Links for
Portland Parents of Talented and Gifted Children
Other
articles/websites/specific topics
(note: this is a very select
list. Much more comprehensive collections of articles are available from the
"websites" page. Start with the Hoagies site.)
CONTENTS
Ability Grouping
Advocacy
Articles
and blogs
College Advice
Distance
learning
Home schooling
Parenting
Reports and
proceedings
Research resources and tools
Special Needs
Testing and IQ
Unusually
Gifted
Progress-Based Assessment (separate page)
NRCG/T Digests with
Recommendations: (see below for full-text online editions):
"The Relationship of
Grouping Practices to the Education of the Gifted and Talented Learner,"
Dr. Karen B. Rogers:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/rogers.html
"An Analysis of the
Research on Ability Grouping: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives" Dr. James A. Kulik
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/kulik.html
"Promoting Student
Achievement and Exemplary Classroom Practices Through Cluster
Grouping: A Research-Based Alternative to Heterogeneous Elementary
Classrooms" Dr. Marcia Lynne Gentry
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/gentry.html
Full-Text articles relevant to grouping from the NRC/GT
(For
the entire list of monographs, go to
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/nrconlin.html#9204)
"An Analysis of the
Research on Ability Grouping Historical and Contemporary Perspectives"
James A. Kulik, Ph.D. The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan
February 1992 Number 9204
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9204/rbdm9204.pdf
"Cooperative Learning
and the Academically Talented Student" Ann Robinson, Ph.D.
University of Arkansas at
Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas,
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9106/rbdm9106.pdf
"The Relationship of
Grouping Practices to the Education of the Gifted and Talented Learner"
Karen B. Rogers, Ph.D. University of St. Thomas, St. Paul,
Minnesota, October 1991, Number 9102
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9102/rbdm9102.pdf
"The Effects of
Grouping and Curricular Practices on Intermediate Students' Math
Achievement" Carol L. Tieso, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa,
Alabama February 2002 Number RM02154
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm02154/rm02154.pdf
"An Observational
Study of Instructional and Curricular Practices Used With Gifted and
Talented Students in Regular Classrooms" Karen L. Westberg, Francis
X. Archambault, Jr., Sally M. Dobyns, Thomas J. Salvin, The University
of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, July 1993
Research Monograph 93104
(shows that differentiated instruction rarely happens in mixed
classrooms)
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm93104/rm93104.pdf
"Evaluation of the
Effects of Programming Arrangements on Student Learning Outcomes"
Marcia A. B. Delcourt,
Brenda H. Loyd, Dewey G. Cornell, Marc D. Goldberg, The University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, October 1994, Research Monograph
94108
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm94108/rm94108.pdf
"The Effects of Group
Composition on Gifted and Non-Gifted Elementary Students in Cooperative
Learning Groups" David A. Kenny, Francis X. Archambault, Jr., Bryan
W. Hallmark (found that mixed cooperative groups actually harmed lower
achieving students and resulted in more negative social relations; no
change was found in learning by high-achieving students)
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm95116/rm95116.pdf
"Qualitative Extension
of the Learning Outcomes Study" Marcia A. B. Delcourt, Karen Evans
The University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 1994, Research Monograph
94110
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm94110/rm94110.pdf
Marcia Gentry's landmark study
on cluster grouping is now online:
"Promoting Student
Achievement and Exemplary Classroom Practices Through Cluster Grouping A
Research-Based Alternative to Heterogeneous Elementary Classrooms"
"Qualitative and
quantitative research data indicate a relationship between professional
development in gifted education, cluster grouping, and increased
achievement scores. Teachers using cluster grouping held high, yet
realistic, expectations of students."
Abstract and Conclusions:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/gentry.html
Full study:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rm99138/rm99138.pdf
Other grouping articles and sites:
"Ability
grouping Works and Is Essential in Middle School and Beyond" a blog post
from the "Gifted Challenges" blog by Gail Post:
https://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com/2017/03/ability-grouping-works-and-is-essential.html
Portland Public Schools TAG office, Educator
Resources, "grouping" a collection of articles and resources
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/departments/tag/1399.htm
"All Together Now? Educating High and Low
Achievers in the same Classroom" by Michael J. Petrelli, Education Next, Winter 2011. Highly recommended
http://educationnext.org/all-together-now/
Tracking and Detracking High Achievers in Massachusetts Middle
Schools by Tom Loveless for the Fordham Institute (December: 2009).
Loveless found that “detracking” may
harm high-achieving youngsters in middle school math (but not English)
Middle schools with more tracks had more math pupils performing at the
advanced and proficient levels and fewer students at the
needs improvement and failing levels whereas detracked
schools had more failing and needs improvement
students. Schools with one track have the most failing math
students (26 percent), schools with two tracks fewer (20 percent), and
schools with three or more tracks fewer failures still (14 percent).
When schools’ socioeconomic status is held constant, each additional
track in eighth-grade math (up to three) is associated with a 3
percentage-point rise in students scoring at the advanced level.
That means the advantage for a school offering three tracks instead of
one is associated with a 6 percentage-point gain in the number of
students performing at high levels.
http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2009/200912_trackinganddetracking/200912_Detracking.pdf
Devil is in the Details
when it comes to Tracking/Untracking by Holly Yettick for the Inside
School Research blog of Education Week, March 21, 2014
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/03/algebra_for_all.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS3
a discussion of a study "Skill-based Sorting in an Era of College Prep
for All". See below for a link to the study. The blog concludes that
detracking for math can work when struggling students receive additional
support AND teachers are consulted. Oddly, the blog assumes that this
is evidence against tracking. The results of the study suggest that tracking
was the more successful policy for most students and especially for
high-achieving students.
For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications
Marcello Di Cintio, Swerve Published on January 30, 2015 | Last Updated
February 2, 2015 134 PM MST
http://calgaryherald.com/life/swerve/gifted-children-are-frequently-misunderstood
....Nearly all teachers and parents of gifted students, however, consider
congregated [self-contained] classrooms essential. "People say it teaches
the kids not to get along in the real world," Aldred says. "I believe it is
about survival." Gifted kids need a place where they can feel safe and
accepted for all their various intensities. A place where they can be
themselves, quirks and all. Janice Robertson agrees a congregated
gifted program may well have saved her son’s life. Janice had long been
concerned about Mark (both their names have been changed). He was an
exceptionally smart kid who taught himself to read by the time he was two
years old. But a darkness always hung behind Mark’s brightness. "He would
say things like, ‘I’m just going to hurt myself,'" Janice remembers. He used
to bang his head on the floor and once, when he was three, pointed to a
digger on a construction site and said, "I’m going to ask that digger to dig
a hole and put us in it and bury us.".....
"Skill-based Sorting in an
Era of College Prep for All" by Elaine M. Allensworth and Takako
Nomi
http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Sorting%20Brief_0.pdf
Recommended. A research review by the University of Chicago Consortium on
Chicago School Research, March 2014. This brief summarizes the results
of ten separate studies of Chicago's "Algebra for All", Double dose Algebra
and College Prep for All. Nor surpisingly, the study finds that
results are mixed: the authors found that how schools sort students is as
important as the content students are exposed to.
Below are two of the more
striking conclusions:
"Average test scores are higher when
classes are sorted by skills due to large benefits for high-skilled
students’ learning gains. ...
A universal curriculum with
unsorted class-rooms can increase, rather than diminish, inequities
by race and income if teachers are unable to differentiate
instruction and maintain classroom control."
"Setting The Record Straight on Ability Grouping" by Paula
Olszewski-Kubilius in Education Week.
"Grouping the Gifted
and Talented: questions and answers" by Karen Rogers. Reprint of a
classic 1993 Roeper Review article on the Genius Denied
website. A comprehensive review of the research in this field. Highly
recommended
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10173.aspx
"Ability grouping is
not just tracking anymore" by Carol Tieso, rept. from the Davidson
Institute:
http://www.geniusdenied.com/Articles/Record.aspx?rid=13012&NavID=13_15
"Does Sorting Students
Improve Scores? An Analysis of Class Composition
by Courtney A. Collins and Li Gan NBER Working Paper No.
18848 Issued in February 2013 by the National Bureau of Economic
Research
This working paper finds that
sorting students by previous performance improves their math and reading
scores and that the net effect is beneficial for both high and low
performing students. (Note: there is a charge for online access to this
article).
