By Natalie Smolenski, KERA 90.1 Reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-525607.mp3
Schools use new techniques to keep poor and minority students in gifted education
DALLAS, TX –
Natalie Smolenski, KERA Reporter: In many ways, Texas leads the nation in setting goals and providing funding for gifted education. Kelly Callaway, the Director for Advanced Academics and Gifted Education at the Texas Education Agency, sums it up this way:
Kelly Callaway, Director for Advanced Academics and Gifted Education at the Texas Education Agency: We're one of the very few states that has a funded and mandated program to identify and serve gifted students. So I feel really good about where Texas is going; that doesn't mean we're where we need to be.
Smolenski: Here's where the Texas State Legislature says gifted education needs to be: students in these programs must reflect the population of the school. But current identification methods aren't producing that result in all districts. Cathy Shaver is Advanced Academics/Gifted and Talented Program Specialist for the Grand Prairie Independent School District.
Cathy Shaver, Advanced Academics/Gifted and Talented Program Specialist: We do a really good job at identifying middle class, mainstream America, but we had a certain segment of our population that we knew were underrepresented in our advanced academics program.
Smolenski: Jose Rodriguez spent 12 years in Gifted Education at the Grand Prairie Independent School district. Most of the other students in his gifted and talented classes were either white or Asian.
Jose Rodriguez, Student: I know a lot of my friends back in Middle School and High School, they would say that, what do you think Jose, do you think that Asian people or white people are generally a smarter race than black people or Mexican people. And then I'd be like uh no, I mean look I'm here, Arnel's here, Marylin's here, but then they're like well those are just special people.
Smolenski: Grand Prairie ISD now uses innovative approaches to more accurately identify gifted and talented students from poor and non-Asian minority backgrounds.
Shaver: We also wanted to look at not just a single instrument, but we wanted to get input from teachers, we wanted to do experiences in the classroom to see what kinds of characteristics kids were exhibiting in their schoolwork. And so we additionally incorporated the Naglieri Non-Verbal Ability Test, so that kids whose first language was not English would be able to show their cognitive skills in a nonverbal way.
Smolenski: Grand Prairie ISD is about 60% Hispanic. Since implementing the new identification methods six years ago, the number of Hispanic students in the gifted programs has risen from 17 to 36%. The African American students in Grand Prairie gifted programs now match the numbers in the general student body. The new methods also created an overall increase in the numbers of identified gifted students. The Texas Education Agency has developed an Equity Toolkit to help other districts do the same thing. The TEA's Kelly Callaway:
Callaway: The document is going to be given to teachers in the form of an interactive CD, and it's going to have background information, some training on what kinds of biases exist in our current identification procedures, some information on how to overcome those biases. Maybe the most important part of this toolkit is going to be the training that comes along with it.
Smolenski: Determining what's available for identified gifted students has become more difficult since the State Legislature passed a law in 2003 taking away the TEA's ability to enforce current requirements. Tracy Weinberg, Associate Director at the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented, says this has created a knowledge gap:
Tracy Weinberg, Associate Director at the TAGT: There really is right now no way to find whether these things are happening consistently across local contexts because the state does not gather much information regarding gifted students and there's no information gathered on how programs are run from district to district. And so how that money is used and what's being effective is still unknown.
Smolenski: Also unknown is how many districts have quality programs that address both the emotional and intellectual needs of gifted students. Again, Tracy Weinberg:
Weinberg: Most importantly I think what these students need are some of the support mechanisms that may not have ever been in place in their community or in their lives. Those may be emotional, mental, having appropriate role models, and educational support systems.
Smolenski: Greg Morris has spent more than 30 years teaching in the Dallas Independent School District. As a teacher for the gifted and talented, almost all his students are minorities or economically disadvantaged. He says the district has no problem identifying these students, but he can't always anticipate what, if anything, will happen to them after that.
Greg Morris, DISD Teacher: One year I went through the Iowa Test of Basic Skills scores and I listed all the kids at the 80th percentile in math or verbal and then compared those kids with their schedules and found 60 7th graders that should have been in pre-Honors classes that were not. When I brought that to the attention of the administration, it was kind of like, Oh Heck. Just one of those things. We'll try to do better next year.
Smolenski: Where services for gifted kids are not adequate, many of them drop out or leave the gifted education programs. The trend can be especially pronounced among Hispanic students, where adverse economic circumstances and difficulty mastering academic English combine to discourage many. Debbie Midkiff is Advanced Academics/Gifted and Talented Facilitator for Grand Prairie ISD.
Debbie Midkiff, Advanced Academics/Gifted and Talented Facilitator: It may be lack of the ability to think that they can finish and go on and pursue the college level. Proficiency speaking - I think they're all fine. They don't always have the support at home because the father is working trying to make ends meet or the mother is trying to make ends meet.
Smolenski: Dr. Mike Sayler, Associate Dean in the College of Education at the University of North Texas, has researched the relationship between poverty, minority status, and giftedness. He thinks transitional programs can help students embrace both academic English and higher-level learning.
Dr. Mike Sayler, Associate Dean in the College of Education at the University of North Texas: The key is to get those minority students together with other bright minority students who are also speaking that language or who are also from that culture and to put them in an environment where it's okay now within this group to show my giftedness, to be interested in the language, to be interested in the topics. There's such a psychological desire to be part of a group, and so what we need to do is create a group for them.
Smolenski: Grand Prairie and other districts are putting groups of gifted Hispanic 8th graders together in AP Spanish classes, which are considered 11th and 12th grade courses. Grand Prairie's Cathy Shaver:
Shaver: We have to date had about 100 students come through that program. 99 of them have scored a qualifying score on that AP exam, which gives them college credit coming out of the 8th grade. Every single one of these students indicate that they are planning to go to college because they are leaving 8th grade with college credit under their belt. It's made such a phenomenal change in just the attitude of these students and how they see themselves and their future.
Smolenski: But many experts agree that the biggest battle for gifted students, underrepresented and otherwise, may be the trend of downplaying or denigrating smartness. Greg Morris says he tries to counter that attitude in the classroom:
Morris: I think that one of the things that the Talented and Gifted teacher provides is sanctuary. I'm sorry to tell you that in many instances you're not supposed to be smart in public schools. These kids just need a place where there's somebody that understands.
Smolenski: For KERA 90.1, I'm Natalie Smolenski.
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