Gifted and Talented Program Admissions: Needed Improvements and Reforms

Gifted and Talented Program Admissions: Needed Improvements and Reforms Gifted and talented programs are intrinsically valuable to many children’s education as they provide a system in which all students involved are engaged, challenged, and intellectually stimulated. In "How People Learn", Donovan, Bransford, and Pellegrino (1999) stress the importance of each student being given reasonable and appropriate goals based on his or her level of understanding and competency (p. 20). Gifted and talented programs help institutionalize the attempt to meet all student’s needs by providing uniquely appropriate challenges which aim to keep every student engaged, thus receiving the best chance at success. Although there are many valuable and important aspects of gifted education, there are also significant issues rooted in the base of America’s gifted and talented programs, one of which I will address throughout this paper. In my opinion, the most notable problem which troubles gifted and talented programs is the system by which students are se lected to join their school’s gifted and talented program. The problem associated with how students are chosen to join a gifted and talented program stems from the way that we define giftedness. Because there are countless ways in which any individual can define talent, the government created a federal task force in 1972 to study gifted education in order to standardize the way in which schools choose students for and implement their gifted and talented programs. The task force’s results are known as the Marland Report and include much information as a result of their research, including a decision that a public school’s gifted and talented programs should aim to serve between 3 and 5 percent o... ... for the Gifted. New York: Teachers College Press. Borland, James H. (2003). Rethinking Gifted Education. New York: Teachers College Press. Donovan, Bransford, & Pellegrino (1999). How People Learn. National Academic Press. Eby, Judy W., & Smutny, Joan F. (1990). A Thoughtful Overview of Gifted Education. New York: Longman. Fulkerson, Jan & Horvich, Michael (1998). Talent Development: Two Perspectives. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(10), 756. Johnsen, Susan K. (2003). Issues in the Assessment of Talent Development. In James H. Borland (Ed.). Rethinking Gifted Education (pp. 201-214). New York: Teachers College Press. Meier, Deborah (1995). The Power of Their Ideas. Boston: Beacon Press. Shore, Bruce M., Cornell, Dewey G., Robinson, Amy, & Ward, Virgil S. (1991). Recommended Practices in Gifted Education. New York: Teachers College Press.