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18848
Review of "Does
Sorting Students Improve Scores? An Analysis of Class
Composition
The Review concludes that the original study did not in fact determine
whether the study schools were tracking students and so should not be used
as a guide to policy on this topic.
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-does-sorting-students
"Inequity in Equity: How
'equity' can lead to inequity for high-potential students"
by
Camilla Benbow and Julian Stanley (1996)
"Gifted
and Growing" How one school district used computer-adaptive
testing, acceleration, and levelled classes to ensure that all students
made progress
"Distinguishing Myths From Realities NRC/GT Research" by
Marcia Gentry and Karen
Kettlehttp//www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/newsletter/winter98/wintr983.html
"The Tracking and
Ability Grouping Debate" full-text of a study
by Tom Loveless for the Fordham foundation, July 1998. A review of the
most important recent studies on tracking and ability grouping, with
recommendations. Recommended.
http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/tracking.html
"Ability Grouping,
Tracking and Alternatives" An annotated bibliography (including
websites) from the WISE program at Ithaca College
http://www.ithaca.edu/wise/topics/ability.htm
"One Size Fits All?
Age based tracking versus ability grouping in elementary school
mathematics." An article by Mike Robison
http://www.msu.edu/user/robiso12/Grouping.htm A very clear and
useful review of the most important studies on this topic. Recommended.
The final report of the
national panel on mathematics instruction is now online.
"How should we group
to achieve excellence with equity?" by Bonnie Grossen, 1996
http://www.uoregon.edu/~adiep/grp.htm
'The Other Crisis in
American Education" by Donald Singal, from Atlantic Monthly,
1991, now hosted by the Catholic Education Resource Center Discusses
the implications of the fact that falls in average SAT scores were
caused by falling scores for the top quartile of students. Recommends
curricular and administrative changes. Discusses the measures taken by
schools that continued to succeed when other schools were falling
behind.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0025.html
Research Synthesis on Educational Provisions for Gifted Children
by Professor Karen Rogers. This is an update of her "A Best-Evidence
Synthesis of research on accelerative options for gifted students."
published in Colangelo and others, eds., Talent Development
(1991). It looks at studies of various educational programs such as
acceleration, multi-grade classrooms, curriculum compacting, and
cooperative learning and estimates the "effect size" of each as
fractions of a school year gained in comparison to other gifted students
who are not in these programs.
Rogers also found that:
-
the learning rate of
children above 130 IQ is approximately 8 times faster than for
children below 70 IQ
-
GT students are
significantly more likely to retain science and mathematics content
accurately when taught 2-3 times faster than "normal" class pace
-
GT students are
significantly more likely to forget or mislearn science and
mathematics content when they must drill and review it more than 2-3
times
-
GT students are
decontextualists in their processing, rather than constructivists;
therefore it is difficult to reconstruct "how" they came to an
answer
Montgomery School's New
Take On Ability Grouping Yields Results By Daniel deVise
Washington Post, Sunday, November 4, 2007; A01
"Roberson
and the Rock View faculty are having remarkable success lifting children
out of that gap, the achievement gap that separates poor and minority
children from other students and represents one of public education's
most intractable problems.
They have
done it with an unusual approach. The Kensington school's 497 students
are grouped into classrooms according to reading and math ability for
more than half of the instructional day.
The
technique, called performance-based grouping, is uncommon in the region.
Some educators believe it too closely resembles tracking, the outmoded
practice of assigning students to inflexible academic tracks by
ability."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/03/AR2007110301167_3.html?sid=ST2007110301386
White Paper on Grouping issued by the National Association for
Gifted Children (NAGC)
"Grouping gifted children is one of the foundations of exemplary
gifted education practice. The research on the many grouping
strategies available to educators of these children is long,
consistent, and overwhelmingly positive (Rogers, 2006; Tieso, 2003).
Nonetheless, the “press” from general educators, both teachers and
administrators, has been consistently less supportive. Myths abound
that grouping these children damages the self-esteem of struggling
learners, creates an “elite” group who may think too highly of
themselves, and is actually undemocratic and, at times, racist. None
of these statements have any founding in actual research...."
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=4450
Advocacy:
see also "state/federal"
and "grouping"
"The greatest economic risk to the nation
isn't borrowing or debt, but deficient elementary schools that will hurt
future productivity." Alan Greenspan testifying before the Senate
Banking committee, February 16, 2005 (reported in the Charlotte
Observer)
"Administrator's Toolkit--Quick Guide"
from the National Association for
Gifted Children (NAGC). Written by administrators for administrators.
Link is to a summary of the various elements in the toolkit
http://www.nagc.org/uploadedFiles/Information_and_Resources/Administrators/QuickGuide%20.pdf
.
See also
the entire toolkit at
http://www.nagc.org/administratortoolbox.aspx
"Advocacy and Education Options," A collection of popular blog posts
from Gail Post's "Gifted Challenges" blog:
https://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com/p/best-of-gifted-challenges.html
"Advocacy Toolkit" from the National
Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=36
Advocating for Exceptionally Gifted Young People: a step-by-step
"how to" guide from the Davidson Institute. Recommended
Advocacy for Gifted Students from the High
Ability blog of the Ohio Association for Gifted Children.
https://highability.wordpress.com/advocacy-for-gifted-students/
ACHIEVE report
"Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared for College
and Work?"
"College instructors
are the harshest critics of public high schools. Only 18% of college
professors feel that most of their students come to college extremely or
very well prepared, with
just 3% saying extremely well. ... Even at colleges with competitive
admission policies that only let in high performing students, only 30%
of instructors say that most of their students come to college well
prepared....College instructors estimate that 42% of high school
graduates are not adequately prepared by their high school education for
the expectations of college classes and are struggling or having to take
remedial courses to catch up.... (50%) is not
adequately
prepared for college-level writing.......A surprisingly low 30% of those
in college preparatory programs think that they were significantly
challenged in high school"
http://www.achieve.org/node/548
The Achievement Trap from the
Jack Kent Cooke foundation documents the barriers faced by high-achieving
low-income students
www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap.pdf
Tanner Mathison, a student featured in the report, was an Oregon student who
left the state in search of a better education.
"Our
Achievement-Gap Mania" Frederick M. Hess National Affairs 9 ~ FALL
2011
"The effects of achievement-gap mania have been particularly severe in the
area of advanced instruction and gifted education. In February 2009, the
California Legislature adopted a plan that allows public schools to divert state
money for gifted children to ‘‘any educational purpose." A 2010 study by the
California Legislative Analyst's Office found that 68% of the 231 school
districts surveyed had shifted resources away from education for gifted
students. California's Evergreen School District, for example, responded by
eliminating all its programs for approximately 800 gifted children. After noting
the extensive cuts being made to gifted and talented programs, the San Francisco
Chronicle observed 'Critics see courses tailored for exceptional students as
elitist and not much of an issue when compared with the vast number of students
who are lagging grades behind their peers or dropping out of school.' "
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/our-achievement-gap-mania
"America
and its high-potential kids" By Andy Smarick, in The Education Gadfly
newsletter from the Fordham Institute, October 24, 2013. See also the
study "Closing America's High Achievement Gap"on which this comment is based
below.
Throughout much of 2013, a colleague and I worked on a project related to
America’s highest-potential boys and girls, students colloquially known as
"gifted." Though I learned a great deal, it was mostly a discouraging enterprise.In short, this country gives the impression that it doesn’t much care
about such kids. We have an astonishingly under-resourced, deprioritized, and
inchoate system of school supports for kids on the right side of the academic
distribution...."
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/america-and-its-high-potential-kids"
"Are U.S.
Students Ready to Compete? by
Paul E. Peterson,
Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón,
Eric A. Hanushek and
Ludger Woessmann Education Next, Fall 2011
/ Vol. 11, No. 4. This is a companion to "Teaching Math to the
Talented" which appeared earlier (see below) The U.S. could gain an
estimated $1 trillion each year if American students achieved the same level
as Canadian and Korean students.
http://educationnext.org/are-u-s-students-ready-to-compete/
Back to school: Are we leaving gifted students behind? by Stacy Teicher
Khandroo, the Christian Science Monitor, August 31, 2011. The
answer is "yes"
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0831/Back-to-school-Are-we-leaving-gifted-students-behind
Breaking Free
Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice by Sol Stern for
City Journal, Autumn 2011.
