success to honor their parents and the broader social groups to which they belong.

Teacher perceptions

Teachers play an important role in children's academic success too. What practices work best to motivate children to do well at school? The answer depends upon numerous factors. For example, many teachers will be entrusted with educating children who may not share their cultural heritage. How might this cultural mismatch shape children's school experiences and potential for academic success?

Most American school practices reflect dominant, mainstream American values, norms, and behavioral scripts. For most European American children who value independence and uniqueness, teacher praise and rewards can be highly motivating. However, for children who come from families that value humility and modesty, receiving praise in front of classmates might be an uncomfortable interaction.

Student engagement norms are another example. Many American teachers using a mainstream cultural lens, connect active student engagement with student attentiveness. Yamamoto and Li noted that for many Asian and Asian American students, knowing when to be quiet is a desirable skill which caregivers socialize their children to acquire. Teachers using mainstream, American cultural values and norms may perceive quiet students as disengaged and inattentive. These perceptions impact children's motivation to learn and academic success.

School curricula and children's learning

Dominant, mainstream American values tend to permeate curricular and teaching practices. Many American schools promote individual learning and problem-solving approaches rather than group or collaborative problem-solving strategies. The focus upon individualized learning connects to the cultural ideology of individualism and the independent self. These approaches promote the self as separate and unique from social others. Many European American children participate in cultural practices and routines that reinforce this worldview and values.

However, many Latinx and indigenous children participate in cultural practices and activities at home that value group and collaborative problem solving. These practices connect to the cultural ideology of collectivism and the interdependent self. At home children participate in practices and routines that emphasize the importance of the group, especially family. Thus, there is a disconnect between the approaches at home with the practices and routines the child encounters at school. Consequently, many of these children often have difficulty reaching their maximum potential in classrooms that promote individual problem-solving skills. Why does this happen and does this necessarily have be the outcome?

For many children from cultural heritages that promote collectivist values and an interdependent cultural model of the self, the cultural practices in which the child participates at home may conflict with those the child encounters at school. Often, teachers are unaware of these sources of conflict. However, this conflict between home and school does not need to impede students' success or invalidate the child's cultural heritage. One solution is for schools to meet students halfway and bridge the gap between the two contexts.

Two fine examples are The Bridging Cultures Project designed to assist immigrant and indigenous children in the US and the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) designed to assist native Hawaiian children. Both programs highlight how helping teachers become more aware, respectful, accepting, and inclusive of all their students' cultural values and goals shapes children's motivation and academic success at school.

Final thoughts

Numerous cultural forces connect to children's school experiences and academic achievement. These include parental beliefs, socialization practices, and cultural worldviews. Cultural values, practices, and ways of learning at home both shape and connect to children's formal school experiences. Educational initiatives such as The Bridging Cultures Project and KEEP highlight the importance of cultural compatibility and connectedness in fostering children's active engagement in school. Acknowledging and incorporating cultural knowledge, patterns, and ways of learning at home when they disconnect with those at school is one important way to ensure all children's academic success.
Featured image: School children in India, by Richard Veit

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What role does culture play in shaping children's school experiences?

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With increasing migration and the movement of people in the 21st century, many children are attending school in formal settings where cultural norms and practices at home may conflict with those children encounter at school. This experience places children in the position of having to navigate two different social worlds-home and school.

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Collection of Resources for Parents

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The Timely Information for Parents (TIP) Sheets are for parents and caregivers of gifted children to download, read, and share as their children's needs change.

Giftedness

Early Childhood
Your young child is showing signs of advanced abilities, what do you do next?

Gifted 101
What does gifted and talented mean for your child?

Talking With Your Child About Giftedness
Many parents and caregivers question how to talk with their high-ability children about giftedness.

Giftedness in the Classroom

Acceleration
A proven strategy to ensure the level and pace of your child's academic needs are met.

Assessments for Identification
Why, when, and how do you have your child tested for gifted identification?

Enrichment
Experiences in after-school activities may be the most important of the day.

Nurturing Gifted African American Children
African American children may exhibit giftedness differently than others and need some different types of support.

Advocacy

Advocating for Gifted Services
Steps to take when your school doesn't have effective gifted programs and services.

Classroom Advocacy
Working collaboratively with the teacher will be important to your child's success in school.

Self-Advocacy
Students need to know how to speak up for themselves to find the right opportunities to fit their needs.

Creativity

Arts
Build critical and creative thinking and expression through the arts.

Nurturing Creativity
Supporting your child's creativity often depends on those at home.

Social Emotional Development

Asynchronous Development
Gifted children can develop at an uneven rate, confusing parents, friends, and teachers.

Bullying
Recognize warning signs and provide support for children who are being bullied.
Cyberbullying & Gifted Children
Learn how to recognize and combat cyberbullying.

Finding a Mental Health Professional
How do you find a counselor, psychologist, or therapist for your gifted child?

Making Friends
Friendships might be more related to mental age than chronological age.

Perfectionism
Help your child avoid unhealthy perfectionism which can can cause excessive stress and anxiety.

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The Timely Information for Parents (TIP) Sheets are for parents and caregivers of gifted children to download, read, and share as their children's needs change. Giftedness Early Childhood Your young child is showing signs of advanced abilities, what do you do next? Gifted 101 What does gifted and talented mean for your child?

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The Direct and Indirect Effects of Environmental Factors on Nurturing Intellectual Giftedness

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The Direct and Indirect Effects of Environmental Factors on Nurturing Intellectual Giftedness