Gifted and IDEA: Charter Schools Won’t Solve the Gifted Debate

Even though gifted is listed as a special education category, Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) never adequately addressed it. Intellectually advanced students are complex, not always easy to understand. They need and deserve school support.

Much debate surrounds gifted education. But charter schools will not be a sufficient answer to concerns.

Some gifted students are twice exceptional (2e), meaning they identify as gifted, but also struggle with learning disabilities. Most charter schools do not effectively serve students with disabilities, so 2e students might be left out.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a panel considering eliminating New York City schools for the gifted. They claim this will desegregate schools.

NYC’s gifted programs have been different than most school districts. They’ve aggressively screened four-year-old children, mostly Asian and white. This raises concerns about fairness and elitism. NYC is said to have more segregated schools than any city.

The Mayor’s suggestion for magnet schools might be worthwhile. But one hopes there’s not a plan for adding charter schools.

In “Can axing gifted programs desegregate New York schools — without triggering ‘bright flight’?” MSNBC highlights High Tech High (HTH) which is a charter school network based in San Diego. The schools have been supported and promoted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

There’s already a HTH school in Brooklyn claiming to address diversity. HTH has its own teacher education program, but student ratings on GreatSchools.org are mixed and troubling. (Scroll down on the link). Many complaints concern students who feel ill-prepared.

I received a disturbing comment about the HTH curriculum from a HTH student in a post I wrote about the charter school in 2015.  

While speaking about his plans on Morning Joe, Mayor de Blasio and commentators implied that the rest of the country would likely follow NYC’s lead in eliminating gifted programming. This seems odd since most places don’t structure their gifted programs like NYC.

Gifted education around the country is sketchy. States and local school districts handle this category differently, or not at all. Where are the protections? The key to better understanding children is to look for more appropriate ways of assessing giftedness especially in underrepresented groups that have been ignored.

Schools should work harder to find the strengths in all students, instead of repeatedly casting students as failing tests, and create a better plan for serving students who are both gifted and talented. This means ending the poor programs found in school districts today.

• Elementary schools often provide once a week pull-out programs where students labeled gifted get fun activities and projects that any child would love. Students instead should focus on projects that address their high intellectual abilities and receive counseling for their difficulties when required.
• Pulling gifted students out of class draws attention to them as elites. Either classes should be small enough for differentiation, or students should have access to a daily part-time resource or full-time class where they can work on advanced academic work, while still meeting with their peers for social functions and classes like art and music.
• The focus for 2e students is their disability. Why not focus on their strengths, providing support for the weak areas? Public schools must quit focusing on high-stakes testing to cast students as failures.
• Cut-off scores for admission into gifted programs are too rigid. Multi-forms of assessment are critical.
• High schools often rely on AP classes to address their gifted population, but these programs are not designed for gifted students. There’s often pressure and a focus on obtaining high test scores.
• Some schools permit students to skip grades, a process called acceleration. But students might experience social difficulties.
• Many schools lack qualified counselors to assist students who struggle with academic and social differences.
• Gifted students are usually identified through several assessments and also by obtaining an I.Q. The Hoagies Gifted Education Page, a good source of information for parents of students who are gifted, lists the typical I.Q. ranges to determine giftedness. But I.Q. is only one factor and is controversial. Many worry that the score can unfairly typecast a child. But most schools still rely on those scores.

Beyond special education, public schools have always struggled to determine how to group students with unlike academic needs. We want students to learn together, but it can be difficult to effectively mix students with academic differences. Talent is included in the definition, but many poor schools don’t have art, music, dance, and drama.

Inclusion with differentiation, or tailoring learning to a child’s needs, is a nice idea but much more difficult to do, especially when class sizes are large.

Technology is important, but those who promote technology without teachers as the answer, have little proof that this is the best choice. It doesn’t address integration.

Integrating students and ensuring that black and Latino students are chosen for gifted programming is paramount. Helping students to socialize in school and better understand their learning differences should be the goal.

Differences must be celebrated and encouraged, not swept under the rug, and certainly standardizing the curriculum in not the answer.

How should the gifted population be served effectively in democratic public schools, open to children with giftedness and disabilities, which are supposed to bring all children together? The debate must be had without destroying IDEA and public education. Magnet schools which are public schools might be one idea. But charter schools are not the answer.

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Here are what I hope will be helpful facts and resources about students who are gifted and talented.  

*The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) provide a definition for gifted.

Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.

*NAGC also provides a complete description of concerns surrounding gifted education in their position statements.  

*The Council for Exceptional Students say:

Unfortunately, the federal government has done little to properly address the educational needs of students with gifts and talents. In 2011, Congress eliminated all funding for the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act, the sole federal program dedicated to supporting the needs of high-ability students. CEC, together with its members and like-minded organizations, advocate to reverse this action and support an increased federal role in gifted education. Every student should have access to a challenging education.

*The Davidson Institute provides helpful information.

*In 1993, Psychologist Linda Kreger Silverman listed the need for counseling gifted students.

Intellectual Characteristics

• exceptional reasoning ability
• intellectual curiosity
• rapid learning rate
• facility with abstraction
• complex thought processes
• vivid imagination
• early moral concern
• passion for learning
• powers of concentration
• analytical thinking
• divergent thinking/creativity
• keen sense of justice
• capacity for reflection

Personality Characteristics

• insightfulness
• need to understand
• need for mental stimulation
• perfectionism
• need for precision/logic
• excellent sense of humor
• sensitivity/empathy
• intensity
• perseverance
• acute self-awareness
• nonconformity
• questioning of rules/authority
• tendency toward introversion

References

Edited by Herbert J. Walberg, Arthur J. Reynolds, & Margaret C. Wang, Can Unlike Students Learn Together? Grade Retention, Tracking, and Grouping, (Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing, 2004).

Edited by Linda Kreger Silverman. Counseling the Gifted and Talented, “A Developmental Model for Counseling the Gifted.” (Denver: Love Publishing Company, 1993), p. 52-53.

Jan & Bob Davidson with Laura Vanderkam, Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. What You and Your School Can Do For Your Gifted Child, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

Jacqulyn Saunders with Pamela Espeland, Bringing Out the Best: A Guide For Parents of Young Gifted Children, (Minneapolis: Free Sprit Publishing, 1986).

Judy Galbraith and Jim Delisle, The Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide: A Teen Handbook, (Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing, 1983).