"Our public schools are shortchanging
their best students."
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_4_academic-excellence.html
"Closing
America's High Achievement Gap in k-12 Education" by Andy Smarick for the
Philanthropy Roundtable (2013)
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/file_uploads/High-Achievement_Interactive.pdf
Education and Economic
Growth by Hanushek and others, Spring, 2008, argues that quality of education is a
better measure than duration and that both widespread minimum attainment
and a highly-educated group are needed for high economic growth.
http://educationnext.org/education-and-economic-growth/
Education Reform: the problem with helping everyone reach 'average"
by
Ann Robinson for the Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0311/Education-reform-the-problem-with-helping-everyone-reach-average?cmpid
For Gifted Children, Being Intelligent Can Have Dark Implications.
By Marcello Di Cintio for the Calgary Herald, January 30, 2015.
http://calgaryherald.com/life/swerve/gifted-children-are-frequently-misunderstood
.
Gifted
Education Works! A round-up of research on a variety of Gifted
Education programming from the National Association for Gifted Children
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=566
Know Your Legal Rights
in Gifted Education. ERIC Digest E541., Karnes, Frances A.;
Marquardt, Ronald
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/e541.html
"Leaving Talent on the Table" an editorial from the Fordham
Institute, March 2016
http://edexcellence.net/articles/leaving-talent-on-the-table-fixing-gifted-education-in-america
"For decades,
elected officials, education leaders, and others have consumed much oxygen
talking about the challenges facing our nation from countries doing a much
better job developing their academic talent. Despite this the reality is
that we have largely failed to address this concern as many of our most
talented children are being overlooked and uncultivated."
"Mind
the (Other) Gap--The Growing Excellence Gap in k-12 Education", by
Jonathan A. Plucker, Nathan Burroughs, and Ruiting Song, Center for Evaluation & Education Policy,
February 4, 2010. See also the follow-up study: "Talent on the
Sidelines" below.
"...Although there has been a general improvement in
academic performance, are achievement gaps also shrinking at the highest
levels of student achievement? The purpose of this report is to review
national and state assessment data for the existence of "excellence
gaps," differences between subgroups of students performing at the
highest levels of achievement. That excellence gaps have received so
little attention over the past decade is a major oversight. The
existence of such gaps raises doubts about the success of federal and
state governments in providing greater and more equitable educational
opportunities, particularly as the proportion of minority and low-income
students continues to rise. The goal of guaranteeing that all children
will have the opportunity to reach their academic potential is called
into question if educational policies only assist some students while
others are left behind. Furthermore, the comparatively small percentage
of students scoring at the highest level on achievement tests suggests
that children with advanced academic potential are being under-served,
with potentially serious consequences for the long-term economic
competitiveness of the U.S..."
https://www.iub.edu/~ceep/Gap/excellence/ExcellenceGapBrief.pdf
PSA Primer: Written
for
people interested in promoting the Year of Languages by encouraging
media to run Public Service Announcements, this is a handbook on
publicity for nonprofits and advocates:
http://www.actfl.org/files/public/PSACampaignPrimer.pdf
Parents for Public
Schools, Advocacy links
http://www.parents4publicschools.com/Resources_advocacy.htm
"Science and Engineering
Indicators, 2004." National Science Board
of the National Science Foundation,
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/showpub.cfm?TopID=2&SubID=9
See in
particular Chapter 3, "Science and Engineering Labor force"
"The share
of foreign-born scientists and engineers in the U.S. S&E workforce rose
to a record in 2000, reflecting high levels of entry by both permanent
and temporary visa holders during the 1990s. Data from the 2000 U.S.
Census show that, in S&E occupations, approximately 17 percent of
bachelor's degree holders, 29 percent of master's degree holders, and 38
percent of doctorate holders are foreign born."
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind04/c3/c3h.htm
Seven Myths about Parents of Gifted Children from Lisa Conrad's
Gifted Parenting Support blog:
http://giftedparentingsupport.blogspot.com/2015/03/7-myths-surrounding-parents-of-gifted.html
"Talent
on the Sidelines: Excellence Gaps and America's Persistent
Talent Underclass" by Jonathan A. Plucker, Ph.D., Jacob Hardesty, Ph.D.,
Nathan Burroughs, Ph.D. , Neag School of Education, Center for Education Policy
ANalysis, (N.D. but 2012 or 2013). The website includes a state-by-state
summary.
http://cepa.uconn.edu/mindthegap/
"Based on the results of our studies and a growing body of research, there is
considerable evidence that America has a permanent talent underclass. Year after
year, with billions and billions of dollars spent on interventions and policy
initiatives that focus largely on minimum competency, the vast majority of our
bright minority children, ELL students, and students of limited financial means
underperform academically. The trends we noted in 2010 were depressing, but
there were limited signs of hope. The data we explored for the current study
should crush anyone’s optimism about the country’s success in developing
academic talent The rich are getting richer, so to speak (but not in all cases),
and the poor continue to show evidence of incremental, insufficient progress."
p. 27
"The Other Crisis in
American Education" by Daniel Singal comments that the level of
preparation of college-bound students declined sufficiently to cause
overall SAT scores to drop 60 points despite a slow but steady
improvement in the scores of students in the lowest quartile.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0025.html
"The Top 5 Misconceptions about Gifted
Parents" on the gifted
parenting support blog:
-
They
would rather praise their child than see them work hard
-
They
believe intelligence is fixed
-
They
think the gifted label is the equivalent of the “golden ticket”
-
They
want nothing more than to see their child accepted into an Ivy League
school
-
They
lack empathy for learning disabled students
-
They
can’t wait for the next parent-teacher conference
-
They
‘push’ their children to excel
http://giftedparentingsupport.blogspot.com/2014/07/top-5-misconceptions-about-gifted.html
"Young,
gifted, and black? Prepare to fight for your education"
by Courtney
McKinney on the High Flyers blog. May 10, 2017
"Parent savvy should not be a prerequisite for kids to have their
needs met in the education system. Until these disparities are
remedied, this country will hemorrhage vital human capital,
especially as demographics continue to shift and the majority of
school children are not white. Our mosaic of a country desperately
needs diversity in our C-suites, in production companies, and in
state houses and Congress, so we have to make sure all our students
have access to what they need in school. Unfortunately, it remains
largely up to parents to make sure educators stay on their toes.
Parents, especially black parents, must make educators aware that,
if their children’s needs are not being met, they will advocate for
the education they deserve."
https://www.nagc.org/blog/young-gifted-and-black-prepare-fight-your-education
Editorials by Chester Finn:
"A Different Kind of Lesson from Finland" , Education Week,
November 3, 2015 (with Brandon L. Wright)
."...Differentiated instruction certainly aligns with the Finnish
culture and self-concept, and it's plenty popular among other educators,
too, thanks to its obvious allure on grounds of both fairness and
individualization. It's a very big deal among U.S. educators, and we
found some of it in all 11 countries that we profile in our recently
published book, Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of
Educating High-Ability Students. Everywhere we went, we encountered
some version of this assertion: 'We don't need to provide special
programs or schools for gifted children, because we expect every school
and teacher to adapt their instruction to meet the unique educational
needs of all children, including the very able.'
Is Differentiated Instruction a
Hollow Promise ? by Chester Finn for the Flypaper of the Fordham Institute,
May 1, 2014
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/is-differentiated-instruction-a-hollow-promise
(In most cases, the answer is "yes.")
"Young, Gifted and Neglected"
September 18, 2012
Washington
BARACK OBAMA and Mitt Romney both
attended elite private high schools. Both are undeniably smart and well educated
and owe much of their success to the strong foundation laid by excellent
schools.
Every motivated, high-potential young
American deserves a similar opportunity. But the majority of very smart kids
lack the wherewithal to enroll in rigorous private schools. They depend on
public education to prepare them for life. Yet that system is failing to create
enough opportunities for hundreds of thousands of these high-potential girls and
boys.
Mostly, the system ignores them, with
policies and budget priorities that concentrate on raising the floor under
low-achieving students. A good and necessary thing to do, yes, but we’ve failed
to raise the ceiling for those already well above the floor.
