Gifted Segregation vs. Integration Essay

In 2015, I wrote about my personal philosophy of the gifted learner. I stated in my paper that, “Giftedness is not a one, set definition. The definition of gifted must encompass intellect, ability, creative talent as well as emotional awareness. It cannot be micro-managed and be a “one size fits all” definition” (Dauber, 2015). People, who are gifted, need differentiation and opportunity to express, demonstrate and show their giftedness. Educators must be able to provide opportunities for the gifted learner to express his/her abilities and/or talents. Gifted students learn differently and require special educational experiences in order to grow academically and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, the education field must be able to understand not only the cognitive side of a gifted learner but the affective or social/emotional aspects too.

One of the difficulties in identifying the needs of low-income students is the profound cultural barriers which exist that prevent their strengths and deficits from being identified. Children from low-income homes frequently have poorer vocabularies and a weaker basis of the type of knowledge that is frequently considered 'intelligence' on most forms of assessment. A low-income child's IQ may be high, even though he lacks a framework of accepted middle-class knowledge. "In January 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the seeming overrepresentation of minorities in special education and underrepresentation of those students in gifted education. The NRC reported that, nationwide, 7.47 percent of all white students and 9.9 percent of Asian students are placed in gifted programs. Meanwhile, 3.04 percent of African-American students, 3.57 percent of Hispanic students, and 4.86 percent of American Indian students are classified as gifted" (GT-minority identification, 2003, ERIC Clearinghouse). The discrepancy, the NAS believed, could not be solely explained by talent alone but was at least partially rooted in the methods of identifying students labeled as gifted. Biases in standardized and other tests identifying student strengths, combined with prejudices, however unintentional, amongst educators and administrators lead to under-identification of the gifted

Segregation is the act of discriminating against others because of their race. The act of Segregating is morally wrong. Racism executes appalling feats. This is because it slows down the development of countries, and brings out the worst in people.

gifted students within those states, and are not consistent across the United States. “Seven states

A Gifted and talented (G/T) student” is “one who . . . exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area, possesses an unusual capacity for leadership, or excels in a specific academic field” (Aldine ISD Board Policy Manual, 2014). The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides a state plan, which outlines the standards for Texas schools to be in compliance. It also offers the educational opportunities these students should receive. In fact, there are performance measures for five aspects of G/T programs including student assessment, service design, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and family and community involvement. The plan assists districts in delivering these comprehensive services to

Mala Morrow is a gifted student. She was identified as being gifted after she scored in the 98 percentile on the Test of Cognitive Skills (TCS). She maintained an A average while she was enrolled in elementary school, now as a middle schooler she has a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.9. Mala’s ethnicity is Indian. She is actively learning, English, German, and she is fluent in two different Arabic dialects. These attributes clearly define that Mala is properly labeled as a gifted and talented student.

(2013). Curriculum Issues. Gifted child Today. Retrieved from Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 29, 2015.

I am a proponent of ability grouping. I believe that the best way to make progress is taking students and breaking them up into leveled sections so that they can achieve to their highest potential. To me, this is the only thing that truly makes sense. In an article from Newsweek.com entitled America Hates it's Gifted Kids (2014), by Chris Weller, while No Child Left Behind from 2001 did help to improve the scores of underachieving students across the nation, by some degree, we did terrible things for our gifted students. Many of these were left to fend for themselves. Gifted programs were often unfunded in order to handle the needs being created for underachieving students. When our gifted children may someday become our inventors, engineers, and doctors of the future, why on earth is their education and growth not as important as a student with special needs, or anyone else? We build individualized education plans for students who struggle, those with needs, yet we ignore other special abilities. Why can't we build a plan for them as well? Why don't we build a plan for each student, so that instead of a one-size-fits-all education, we provide a track for all students to run on based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, all can continue to grow. There is nothing that says a student who begins in one group cannot move up. There is nothing that says a student who struggles in math couldn't be a high achieving reader. In the Education Week (2004) article on tracking, the major concern against ability grouping has to do with labels. That the majority of students in low level ability groups are poor and minority, and that ability grouping sets a stigma on that particular population. Yet that is where they achieve! By giving specialized instruction at each individual level, all have a chance to grow, instead of lagging further behind, stagnating, or creating a greater challenge when their unique needs aren't met, and further

I observed Julie Tolbert’s gifted third, fourth, and fifth grade classes. The kids in each class were mainly girls but only by a few numbers. Each child had a different learning style, and while they are all in a gifted class some were slower than others with each subject. A child that did really well in the science part of the day might struggle more in the social studies part of the day. Julie would accommodate each learning style to the best of her ability seeing as her ratio was normally

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

[Students who are gifted] give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic or leadership capacity, or in specific academic field, and who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities. ( No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [NCLB], 2002, p. 526)

Because of this law being at the forefront of any educational program, educational leaders must develop plans that effectively enhance learning and increase student achievement. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) serves as a roadmap for improving teaching and learning by educators. These standards are designed for students, teachers, and administrators. They help measure proficiency and set ambitious goals for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for students to succeed in today’s schools. The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) standards developed 1998, is also enriched in technology standards in efforts of helping school districts examine the quality of their programs for the gifted learner. These standards help foster and encourage high standards of learning, and in doing so, support must be provided for gifted education programming services. In fact, NAGC Standard 4.1 E states that, “Gifted education programming should provide state-of the-art technology to support technology services.” While most findings concerning, gifted education are made primarily by the states and local school districts, NAGC collaborates a great deal with members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Education to ensure that guidelines in legislation

As I learn more about the realities of education, there was one issue that sparked my interest and passion – segregation. Though it is difficult to see first-hand, I can definitely see remnants of segregation through comparison of resources available at schools I’ve worked at. My belief that education serves as an accessible tool for social mobility led me to explore the issue of segregation with the perspective of a future educator. Over 50 years ago in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court deemed that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. With this in mind, I was under the impression that schools were not segregated (at least to a far lesser extent). However, I was shocked to learn that segregation in schools

The topic of gifted and talented education is one that has always sparked debates among parents and teachers, and recent movements towards totally integrating classrooms have added to this debate. For many years now, "average" children, gifted and

Those that support ability grouping in schools argue that it is not just gifted and talented students that benefit from this practice. Although students benefit slightly from ability grouping even when course content is not altered, they could gain much more when the curriculum is adjusted to suit their academic needs, according to Mary Ann Swiatek (1997). Swiatek argues, students with mathematical talented are ready to learn statistics/probability, geometry, and pre-algebra long before those topics are introduced in school. If the advanced material is presented, gifted students will learn it, thereby boosting their academic achievement. (Swiatek, 1997)