The Challenges of Achieving Equity Within Public School Gifted and Talented Programs

2021 ◽  
pp. 001698622110025
Author(s):  
Scott J. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Gifted And Talented ◽  
Gifted Education ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Societal Inequality ◽  
Racial Ethnic

K–12 gifted and talented programs have struggled with racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, native language, and disability inequity since their inception. This inequity has been well documented in public schools since at least the 1970s and has been stubbornly persistent despite receiving substantial attention at conferences, in scholarly journals, and in K–12 schools. The purpose of this article is to outline why such inequity exists and why common efforts to combat it have been unsuccessful. In the end, poorly designed identification systems combined with larger issues of societal inequality and systemic, institutionalized racism are the most likely culprits. I end the article with a hierarchy of actions that could be taken—from low-hanging fruit to major societal changes—in order to combat inequity in gifted education and move the field forward.

scholarly journals The Application of Differential Normative Criteria to the Gifted Education Screening Phase: Implications for Demographic Representation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott J. Peters ◽  
Matthew McBee
Keyword(s):  
Gifted And Talented ◽  
Gifted Education ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Screening Criteria ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Gifted And Talented Education ◽  
Demographic Representation ◽  
Normative Criteria ◽  
Gifted Education Programs ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Scholars and practitioners within gifted and talented education have devoted substantial effort to understanding and mitigating the disproportional representation of students from certain racial / ethnic, income, language, and disability groups. In mitigating this underrepresentation, most research has focused on the actual identification or evaluation criteria, with comparatively little research considering how the screening phase might be manipulated in order to facilitate the proportional identification of underrepresented groups. This paper uses numerical methods to evaluate if, and under what conditions, modified screening criteria can be used as a way to increase the representation of traditionally underrepresented groups in gifted education programs. The results show that this intervention has only a modest effect on reducing disproportionality. It can only have an impact when the identification process is poorly-designed at baseline.

scholarly journals A Metaregression Analysis of the Effects of School Racial and Ethnic Composition on K–12 Reading, Language Arts, and English Outcomes

2020 ◽  
pp. 233264922094226
Author(s):  
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson ◽  
Martha Cecilia Bottia ◽  
Savannah Larimore
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Composition Effect ◽  
Ethnic Inequality ◽  
School Students ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Differences ◽  
Racial Gaps ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Racial and ethnic differences in educational outcomes significantly narrowed during the 1970s and 1980s when K–12 public schools were desegregated. However, when schools resegregated starting roughly in the late 1980s, racial gaps in outcomes widened again. Because of literacy’s pivotal role in learning, the authors investigate if segregation contributes to racial gaps in K–12 reading performance. Drawing upon structural vulnerability and cumulative advantage/disadvantage theories to frame this study, the authors conduct multilevel metaregression analyses of 131 effect sizes from 30 primary studies to investigate if school composition effects contribute to racial gaps in K–12 reading outcomes and if any effects vary in magnitude or direction for students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds or grade levels. The metaregression analyses control for the primary studies’ regression model characteristics and research designs. The results indicate a small, negative, statistically significant relationship between the percentage of a school’s disadvantaged minority enrollment and the mean reading achievement of the students who attend it. The negative association is stronger when segregation is measured by percentage Black and is stronger for high school students. These two findings suggest that the disadvantages of segregated education cumulate as more structurally vulnerable students transition from elementary to secondary school. Additional results suggest that a school’s racial composition effect is not the same as its socioeconomic status composition effect. The two organizational characteristics have distinct, albeit interrelated, influences on reading scores. Together the findings suggest that racially and ethnically segregated schooling both reflects and helps reproduce racial/ethnic inequality in literacy outcomes.

A Statistic’s Five Years: A Story of Teacher Attrition

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 583-591
Author(s):  
Rebecca Raine Raab
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Teacher Attrition ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Public School Teachers ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
K 12

The author is one of the almost 50% of beginning U.S. public school teachers who leave the profession within 5 years (Ingersol, 2003; Scherff, 2008). The first year she left teaching, 2012-2013, she became part of the 7% who exited the profession that year (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Teacher educators use attrition statistics often without knowing the stories behind the numbers. Rebecca is a statistic, and this is her story in five poems, which span 5 years teaching in public schools. She uses poetry to explore her statistical meaning, following the footsteps of others who use poetry and narrative to explore their own stories (Limes-Taylor, 2014; Pelias, 2011; Spry, 2011). She also writes this for those teachers, like herself, who loved their students, but could no longer remain within the K-12 system.

