In today's schools, gifted students are increasingly likely to receive all, or nearly all, of their education in regular classrooms. In many school districts, separate programs for the gifted, including pullout programs, are being curtailed or phased out.
There are two main reasons for this trend, experts say. One is the spread of a philosophy that favors mixed-ability grouping; the other is the lack of funds for separate gifted programs. While supporters of inclusive classrooms find this trend admirable, some advocates for gifted children are raising concerns that it is harming high-ability students.
Among educators, there is "a big push" to meet gifted students' needs within the regular classroom, says Bob Glascock, coordinator of gifted and talented programs for the Howard County (Md.) public schools. Glascock sees this movement as parallel to the inclusion movement in special education.
This trend disturbs Linda Silverman, director of the Gifted Development Center in Denver, Colo. "Gifted education has been in serious trouble for the last four years," she says, because of the growing belief that "there's something terribly wrong with any child's being taught separately." The drive to keep gifted students in regular classes stems from "a social agenda that has nothing to do with the education of the population," she asserts.
Another expert who takes a more positive view is Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. Gifted students spend most of their time in regular classrooms, he says, and teachers can do many things to increase "the level of challenge" they experience there. But, Renzulli hastens to add, schools should still provide other options for gifted students. Extremely advanced children, for example, can benefit from mentor programs, special study groups, and classes outside their grade level.
In his district, Glascock says, high-achieving students spend 90 percent of their time in regular classrooms, so it makes sense to focus on ways to differentiate curriculum and instruction for them there. Classroom teachers can do this, he says, by using strategies such as flexible grouping, "tiered" assignments, ability-based reading and discussion groups, learning centers, student contracts, research projects, and mentorships.
"Teachers have to be more creative in their approach to instruction," Glascock says. Because teachers are trained at whole-group instruction and assessment, they often must struggle to "get out of that pattern."
According to Renzulli, curriculum compacting is "a minimal essential" for meeting gifted students' needs in regular classrooms. In this approach, teachers test students on upcoming units to avoid teaching them what they already know; students who demonstrate mastery either "accelerate" or pursue enrichment activities while the unit is being taught. Unless teachers make these kinds of adjustments to the prescribed curriculum, they will underchallenge some students, Renzulli says.
Another strategy that yields an extremely high payoff, Renzulli says, is allowing students of varying abilities to work together in areas of high interest, such as desktop publishing or social action research projects. When the "tie that binds" is a common interest, teachers can avoid "hardcore grouping" based on test scores yet allow students to stretch themselves.
Susan Jones, a 3rd grade teacher at James River Elementary School in Williamsburg, Va., uses several strategies to ensure that her gifted students are "not wandering the room, bored." For example, she makes language arts activities open-ended enough that they carry students "as far as their knowledge or interest allow them to go." She also gives "tiered" assignments, where all students explore the same topic, but the level of questioning or the expected product varies depending on students' abilities. And she allows many choices, so gifted students can "pick something more challenging that will hold their interest."
Too often, gifted students work with a specialist twice a week, and the rest of the time they're bored in the regular classroom, says Bessie Duncan, program supervisor for gifted and talented education for the Detroit (Mich.) public schools. To avoid this problem, classroom teachers should use techniques from gifted education (such as curriculum compacting) that will benefit all students, including the gifted, she advises. If the range of students' abilities is very wide, however, a continuum of services might still be required, she adds.
Classroom teachers need to identify and teach to their top students, Duncan believes. They should meet the needs of their brightest students and "bring the others along." Teaching to the top generates more excitement in the classroom and yields greater student success overall than does teaching to the middle, Duncan says. "I have not seen this fail."
What teachers do for gifted learners will be good for all learners, agrees Wanda Beavers-Looney, who teaches 2nd grade at Neinas Elementary School in Detroit, Mich. Teachers focus too much on students who need remediation and "leave the others out," she says. If they teach to their brightest students, "the other children will reach a higher level."
As a teacher with gifted students, "you have to challenge yourself," Beavers-Looney says. Besides helping children accelerate or pursue independent projects, she has worked one-on-one with students who were "really curious" about a certain subject. She has also tapped outside expertise when necessary to help children grow.
As teachers change their practices to accommodate gifted learners, the role of gifted-and-talented specialists is also changing: they are conducting fewer pullout sessions and providing more assistance to classroom teachers. "More and more, schools are looking at a `consulting teacher' model for the specialists," says Renzulli. Specialists are helping to "infuse high-end opportunities into the regular program" by providing instructional materials, showing teachers how to "compact" the curriculum, and working with small groups of students in the regular classroom.
De-emphasizing pullout programs spurs classroom teachers to do more for gifted students, Glascock maintains. "When our resource teachers had a pullout program, the regular classroom teachers' perception was that all the needs of the highly able students were being met," he says. Now these teachers feel more responsible for challenging gifted students.
Doubts and Fears
Some advocates for gifted children, however, doubt that teachers with diverse students will be able to meet the needs of the brightest among them. They fear that gifted students will be overlooked as teachers concentrate their efforts on students who are struggling, and that gifted students will be drafted to serve as tutors to their classmates rather than working to their own potential.
