Empowering Gifted Educators as Change Agents

A Playbook for Equity-Driven Professional Learning

Katie D. Lewis, Angela M. Novak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032045689
  9781032051383
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000574456
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Through an accessible, research-based program of professional learning, this critical resource empowers gifted educators to become change agents for equity in their classroom, school, or district.

Designed for practitioners seeking to increase the rate of identification and retention of underserved gifted populations, this book guides readers through the Four Zones of Equity-Driven Professional Learning Model, a practical set of tools specific to the field of gifted education. Readers will develop an all-inclusive professional learning plan specific to their teachers' understanding of cultural norms, guiding participants to gain insight into the characteristics of gifted marginalized students, coaching faculty in ways to increase classroom support, and equipping educators with the tools necessary to build effective partnerships with parents and communities.

Ideal for gifted educators, coordinators, and administrators, this playbook is packed with practical ideas, strategies, and activities to bring meaningful, equity-driven professional learning to life.

1 The Need for Equity-Driven Professional Learning

DOI: 10.4324/9781003196204-2

Michael Bennett, a football defensive end and author, shares his thoughts on the importance of activism:

If you don’t ask why, you’ll never be attacked or criticized. No one is going to go after you or your family. But if you don’t ask why, nothing, not a damn thing, is ever going to change. I think that’s the difference between philanthropy and activism. Philanthropy is this kind of life-saving work. Activism is when you ask why this work needs to be done in the first place.¹

Why start with a quote on activism? Why are we writing a book about equity-driven professional learning? What is going on in gifted education that this is even necessary? From its inception as a field, gifted education has not been equitable; but for every step forward we’ve taken, how many steps have we taken back?

Underrepresentation in Gifted Education

It is no secret that marginalized groups are often underrepresented in gifted education. In 2017–18, the Office of Civil Rights reported that there were 3,255,040 identified gifted learners enrolled in gifted programming across the United States. Digging deeper into the numbers, it quickly becomes apparent that marginalized student populations are missing from the report. This concept of missingness refers to the “students who could/should have been identified, based on the percentages identified in each state on average (lower boundary) and at the higher rate of identification in non-Title I schools (upper boundary).”² The causes of missingness stem from two areas: first, a student attends a school which does not identify any gifted students; or second, the student belongs to a marginalized population. The question that remains is: Why? Why are about 40% to 50% of US public school students missing from gifted identification? The answer is complicated.

Barriers

Access is the first barrier. Lack of access is due to a myriad of reasons. First, roughly one-third of US children attend a school district that does not identify any gifted students.³ In this situation, the lack of access impacts all gifted learners. Another factor is the socioeconomic status of the school district. Wealthier schools identify more students than Title I schools. Ethnicity factors into access as well, since children who are Asian or White are significantly more likely to be identified for gifted and talented programs than students who are identified as American Indian/Alaska Native American, Black, Latinx, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or two or more races.

Issues in Identification

Within the school, identification measures have long been recognized as a problem zone. Are the tests valid and reliable? For all student populations? Do the tests paint a true picture of the students or just a snapshot in time? Teachers, themselves, are often a barrier to access. (Wait, teachers? I know, right?) Classroom teachers are often the first point of contact during the initial referral process in gifted services. These issues in identification are a substantial barrier to achieving proportionality—equity—in gifted programs.

Standardized Assessments

Standardized assessments, in theory, offer an objective measure of student academic intelligence which can be compared across students of similar age or grade-level groups. While standardized tests are viewed as valuable for this objectivity, too often they result in biased test scores for students of lower socioeconomic status, English language learners, or students from minoritized groups. The causes of these lower test scores are often tied to culture and background knowledge and based on the personal biases of the test creators.

Not all students have had the same exposure to daily life experiences, travel, cultural experiences, reading materials, or academic coaching as either the test creators or the children for whom the test creators are designing the test. Without these same experiences or the opportunity to learn about the phenomenon that may be on the instrument, some children enter the assessment with an advantage purely based on who they are, not their innate ability or aptitude. Others have a corresponding disadvantage and are less prepared to take the standardized assessment. For example, if an assessment shows a picture of a spinning toy and asks the student to identify it, some students may not recognize it as a top, never having been exposed to this type of toy, whether due to culture, economics, or place. The item could be specifically culturally biased, such as a test question asking a student to identify the month that we celebrate New Year’s Day, which can have varying correct answers depending on the students’ culture.

Which Answer Would You Choose?

Q: When do we celebrate New Year’s Day?

1. A. October
2. B. January
3. C. February
4. D. March

What Is Biased About New Year’s Day?