Public education’s neglect of
high-ability students doesn’t just deny individuals opportunities they deserve.
It also imperils the country’s future supply of scientists, inventors and
entrepreneurs.
Today’s systemic failure takes three
forms.
First, we’re weak at identifying
"gifted and talented" children early, particularly if they’re poor or members of
minority groups or don’t have savvy, pushy parents.
Second, at the primary and
middle-school levels, we don’t have enough gifted-education classrooms (with
suitable teachers and curriculums) to serve even the existing demand. ....
Third, many high schools have just a
smattering of honors or Advanced Placement classes, sometimes populated by kids
who are bright but not truly prepared to succeed in them.......
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opinion/gifted-students-deserve-more-opportunities.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
"Gifted students have ‘special
needs,’ too" January 2, 2013
"Are our national education-reform
priorities cheating America's intellectually ablest girls and boys? Yes—and the
consequence is a human capital catastrophe for the United States. It's not as
dramatic or abrupt as the fiscal cliff. But if we fail to pay attention, one day
we'll be very sorry.
...We'd like to believe that every
teacher can do right by every child in each classroom. But let's be serious How
many of our 3 millionplus teachers are up to this challenge? The typical class
is profoundly diverse in ability, motivation, and prior attainment. In most
cases, instructors—under added pressure from state and federal accountability
regimes—end up focusing on pupils below the "proficient" line, at the expense of
their high achievers......
Despite plenty of evidence that
America is failing to nurture its gifted students, the problem fails to awaken
much interest from education leaders and philanthropists.
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/2013/gifted-students-have-special-needs-too.html
"Playing the gifted-student race
card" January 17, 2013
....Millions of high-ability,
academically promising youngsters are not receiving the challenging education
they need to reach their maximum potential.
That’s what we should aspire to—and
work to make happen. Alas, that’s not how many places currently function. Among
the victims of our present dysfunction are millions of high-ability,
academically promising youngsters who are not getting the kinds of
"gifted-and-talented" education that would likely do them the most good and help
them to realize their maximum potential. (Collateral victims are a society and
economy that thereby fail to make the most of this latent human capital.)....
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-weekly/2013/january-17/playing-the-gifted-student-race-card.html#body
Speech by Craig
Barrett, CEO of Intel (pdf. file)
"Educational Complacency
will make U.S. Feel the Pain" an article in USA Today 2.23.05
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-02-23-barrett_x.htm
"Neither the business nor the
education community has done enough to convey the important message that
U.S. education is an extremely serious problem, really a ticking time
bomb. If not resolved, this inadequate education could eventually lead
to enormous repercussions for our citizens, our economy and our nation
as a whole. Our educational system needs drastic repair, yet our
national leaders are sitting around debating a few details – whether we
should have tests, whether we should have assessments, etc. – and really
ignoring the task of forging an overall solution to our problems."
"The kids
at the top of the heap are smarter than ever, but they're a decreasing
slice of the pie. You can argue whether we rank 17th, 18th or 20th out
of 20 countries in math and science comprehension among our 12th-grade
kids. The longer they stay in the system, the worse they get. Who could
[and should] tolerate such a system? [It's almost as if we said,] "Let's
take a generation of our young people and legislate them into a system
where the longer they stay in [school], the worse off they are to
compete in the world's economy." This is bloody crazy."
"Ten Common Myths about Gifted
Education" (and the realities)
http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx
"Ten Things All Administrators
Should Know about Gifted Students" by Joyce VanTassel Baska
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=2423&terms=10+things
from the
Davidson Institute.
The
next time someone in your
district says, "we'd like to serve gifted
children but our budget is too tight," give them this and suggest they
offer the inexpensive options on this list.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10363.aspx
"Wasting
Talent Everyone's local school needs to do better", by Paul E. Peterson,
Education Next
Winter 2011 / Vol. 11, No. 1
"Americans tend to think their local elementary and middle schools
are much better than those of the nation as a whole. The problems with
schools, people seem to believe, are found somewhere else: Schools are
dreadful in the inner city, perhaps, or in other parts of the country,
maybe. My local schools are just fine. On some measures, they may be
right. Yet schools across the country fall short when it comes to
challenging the best and brightest."
http://educationnext.org/wasting-talent/
What a [Gifted] Child Doesn't Learn by Tracy
Inman
http://www.portage.k12.in.us/1607201022142821597/lib/1607201022142821597/pdfs/April/Whatachilddoesntlearn.pdf
Why our Nation Needs to Educate our
Gifted and Talented Youth: a collection of facts from the Davidson
Institute
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10398.aspx
Teaching Math to the Talented Which countries—and states—are producing
high-achieving students? By
Eric Hanushek,
Paul E. Peterson and
Ludger Woessmann
in Education
Next,
Winter 2011
/ Vol. 11, No. 1
http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/
"Maintaining our productivity
as a nation depends importantly on developing a highly qualified cadre
of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other
professionals. To realize that objective requires a system of schooling
that produces students with advanced math and science skills. .....
Unfortunately, we found that
the percentage of students in the U.S. Class of 2009 who were highly
accomplished in math is well below that of most countries with which the
United States generally compares itself......
The economic and
technological demand for a talented, well-educated, highly skilled
population has never been greater. Not only must everyday workers have a
set of technical skills surpassing those needed in the past, but a cadre
of highly talented professionals trained to the highest level of
accomplishment is needed to foster innovation and growth. ...
Unfortunately, the United
States trails other industrialized countries in bringing a large
proportion of its students up to the highest levels of accomplishment.
.... Only a small proportion of the children of our college-educated
population is equipped to compete with students in a majority of OECD
countries.
Major policy initiatives
within the United States have in recent years focused on the educational
needs of low-performing students. Such efforts deserve commendation, but
they can leave the impression that there is no similar need to enhance
the education of those students the STEM coalition has called "the best
and brightest." Yet, with rapidly advancing technologies in an
increasingly integrated world economy, no one doubts the extraordinary
importance of highly accomplished professionals.
Admittedly, the United States
could simply ignore the needs of its own young people and continue to
import highly skilled scientists and engineers who were prepared by
better-performing schools abroad. But even such a heartless,
irresponsible strategy relies on both the nature of immigration policies
and the absence of better opportunities abroad, two things on which we
might not want the future to depend. It seems much more prudent to
encourage the most capable of our own people to reach high levels of
academic accomplishment.
Articles and blog posts on
Miscellaneous Topics
"Are We Lifting All Boats or Only Some?
Equity versus excellence and the talented tenth" By
Richard A. Epstein,
Daniel Pianko,
Jon Schnur and
Joshua Wyner: an
Education Next interview (Summer, 2011) 11 no. 3
"The Blame Game"
ever wondered why the conference you thought would be about providing
services to your child ends up being about what's wrong with your
child? This article explains why. Written for Special Education parents
but equally persuasive for TAG parents .
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/ALESSI1.html
The Catch-22 of Gifted Underachievement on The Fissure Blog by Emily
VR posted 2/2016
http://thefissureblog.com/2016/02/01/the-catch-22-of-gifted-underachievement/
"Challenging
the Gifted: Nuclear chemistry and Sartre draw the best and brightest to
Reno"
By
June
Kronholz Education Next
(Spring 2011) Vol. 11, No. 2
Profile of the Davidsons, the
Davidson Academy in Reno and the students who attend it
http://educationnext.org/challenging-the-gifted/
"Competing with
Myths concerning the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted
Students'' by Tracy Cross
http://www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Cross_CompetingWithMythsAboutTheSocialAndEmotionalDevelopment.shtml
Competition
Makes a Comeback: Academic bees and bowls attract top students By June
Kronholz, for Education Next (Summer 2010) Vol. 10, No. 3
http://educationnext.org/competition-makes-a-comeback/
"The Dos and Don'ts of
instruction: What it Means to teach Gifted Learners Well" by Carol
Ann Tomlinson http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=659
"From "the saddest sound" to the D Major chord: The gift of accelerated
progression." Miraca U.M. Gross,
http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/gifttal/EAGER/MiracaGross.html
Gifted Children A Journal
published by the Special Interest Group on Giftedness, Creativity and
Talent of the American Education Research Association. A full-text journal
that publishes about 4 articles each year in addition to book reviews.