Schools need to match instruction to the ability levels of students, and it is "almost impossible" to do that for gifted students within a typical classroom, says William Gustin of the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University. Addressing all students' needs is "an overwhelming task" for a teacher with 30 or more diverse students, he says.
For gifted students placed in regular classrooms, "a continuous progress approach has the most potential," Gustin says. If the school is flexible enough, students can move ahead through out-of-grade scheduling. But "overcoming that lockstep" is very difficult, he warns. The worst thing educators can do, Gustin believes, is to lock gifted students into the typical "one-day-at-a-time" instructional approach, which they find "incredibly boring."
Whether a gifted child can be well served in a regular classroom depends on how gifted the child is, Silverman says. "It's an option for children who are mildly gifted and talented in specific domains, not for children who are highly gifted," she contends.
Like children with disabilities, gifted children need "a continuum of services," Silverman says. The top two percent of students need acceleration: Because these students can learn two years of knowledge and skills in one year, the regular classroom "wastes half their time." For students with I.Q. scores of 145 or higher, special classes are the best option to promote their academic, social, and emotional growth. The most advanced students need mentorships and acceleration opportunities such as taking college classes while in middle school.
To say we're meeting the needs of gifted students in regular classrooms is "really a joke," Silverman says. "It's very rare that that's happening." Teachers are not being given mandatory training in how to differentiate the curriculum, and gifted students are being denied opportunities to interact with peers with similar abilities, she says. For the most part, putting these students in regular classrooms is "an excuse for not serving them," Silverman charges.
Some gifted children's needs may be met in the regular classroom, if certain "nonnegotiables" are in place, says Joyce VanTassel-Baska, director of the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary. First, the curriculum must be high-powered. Second, the teacher must be willing to use flexible grouping so gifted students can work alone, with one another, and with the whole group. Third, the teacher must use good "diagnostic and prescriptive techniques" to ensure that advanced students aren't just marking time—allowing them to shorten the time they spend on core subjects, for example. These conditions are "absolutely essential," she says.
It's important to keep a continuum of programs and services for gifted students, VanTassel-Baska emphasizes. The regular classroom should not be the only option; pullout programs, special classes, and separate centers and schools are also "quite appropriate."
"The evidence is very sparse" that differentiating instruction is feasible for classroom teachers, VanTassel-Baska says. "I think it would be great if that were possible, but my optimism is tempered by the reality of past efforts" to individualize instruction, which did not prosper. "We shouldn't put all our eggs in the basket of teacher training," she asserts. Educators should also devote some of their energy to maintaining alternatives for gifted students.
Social Benefits?
Opinion is divided on whether gifted students derive social benefits from being placed in regular classrooms. Experts also disagree on where gifted students themselves would prefer to be educated.
In regular classrooms, gifted students see the importance of social skills and learn how to work with the nongifted, says Tina Anselmi, who teaches civics and world geography at Toano Middle School in Toano, Va. "That's going to be life for them in the workplace," she says. Almost all the gifted students at her school are "very satisfied" in regular classrooms, Anselmi says. They don't want to be put into separate classes: "They want to be part of the school."
According to surveys, gifted students like being with their nongifted peers, Duncan says. Although they enjoy special opportunities to develop their strengths, they feel uncomfortable when they are kept separate all the time. Being seen as "putting yourself above the group" makes students uncomfortable, Duncan says, especially in the African-American and Hispanic communities. If students can be smart and part of the group at the same time, they will not hide their abilities, she believes.
Gifted children sometimes aren't as willing as nongifted children to help others, says Beavers-Looney, and sometimes "they like to be with the smart group only." Being in the regular classroom helps them understand the "give-and-take" that is part of every community.
But Silverman vigorously disputes the claim that gifted students learn social skills in regular classrooms. "There is no evidence to support that," she says. Actually, the more that children differ from others in their play activities and vocabulary, the more they are ostracized by the group. "The social self-concept of gifted kids is abysmal when they're placed in regular classes," and much higher when they are in gifted classes, she says. Good social development stems from being with similar children. Gifted students who have experienced such settings "much prefer" them to regular classrooms, she adds.
VanTassel-Baska agrees. "Most gifted and talented children will not develop well socially and emotionally until they're with peers," she says. In regular classes, gifted students often don't feel safe; they are threatened for being who they are. Rather than learning how to relate well to others, they learn "how to mask who they are."
What matters is not where gifted students are taught, but the quality of instruction they receive, says James Gallagher of the University of North Carolina. He notes that the philosophy that diverse youngsters should be grouped together hasn't yet extended to encompass diverse age levels. Yet if it did, gifted students could more easily work at their own level.
"We have not perceived education as mandatory individual growth but as meeting a standard," says Carol Ann Tomlinson of the University of Virginia. Unfortunately, this standard is simply not suitable for a student who's advanced, she says. If educators look only at commonalities and deny differences, they will seek one-size-fits-all solutions that meet few students' needs. (Tomlinson has written a book on this topic for ASCD's "how-to" series, which will be published later this year.)
In the debate over gifted education, Gustin sees a clash of values. One side in the debate stresses the value of children's learning to understand human differences and to accept others who are different from themselves. "A certain amount of [emphasis on] this is good and honorable," he believes. But that value must be weighed against the importance of realizing each student's intellectual potential. The challenge facing educators is to determine where to strike the balance.