Religion in the Schools

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
General Law ◽  
K 12 ◽  
School Property

Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court understood the Establishment Clause to strictly limit government’s ability to promote religion in the schools: The state could not lead prayers, it could not fund private religious education, and it could not teach religion as true in the public school curriculum. During the same period, the Court construed free exercise rights (in schools and elsewhere) in a fairly modest fashion by balancing religious rights against government interests. Beginning in 1990, the Court weakened the Free Exercise Clause still further. Today, however, the Court is moving to reshape the general law of the Religion Clauses, and the trend points (clearly) toward a greatly weakened Establishment Clause and (less clearly) toward a Free Exercise Clause that is at least somewhat more robust. The Court has also made clear that the Free Speech Clause grants religious speakers equal rights to speak on school property. These speech protections are powerful guarantors of religious liberty, even if no revolution in free exercise law materializes. This chapter surveys the constitutional law involving religion in the K–12 public schools, summarizing that law as it currently stands and offering tentative predictions about where it is headed. The chapter begins with the Establishment Clause limits on government religious expression in the public schools, then continues by discussing the free exercise rights of students and teachers, religion in the public school curriculum, and the rights of religious groups to speak on school property.

“I Struggled But I Made It”: Black Gifted Underachievers on Transitioning to College

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Christopher J. P. Sewell ◽  
Ramon B. Goings
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Gifted And Talented ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Student ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Black Adults ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
K 12

Research on Black student presence in gifted and talented programs consistently illuminates issues with recruitment and underrepresentation. While enrolled, gifted Black students face a series of issues that affect their ability to persist and achieve, especially in nondiverse environments. This work examines the reflections of four Black adults who attended gifted schools in New York City and encountered significant hurdles during their K–12 schooling. These findings are excerpted from a larger qualitative study that investigated how Black adults, who were identified as gifted in New York City Public Schools, reflected on their experiences as gifted students and how they leveraged those experiences to persist to and through college. Using Schlossberg’s model for adapting to transitions as the theoretical frame, findings suggest that participants received limited guidance as they transitioned to college but learned many lessons that led to become productive in college.

The Holistic Model for Blended Learning

2010 ◽  
pp. 200-213
Author(s):  
Alex Stone
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Holistic Model ◽  
New Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
K 12

Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the public cyber charter schooling movement in America. As more and more students elect to transfer from traditional public schools into cyber charter schools–and their districts of origin are forced to forfeit their tuition allocations–a need for a public school alternative to cyber charter schools has emerged. Using current practices in Pennsylvania’s public schools as a backdrop, this article presents a new model for district-level cyber schooling, called the holistic model for blended learning, that public schools in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) can use to compete with cyber charter schools and meet the growing demand for K-12 online learning.

Examining the Relationship Between Beliefs About Mind-Set, Beliefs About Knowledge, and Cultural Proficiency Development for K-12 Public School Teachers

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-283
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Spiess ◽  
Robyn Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Cultural Proficiency ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Public School Teachers ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
K 12

As the 4-year high school graduation rate of African American and Latino/a students in U.S. public schools continues to lag behind their White peers, cultural proficiency development has become an increasingly significant focus of school districts. While substantial resources have been committed in school districts across the country to improve professional development and hiring practices, measurable gains have ranged from inconsistent to negligible. Given the improved understanding of the importance of cultural proficiency development for K-12 public school teachers, developing more effective ways to predict and support cultural proficiency development is a necessary step to take in efforts to improve outcomes for all students. In this study, we used a hierarchical regression analysis to determine the extent to which mind-set and beliefs about knowledge predicted cultural proficiency. Participants were 853 K-12 public school educators. In addition to demographic variables, five constructs were identified via factor analysis—mind-set of self, mind-set of others, simple knowledge, certain knowledge, and source of knowledge. Results indicated all five constructs, including the demographic variables of gender and age, were statistically significant predictors of cultural proficiency. Implications for professional development and human resource practices are discussed as well as topics for future research.

Computer Usage by Speech-Language Pathologists in Public Schools

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Ruppert Houle
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Computer Technology ◽  
Computer Usage ◽  
Attitudes Toward Computers ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Frequent Users ◽  
Service Training

This study investigated factors that influence public school speech-language pathologists' acceptance and/or resistance to computer technology. Significant differences were found between speech-language pathologists who are frequent users of computers in the workplace and those who seldom or never use them. These differences were attributed to differences in attitudes toward computers, available funding for computers, in-service training, and physical facilities.

Oregon’s K–12 Ethnic Studies Bill

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-195
Author(s):  
Shirley A. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Protected Group ◽  
Social Minorities ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Do So

In 2017, Oregon passed House Bill 2845 requiring Ethnic Studies curriculum in grades K–12. It was the first state in the nation to do so. The bill passed almost fifty years after the founding of the country’s first Ethnic Studies department. The passage of an Ethnic Studies bill in a state that once banned African Americans and removed Indigenous peoples from their land requires further examination. In addition, the bill mandates that Ethnic Studies curriculum in Oregon's schools includes “social minorities,” such as Jewish and LGBTQ+ populations which makes the bill even more remarkable. As such, it is conceivable for some observers, a watered-down version of its perceived original intent—one that focuses on racial and ethnic minorities. Similarly, one can draw analogies to the revision of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 when it included women as a protected group. Grounded in a socio-political history that otherwise would not have been included, this essay examines the productive and challenging aspect of HB 2845. Framing the bill so it includes racial, ethnic, and social minorities solved the problem of a host of bills that may not have passed on their own merit while simultaneously and ironically making it easier to pass similar bills.

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