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/giftedchildren/
"Gifted Children, the
myth." An Australian article by Helen Dowland ("Reception" is
Kindergarten). Everyone should read this one. While you
are at it, read the other articles on her website www.helendowland.com
http://www.helendowland.com/Gifted%20children%20the%20Myth.htm
"Gifted classes may not help talented students move ahead faster: Survey
finds emphasis on developing "creativity" and "critical thinking" instead of
acceleration above grade level" Proof Points by Jill Barshay for
the Heckinger Report,
April 15, 2019
“'This is one area where there is the most solid research base,'” said
McCoach. 'If kids are given more accelerated instruction, we see higher
growth.' Why do schools tend to ignore this research evidence? McCoach
speculates that many educators are worried that students who race ahead will
face social problems at school, even though, she says, there is no research
to support this widely held belief."
https://hechingerreport.org/gifted-classes-may-not-help-talented-students-move-ahead-faster/
"The Gifted-Ed Guru" an entertaining and informative blog by
Christopher Taibbi hosted by Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gifted-ed-guru
Gifted Education Press Quarterly
free!
To receive your complimentary copy of this and previous
issues of the GEPQ send an e-mail to Maurice Fisher:
giftededpress@comcast.net
Gifts for Gifted
Children--by
Betsy Cornwell, syndicated from
Parabola,
Sep 28, 2016
"Not every gifted child is
socially awkward, a poor athlete, or any of the other concepts we might
associate with them. Nearly all, however, feel some degree of loneliness and
isolation—even the popular, athletic ones. There is some part of themselves
that they cannot share with their peers: the part that wants to talk about
the finer points of particle physics, for instance, or that just blew
through the collected works of Jane Austen in a week. They’ve learned to
silence it, because no one understands, or because it will make teachers and
parents expect even more of them than they already give.
That’s what makes a gifted child
lonely: the part of themselves they can’t share with peers or even the most
well-meaning parents."
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1400/gifts-for-gifted-children-betsy-cornwell/
"Highly Gifted
Children in Full Inclusion Classrooms" by Kathi Kearney. Highly
Gifted Children, 1996. "Gifted students, especially the highly
gifted, are probably the one group in our schools for whom the
inclusionary principle of "Age-appropriate placement in local public
schools" (Conn, 1992, p. 28) is not developmentally appropriate."
http://www.hollingworth.org/fullincl.html
For a very clear and
entertaining explanation of why student gain data is important and
should be used to correct the Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) evaluation
required by the No Child Left Behind Act see the Northwest Education
Associates report, "Individual Growth and School Success." Both
the executive summary and the full report are available at the link
below, but the full report requires registration.
http://www.nwea.org/research/getreport.asp?ReportID=28
The Koret Report:
"Our Schools and our Future--Are We Still at Risk?" a reassessment of
A Nation at Risk by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Reviews information concerning American student achievement and finds
the answer is "yes."
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/osof.html
The Misunderstood Face of
Giftedness: by Marianne Kuzujanakis on the Huffington Post,
April 10, 2013
"...Contrary to common
stereotypes, giftedness is not synonymous with high academic achievement...
Special needs classrooms are where a number of gifted children end up --
their giftedness left unsupported...."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-kuzujanakis/gifted-children_b_2948258.html
NEW!
Serving Gifted Students in General Ed Classrooms by
Elissa F. Brown, November 29, 2017
"Gifted students need teacher
advocates that care about them, understand them, and can provide
differentiation in the classroom, as well as options and opportunities
outside of the classroom that will help them achieve at levels commensurate
with their abilities. By implementing these suggestions, you'll do more than
meet their needs. You'll be setting them on a trajectory toward developing
their talents."
https://www.nagc.org/blog/serving-gifted-students-general-ed-classrooms
"To Be or Not To
be.... Gifted? Identification and Education of the Young Gifted Child,"
by Susan Grammer, From Gifted Education Press Quarterly
http://home.netcom.com/~grammers/ToBeOrNotToBe081501/
Unwrapping the Gifted
A thoughtful, entertaining and provocative blog by Gifted Education
Specialist Tamara Fisher. Check out the archives if you've missed
some entries.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/unwrapping_the_gifted/
"Urban
educational challenges Is reform the answer?" Susan Fuhrman, Ph.D::
"My
topic for this address is Urban Education Reform. Clearly, there are
challenges in urban schools, but what's important and what I want to
focus on is that there is no shortage of reforms intended
to address them. The question I want to address is - why is reform so
prevalent and so disappointing?"
http://www.urbanedjournal.org/articles/article0004.html
College advice/advanced classes/admissions/scholarships/minority college
advice
Advanced Placement:
Administered by the College Board but now on its own website:
http://www.collegeboard.com/ap/
AP Ledger: find
out which approved AP classes are offered in a given High School
https://apcourseaudit.epiconline.org/ledger/
ACT testing,
student pages ACT also administers the Explore test, widely used by
talent searches. The former ACT site has been divided up and is now
noisy and difficult to navigate
http://www.actstudent.org/index.html
Blackexcel
http://www.blackexcel.org/
Created to encourage young black and minority students to attend college
and to provide information about the historically black colleges and
universities. Provides all sorts of college advice and help including
scholarship links, advice on attending medical and law school, articles
on being an african american in college, financial aid, and a
newsletter. Highly recommended for black/minority students; useful for
any student.
ASPIRE:
a project of Americorps to provide mentoring and college application
assistance to Oregon students Check out the "web links" for a wide range
of information
http://www.aspireoregon.org/about.html
(Early) College
Planning from the Hoagies: as usual, packed with good resources
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/college.htm
Early College Planning
for Parents One of a pair of handbooks from the Davidson Institute:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Resources_id_14782.aspx
Early College Planning
for Students one of a pair of handbooks from the Davidson Institute:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Resources_id_14903.aspx
EduRegistry:
provides a state-by-state directory of universities, colleges, and
vocational/technical schools with some advice on things to consider when
selecting a college. http://www.eduregistry.org/
High
Schoolers in College: Dual enrollment programs offer something for everyone
By
June
Kronholz, Education Next (Summer 2011) Vol. 11, No.
3
http://educationnext.org/high-schoolers-in-college/
International
Baccalaureate Organization best known for its program for advanced
classes for High School also has middle school and elementary school
programs. All three can be found at http://www.ibo.org/
Oregon College Assistance
Commission (OSAC) website for financial aid:
http://www.getcollegefunds.org/
WiredScholar. A
portal for help with all aspects of college preparation. Provided by
Sallie Mae, the leading college loan corporation. Especially helpful on
financial advice http://www.wiredscholar.com/ Test information is provided by Kaplan
and is limited in scope
SATs, AP tests and
more: http://www.collegeboard.org
Provides articles and research as well as just testing information
U.S. News college pages
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
Distance learning resources:
See
the Distance Learning Links on the Hoagies site at
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/distance_learning.htm
and
the Free Online High School Courses on the Hoagies site at:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/online_hs.htm
Academic Earth a selection of college lectures on
audio/video, not for credit
http://academicearth.org/
Affordable
Colleges Online lists programs offered online by colleges and
universities programs and can be searched by different criteria including
state, accreditation and cost:
http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/
The
section for Oregon can be found at:
http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/online-colleges/oregon/
Carnegie Mellon Online
complete introductory college level classes
offered by Carnegie Mellon University. Recommended.
http://www.cmu.edu/oli/
Center
for Distance Education from the Center for Talented Youth, Johns
Hopkins. Includes the EPGY program jointly offered by CTY and
Stanford University. http://www.jhu.edu/~gifted/cde/
See
also http://epgy.stanford.edu/ for Stanford's version
e-IMACS online classes from the Institute for Mathematics and
Computer Science.
http://www.eimacs.com/LM/LMPlain.asp?F=eimacs&S=5
EPGY High School online.
A new program from Stanford
http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/OHSPressRelease.pdf
"High
School and Beyond"--a list of free online courses fulfilling Maine
High School Course requirements. Compiled by Kathi Kearney, this site
offers a comprehensive list of online classes including many from the
CyberSchool in Eugene.
http://www.homeschool-maine.org/high_school_&_beyond.htm#Free%20Online%20Courses
Distance Education links from the
Oregon Department of Education.
http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=332
Kahn Academy
dozens of 10 minute talks on math and science topics from beginning to
advanced levels
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Learning Counts: provides College Credits for experience and by exam
provided by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)
http://www.learningcounts.org/students/Pages/Default.aspx
NetMath from the University of Illinois offers distance
learning classes in advanced math with credit/certificates available to
students who complete the program.
https://netmath.illinois.edu/
Open Course Ware Central registry of open college course ware
Research Guides for Students
http://www.aresearchguide.com/
Includes a section of
"webquests" or digital lesson plans
http://geocities.com/researchguide/webquests.html
and links to all sorts of resources useful in writing research papers
including citation guides
See also the essay on
"How to Survive the Internet Unscathed,"
http://www.aresearchguide.com/14surviv.html
which should be required reading for anyone with a new Internet account
(and the rest of us)
Village Home Education
Resource Center in Beaverton. Classes for home-schooled students,
requires tuition, http://www.villagehome.org/
Virtual Schoolhouse http://www.ibiblio.org/cisco/schools/
Homeschooling in Oregon
A to Zs of
Homeschooling: National:
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/
A to Zs of
Homeschooling: Oregon. Includes listing of many Oregon
homeschooling resources and associations
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/regional/Oregon.htm
Homeschooling Gifted Students:
Homeschooling Questions and Answers
from the Oregon Department of Education
http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/specialty/home/faqguidelines.pdf
Homeschooling in Oregon by the
Eugene-Springfield Homeschool Association
http://www.eshaoregon.com/
Oregon Homeschooling Education Network (OHEN)
http://www.ohen.org/
Reports and proceedings
The
Achievement Trap: from The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. A study
of the extent to which high achieving low-income students are losing
ground year by year.
press release: .
http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.org/jkcf_web/content.aspx?page=3636348&mode=stage
full report:
http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.org/jkcf_web/Documents/Achievement%20Trap.pdf
The Australian Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and
Education Committee held a series of hearings across the country on
the education of Talented and Gifted Children. in 1999. Both the
submissions and the actual testimony are available online.
The
submissions consist of about 280 documents. Some of them are simply
questionnaires that were returned to the
committee, but some of them are very substantial documents including
very recent research (one person submitted findings from her just
completed PhD. thesis). In particular, there is a
moving submission by Shaun Hately about growing up gifted (number 95)
an extremely substantial document from Miraca Gross and
the GERRIC that is almost a manual of gifted
education, (number 215) and a very extensive and carefully researched
submission by Tracy Chaloner on the needs of
exceptionally gifted children (number 230).
The
submissions are available at http//www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/eet_ctte/gifted/sublist.htm
Credits and Attainment: Returns to Postsecondary Education Ten Years
After High School by Brian Zucker and Royal Dawson, National Center
for Education Statistics (April, 2001) "High school academic preparation
was associated with earnings for students at several different levels of
attainment...." p.14
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001168
A Deeper Look at the Black-White Achievement Gap in Multnomah County
"With a grant from
Chalkboard, the Black Parent Initiative commissioned ECONorthwest to
develop a statistical portrait of Black students and their teachers
spanning six school districts in Multnomah County. The research reveals
that the gap is not primarily about the pace at which students learn,
but where they start out."
http://www.chalkboardproject.org/images/PDF/BPI%20Report%20Rev.pdf
Dual Credit in Oregon, 2010 Follow Up, Tom North and Jonathan
Jacobs, Oregon University System, Office of Institutional Research
June 23, 2010
"This study began by asking two questions: (1) Do high school students
who take dual credit courses succeed when they go on to college?, and
(2) Does dual credit instruction do as well as college‐situated
instruction in preparing students for subsequent college coursework? The
answer to the first question is a clear-cut yes. Compared to their high
school classmates who do not
take dual credit
coursework, a greater proportion of dual credit students go on to
college in the first place. And when they get there, dual credit
students earn a higher first-year GPA, they accumulate more credit by
the start of the second year of college, and they continue to the second
year at a higher rate. Oregon’s dual credit program is meant to
give its strongest high school students a leg up on college, and those
students plainly take advantage of the opportunity.
The answer to
the second question also is yes, but it is not so clear-cut. ...
http://www.ode.state.or.us/superintendent/priorities/2010-sept-15-dual-credit-study-6.pdf
Education at a Glance 2010: OECD Indicators. From the
Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, a large report on
educational attainment in OECD countries (including the US)
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/39/45926093.pdf
"Education,
Demand and Unemployment in Metropolitan America, "Jonathan Rothwell and
Alan Berube, Brookings Institution (September 2011)
http//www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/0909_skills_unemployment_rothwell/0909_skills_unemployment_rothwell.pdf
Discusses the correlation between
unemployment rates, local industrial needs and educational attainment in
major U.S. cities.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/0909_skills_unemployment_rothwell/0909_skills_unemployment_rothwell.pdf
Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools (December 2008) by
Paul T. Hill, Marguerite Roza, James
Harvey. Final Report from the Center on Reinventing Public
Education on the School Finance Redesign Project
http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/pub_sfrp_finalrep_nov08.pd
Foundations for
Success: Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel
(March 2008)
Final Report of the National http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/index.html
.
Excerpts from section 4
on instructional practices:
IV-173
"... when gifted students are accelerated by putting them together for
special classes, this creates a very different academic and social
environment that appears to be highly valued by and motivating for
gifted students (Benbow, Lubinski, & Suchy, 1996). In this descriptive
study, students report feeling affirmed and challenged in ways that the
regular classroom does not provide. Also, the nature of the discourse
changes, becoming much more high-level and intellectually challenging
(Fuchs, Fuchs, Hamlett, & Karns, 1998). So, accelerated classes are more
than just content taught at a fast pace. This makes it hard, if not
impossible, to separate out the effects attributable only to the
acceleration in these types of programs"
...................
IV 208: Despite the flaws in any one study, the set of studies suggests
there is value to differentiating the mathematics curriculum for
students who are gifted in mathematics and possess sufficient
motivation, especially when acceleration is a component (i.e., pace and
level of instruction are adjusted). A small number of studies suggest
that individualized instruction, where the pace of learning is increased
and often managed via computer instruction, produces gains in
learning.....
Gifted students who are accelerated by other means not only gained time
and reached educational milestones earlier (e.g., college entrance), but
appear to achieve at levels at least comparable to those of their
equally able age-mates ... even though they were younger .... One study
suggests that gifted students also appear to become more strongly
engaged in science, technology, engineering, or mathematical areas of
study.
Some support also was found for supplemental enrichment programs. Of the
two programs analyzed, one explicitly utilized acceleration as a program
component and the other did not. This supports the view in the field of
gifted education that acceleration and enrichment combined should be the
intervention of choice. We believe it is important for school policies
to support appropriately challenging work in mathematics for gifted and
talented students."
High Achieving Students in
the Era
of NCLB, June 18, 2008 by
Ann Duffett,
Steve Farkas, and
Tom Loveless,
published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
The first two (of five)
studies Part I: An
Analysis of NAEP Data, by Tom Loveless, discusses
achievement trends for high-achieving students;
Part II: Results from a National
Teacher Survey, by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett ,
discusses teachers' views of how schools are serving
high-achieving pupils in the NCLB era.
http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=732&id=92
Interpreting
12th-Graders’ NAEP-Scaled Mathematics Performance Using High School
Predictors and Postsecondary Outcomes From the National Education
Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) From the National Center for
Education Statistics. Wins a prize for the longest and densest
title, and perhaps for most predictable conclusion. Finds that
students who performed well on a math test as High School Seniors are
more likely to attend and graduate from College.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007328
"Left Behind By Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability"
By Derek Neal and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach University of Chicago
and NBER July 2007. How uniform state standards under NCLB hurt
students at both ends of the spectrum.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~n9na/web_ver_final.pdf
A Nation Deceived:
How Schools
Hold Back America’s Brightest Students by
Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline, Miraca U. M. Gross.
The
Templeton National Report on Acceleration from the Belin-Blank
International Center for
Gifted Education and Talent Development, University of Iowa
available free online or by mail from
http://www.nationdeceived.org/
National
Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent. Classic
report issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 1993
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/DevTalent/toc.html
Northwest Evaluation
Association reports::
The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act
on Student Achievement and Growth. This report found that after
the implementation of NCLB, student achievement test scores rose
slightly, but student growth decreased, and shows that
high-achieving students made lower gains.
Press Release
Executive Summary
Full report (requires free registration)
"Reaching the Top: A
Report of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement"
(1999). This report is now only available for purchase. The electronic
version was taken offline.
"RIgor
at Risk" A report from the ACT testing association argues that just
taking the recommended "core curriculum" is insufficient to prepare High
School students for college because of a lack of rigor in many "core"
classes.
http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/reports/rigor.html
Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching
Category 5 by members of the 2005 "Rising Above the Gathering Storm
Committee" for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of
Engineering and Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press (2010)
A chilling analysis of America's competitive position in STEM.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12999.html
The TIMSS, administered in 1995, was repeated for eighth-grade
students in 1999 (TIMSS-R). This time, the figures for the U.S. were
better--U.S. eighth-graders slightly exceeded the international average
of 38nations in mathematics and science. They outperformed students
in 17 countries, were level with students in 6 countries, and did worse
than students in 14 countries. In science, they outperformed students
in 18 countries, were level with students in 5 countries and did worse
than students in 14 countries.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001027.pdf
Highlights from TIMSS
(1999) States that U.S. students in 8th. and 12
grade lag behind those of many other countries and that the slower pace
of the U.S. mathematics curriculum may be one factor.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999081.pdf
Short Web-Based Version of
Answers in the Tool Box:
Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree
Attainment by Clifford Adelman Senior Research Analyst, U.S. Department
of Education. finds that the intensity and quality of the secondary
curriculum is the single most significant factor in students' attainment
of bachelor's degrees.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Toolbox/toolbox.html
The Toolbox Revisited.
Answers in the Tool Box has now been updated by Dr. Adelman. It
still concludes that the intensity and quality of the High School
curriculum available to students predicts college success.
http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/toolboxrevisit/toolbox.pdf
(see also "research resources" below and
pages for "Government
information" and the Tennessee Value-Added
Asssessment System (growth-based assessment)
Research
resources and tools
CALDER publications: from the Center
for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.
Numerous papers on such topics as teacher retention and teacher
training.
http://www.caldercenter.org/publications.cfm
Center for the Study of Evaluation and
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student
Testing (CRREST). This website offers several hundred
technical reports on assessment standards and methodology as well as
more readable articles for parents, policymakers and teachers. The
technical reports are a bit daunting but often worth the effort. See in particular: "Issues in the Design of Accountability
Systems, CSE Technical Report 650 Robert L. Linn (April, 2005) and
"Corrective Action in Low-Performing Schools: Lessons for NCLB
Implementation from State and District Strategies in First-Generation
Accountability Systems",
Heinrich Mintrop and Tina Trujillo
CSE Technical
Report 641 (2004).
Now available as a full-test article through ERIC
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/9e/1f.pdf
A comprehensive bibliography of articles on gifted education and gifted students,
classified by subject, and including a summary of each article, from the
Center for Talented Youth/Johns Hopkins
http://www.jhu.edu/gifted/research/biblio.html
Center on Reinventing
Public Education at the University of Washington provides
research-based reports on teacher standards, school finances and school
choice among other topics http://www.crpe.org/
Cramming: The Effects of School
Accountability on College-Bound Students by Colleen Donovan, David
Figlio, Mark Rush published by CALDER (see above) (September 2006)
"To date there has been no
published research investigating the effects of these [accountability]
plans on the other end of the academic distribution – high-performing
students who would almost surely have attained proficiency in the
absence of school accountability plans. Even though these students are
not the immediate focus of accountability plans, the effect these plans
have on these students is vital to the nation because it is these
students who will become the next generation of scientists and
leaders......
http://www.caldercenter.org/PDF/1001068_Cramming.pdf
Education Week
reporter Debra Viadero provides regular summaries of recent studies and
conference reports. Her page offers a very easy short-cut for
finding education studies as they come out--and her articles are
accurate and even-handed. Many require subscription to Education Week.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/contributors/debra.viadero.html
H-Education is a
listserv on the history of education intended for academic researchers.
It is part of the H-Net consortium of academic listservs
http://www.h-net.org/~educ/
NEW!
ERIC The Federal Government's Education
Resources Information Center The old ERIC digests can be found through
the site though you have to hunt a bit to find them (buried under
"publication type" in the pull-down list on the right). The
Talented and Gifted ERIC Digests can be found directly at
http//eric.ed.gov/?q=Talented+and+Gifted&ff1=pubERIC+Digests+in+Full+Text
The Kingsbury Center
at the Northwest Evaluation Association publishes research reports on
student assessment and achievement. The home page includes a sign-up
to receive updates on new research.
http://kingsburycenter.org/
Measuring Teacher
Effectiveness a research collection from the Rand Corporation
http://www.rand.org/education/projects/measuring-teacher-effectiveness.html
National Research
Center for the Gifted and Talented NRCG/T in Storrs, Connecticut.
Funded by the US Department of Education, provides TAG-related research
studies by nationally respected scholars. Site offers publication list
and abstracts. For links to full text articles, see "Ability Grouping"
below-- http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html
"A Reader's Guide to
Scientifically Based Research" by Robert Slavin. Some things to
look for in deciding whether a particular study cuts the mustard.. From
Educational Leadership.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200302/slavin.html
"Statistics Help"
Intended for journalists, here's a quick, easy-to-read refresher course
on some fundamentals of statistics, to prepare you for reading all these
research reports. Find out what a "standard deviation" is and why
knowing the margin of error might be important.
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/
"Statistics at Square
One" a more challenging text on statistics from the British
Medical Journal
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/collections/statsbk/index.shtml
UNESCO Institute for
Statistics: A large collection of international education
statistics and reports on education, science, technology, culture and
communication
http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev_en.php?ID=2867_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
"Unfinished Business: More Measured Approaches
in Standards-Based Reform" by Paul E. Barton of the Policy
Information Center, Educational Testing Service (2004). Another very
informative summary of the issues raised by the use of achievement test
scores to evaluate school performance. Longer, more detailed and a bit
denser than the NWEA report above. Recommends a mixed approach to
evaluation including ensuring that testing reflects actual curriculum
goals, repeated testing during the school year, and the use of both
gains-based and status-based reporting. Recommended.
http://www.ets.org/Media/Education_Topics/pdf/unfinbusiness.pdf
NEW! "Why Most
Published Research Findings are False" by John P. A. Ioannidis an
essay for the Public Library of Science. Written about medicine, but
equally applicable to other studies. Buyer beware!
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124&ct=1
See also: "Reports and proceedings" above
and the pages for "Government
information" and the Tennessee Value-Added
Asssessment System (growth-based assessment)
Parenting
NEW! Envy
and Giftedness: Are We Underestimating the Effects of Envy? by Catharine
Vetter Alvarez. A long article and worth every second.
http://microscopesareprudent.wordpress.com/
Gifted: What does that
Mean a personal blog post by a parent:
http://www.iwasthinking.ca/gifted-what-does-that-mean/
Tips for Parents: A whole set of
articles on parenting and parent advocacy from the Davidson Institute.
use the link below and scroll down to "Parenting"
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_articles_233.aspx
Supporting
Emotional Needs of Gifted (SENG)
http://www.sengifted.org/
Caring for your
Introvert by Jonathan Rauch This popular article appeared in the
Atlantic Magazine
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch
Special
needs:
Access by Students with
Disabilities to Accelerated Programs, a letter from the U.S.
Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights
http//www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-20071226.html
AEGUS: the
Association for the Education of Gifted Underachieving Students
http://www.aegus1.org/
Auditory Processing
Disorder, often known as CAPD. UK site.
http://www.geocities.com/dolfrog/APD_in_UK
American Association
of the Deaf-Blind http://www.aadb.org/
Asperger Syndrome:
OASIS - Online Asperger
Syndrome Information and Support http//www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/
"Gifted children with
AD/HD" by Dierdre Lovecky. This is the most sophisticated article I
have seen on this subject. http://ericec.org/fact/lovecky.html
"Before referring a
gifted child for ADD/ADHD evaluation" by Sharon Lind. A very
informative checklist.
http://www.ditd.org/Cybersource/record.aspx?sid=11510&scat=902&stype=110
The Hoagies website
offers an extensive set of links on ADD/ADHD at
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/adhd.htm
See also "symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder" on a site
sponsored by
the National Center on Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and the
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm
Council for
Exceptional Children, recommended for parents of "double identified"
children, and others seeking advocacy advice--
http://www.cec.sped.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
http://www.gt-cybersource.org/Record.aspx?NavID=2_0&rid=13872
Dual Exceptionalities
Concise ERIC Digest guide to recognizing signs of giftedness in students
who also have disabilities. Recommended. Copied on the LD Online site
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/gt_ld/ericE574.html
Dysgraphia or
trouble with handwriting seems to be a particular problem for gifted
boys. See
http://www.ncld.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=468 and
http://www.dyscalculia.org/Edu563.html
Dyscalculia and
Dyslexia resources from the Dyscalculia website
http://www.dyscalculia.org/
Dyslexia: "We can do lots
more for Students with Dyslexia" by Cheryl Mizerny: suggestions
for classroom support from the Middleweb blog.
https://www.middleweb.com/39393/we-can-do-lots-more-for-students-with-dyslexia/
"Guide to the
Individualized Education Plan", from the U.S. Department of
Education
http://www.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html
"Section 504, the ADA
and IDEA" From the Wrightslaw website. A concise account of the
distinction between Individualized Education Plans (created under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education ACT or IDEA) and a Section 504
Plan (created under the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA).
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/sec504.summ.rights.htm
An even more concise
version, in the form of an ERIC digest,
http://ericec.org/digests/e606.html
"Identifying English
Learners for Gifted and Talented Education" (2008) Advice from the Belin-Blank
Center at the University of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Education.
Includes advice on serving these students effectively.
Learning Disabilities
Association of America -- http://www.ldonline.org/
and their gifted page: http://www.ldonline.org/indepth/gifted
See especially their
"advocacy memos" including "advocacy memo no. 1, denial of eligibility
because of gifted intellectual ability/lack of failure" --
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/gt_ld/lda_advocacymemo.html
Learning Disabilities
Self-Advocacy manual: something different: a manual written just for
students. Well-written, clear and helpful for both kids and adults.
Recommended.
http://www.ldinfo.com/self_advocacy_manual.htm#top
"Meeting the needs of
twice-exceptional children" by Merideth Warshaw. A good
place to begin. A general article with links to other important sites.
The author maintains the "uniquely gifted" website (see below)
http://www.ditd.org/Cybersource/Record.aspx?lib=1&sort=SourceName&scat=902&stype=110&sid=11330&sterm=%22Tips+For+Parents%22
"The Mislabeled Child"
An Article by Fernette and Brock Eide argues for better diagnosis and
non-pharmacological therapy for many children. Recommended.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/12/eide.htm
Neurolearning Blog:
links to lots of new and interesting articles. Maintained by Fernette
and Brock Eide in Edmonds Washington
http://www.neurolearning.com/index.htm
Nonverbal Learning
Disorder: NLD on the Web:
http://www.nldontheweb.org/
Oregon Parent Training
and Information Center provides support and training for parents of
students with disabilities http://www.orpti.org/index.htm
Project2Excel: a
project by Karen Rogers funded with one of the last Javits grants, involved
twice-exceptional students. St. Thomas University has created a
graduate program in teaching twice-exceptional students. The project
website provides a set of resources for this program, both internal and
external including a set of
parent training modules. Each module includes readings, reflections
and discussion questions.
http://www.stthomas.edu/project2excel/
http://www.stthomas.edu/project2excel/OurResources/default.html
Sensory Processing
Library: links to articles from the Sensory Processing
Disorder Foundation. Includes link to a "checklist" to screen for
symptoms
http://www.spdfoundation.net/library.html
2-E, The Twice
Exceptional Newsletter. Copies are offered by subscription; back
issues for a fee, but there's also solid information on the website.
Recommended. http://2enewsletter.com/index.html
"Uniquely gifted"
a website for gifted/special needs children
edited by Meredeth Warshaw, a co-founder and listowner of GT-Special
(see listservs above) Recommended
http://www.uniquelygifted.org/
Wrightslaw
comprehensive website on the laws and court cases affecting Special
Education and Twice-exceptional students.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/
Aptitude
Testing
and IQ
"An Aptitude
Perspective on Talent Identification" by David Lohman. Encourages
the thoughtful use of identification practices to match student
aptitudes with the nature of the gifted programs they are being chosen
to join.
http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/pdf/An_Aptitude_Perspective_on_Talent.pdf
The Hoagies site
(see above) offers an extensive collection of resources at
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/testing.htm
Human intelligence:
Historical influences, current controversies, teaching resources. This
site is aimed at people teaching college or graduate level classes on
human intelligence.
http://www.intelltheory.com/
Intelligence:
Knowns and Unknowns: Report of a Task Force established by the
Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological
Association
"IQ Subtest Analysis: Clinical Acumen or Clinical
Illusion?" Marley W.Watkins, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, Fall/Winter 2003
http://www.srmhp.org/0202/iq.html
Abstract:
Subtest analysis is pervasive in psychological training and
practice. That is, the speculation that the variability or profile
of an individual’s scaled scores across the subtests of an
intelligence test have meaning beyond that provided by global IQ
measures. A review of subtest analysis research revealed that
neither subtest scatter nor subtest profiles demonstrate acceptable
accuracy in discriminating among diagnostic groups. The evidence
that exists regarding relations between subtest profiles and
socially important academic and psychosocial outcomes is, at best,
weak: subtest profile information contributes 2% to 8% variance
beyond general ability to the prediction of achievement and 2% to 3%
to the prediction of learning behaviors and test-session behaviors.
Hypothesized relationships between subtest profiles and other
psychosocial behaviors persistently fail to achieve statistical or
clinical significance. Methodological problems in research and
practice that cause subtest analysis results to be more illusory
than real and to represent more of a shared professional myth than
clinically astute detective work are explicated.
Lessons from the History
of Intelligence Testing" by David Lohman. An interesting and
sophisticated rumination on the intersection of intelligence testing
with other trends and factors.
https://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/docs/dlohman/history_of_intelligence_testing.pdf?sfvrsn=2
NAGC Position Statement on
the use of the WISC-IV for identifying gifted students
Suggests that it is often
appropriate to substitute General Ability Index (GAI) for overal. "IQ"
score.
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=2455
"The role of Nonverbal
Ability Tests in Identifying Academically Gifted Students" by
David Lohman. Argues that undue reliance on non-verbal tests
such as the Naglieri (NNAT) and the Raven's Matrices may actually
exclude gifted minority/ESL students.
http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/docs/dlohman/comparing-raven-nnat-cogat-.pdf?sfvrsn=2
"
John D. Wasserman,
Davidson Institute for Talent
Development/Young Scholar Seminar 2006. Advice on getting the most
out of the various idiosyncrasies of different IQ tests.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10405.aspx
Understanding and Predicting Regression Effects in the Identification of
Academically Gifted Children David Lohman. Another of Lohman's
provocative and interesting papers. How do we establish
identification methods that maximize the probability that students who
test as "gifted" today will also test as "gifted" next year?
http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/pdf/Understanding_and_predicting_regression.pdf
"Understanding Tests
and Measurements for the Parent and Advocate" by Peter D. Wright and
Pamela Darr Wright. Written for parents of learning disabled children,
but a very thorough explanation of different sorts of testing and how to
interpret test scores. Long and somewhat dense, but worth the time.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/tests_measurements.html
for reports on
state achievement testing and NCLB, see "reports and proceedings" above.
Unusually,
Highly, Exceptionally, or Profoundly Gifted
The
Davidson Institute for Talent Development A good collection
of information and links about meeting the needs of extremely gifted TAG
children and a large library of relevant articles, graded by staff for
their quality/relevance. See especially their pamphlet for educators
which can be downloaded in .pdf format or ordered on the site. The
Institute also offers some limited scholarship assistance.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/
articles are now at
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db
Hollingworth Center
for Highly Gifted Children
http://www.hollingworth.org/
see also "Tips for
Parents" above under "Aptitude Testing"
HOME