Chinese New Year is typically celebrated in February, but it can occur between January 21 and February 20. So, either B or C could be correct. Anyone still following the Early Roman calendar (Et tu, Brute?) holds their New Year’s festivities on March 1, and those of Wiccan faith gather and share blessings on Samhain, October 31. Not only do people celebrate New Year’s Day on different days, not everybody (note the “we”) celebrates holidays (Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example); the same with date changes and events such as Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving. Specificity and clarity are important in assessment, rather than the assumption of “White Christian holiday of…,” but even more crucial is the deletion of these biased questions.

Nonverbal assessments were espoused as the answer to discrimination. There’s no reading! There’s nothing for students to have to muddle through; it’s a level playing field! However, there is no culture-free or bias-free assessment. Assessments have creators, and humans are not culture-free or bias-free. If a nonverbal assessment shows a picture of a nut, grass, a worm, and a fish, a picture of a squirrel, and then a directional arrow pointing to the squirrel’s mouth, the test is nonverbal. The intention is clear: these are four food choices; which one does the squirrel eat? If I, Angela, looked at this test item, I would think: easy-peasy, no bias. A squirrel is obviously a cute little woodland critter. Squirrels climb trees, they eat nuts, that seems reasonable. But then I remember a story Katie told me, of when she and her family moved from the Mexico/Texas border to Pennsylvania. And her kids (12 weeks, 2, 4, and 5) saw a squirrel for the first time in their lives and the eldest asked “Mom what is that thing?” I’ve clearly forgotten my formative years on the Oklahoma plains and become a full-fledged East-Coaster… who needs to check that East Coast bias! (Next time you see Katie, ask her about her eldest’s first writing prompt after moving from TX to PA in December and starting school in January—How to Build a Snowman!) Even nonverbal assessments, such as the Cognitive Abilities Test nonverbal subscale (CogAT-Nv) and the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test (NNAT) may result in score differences. These tests are often the go-to identification choice for districts and it should be no surprise then, that underrepresentation is often an outcome. Thus, these assessment tools may not be as valid or reliable when evaluating underrepresented student populations.

Teachers as Gatekeepers

Teachers are asked to complete a checklist of gifted characteristics, rating the student on their level of gifted behaviors. These standardized checklists are composed of the typically recognized gifted behaviors such as an independent learner, question asker, eager participant in class. But what happens when the teacher doesn’t recognize the nontraditional (read: non-White) characteristics of gifted students? What if the student prefers to work in groups or doesn’t seek out leadership roles in the classroom? What if the teacher sees a bilingual student’s language learning as a deficit, rather than their ability to learn in two languages being the asset it is? More often than not, the student simply isn’t referred. Students who come from culturally diverse backgrounds often present giftedness through what teachers view as nontraditional ways.

These checklists—teacher, parent, or student—offer one checkpoint in the identification process, and it is important to remember that it is just one point (assuming we are following best practices). The goal of these checklists is often to serve as the initial checkpoint: the referral. A referral or nomination indicates that the teacher feels there may be something there or a child may be showing signs that may indicate giftedness. With a referral, the teacher is opening the door for a student to be evaluated for gifted programming. You may have heard the terms referral and recommendation used interchangeably. It is important to note that a recommendation is different from a referral. After the identification process is completed and the student has been fully evaluated, then the gifted education team makes a recommendation for services. At this point, the recommendation serves as the official decision of the gifted education team. A teacher could potentially still act as the gatekeeper, but at this later point in the identification process there are several data items versus a referral, which is often only the teacher’s checklist.

While there are some standardized gifted characteristic checklists available, districts may opt to create their own checklist or evaluation tool. District-created tools can be a pragmatic approach for creating effective identification tools for marginalized students. By creating a localized instrument, districts can account for their student demographics and apply localized norms. However, just as when you create an assessment for your own classroom, one must be cognizant of the validity, reliability, and fairness of the assessment. It is very easy to create an assessment that doesn’t measure what you think it will measure. Validity answers the question: Does this assessment measure the concepts and competencies from the unit? In this case, the validity of the district-created tool would measure the characteristics of giftedness grounded in gifted education literature. Validity can easily miss the mark if the questions are not based on the research. Reliability refers to the consistency of the results—consider when the test is administered, are students performing at the same level or are there questions that the majority of the class misses? Think about Chick-fil-A: every time you go through the drive-through, the sweet tea, the fries, and the nuggets are always the same—this is reliability. Fairness takes into consideration the content and context of the assessment and the students, and whether there are potential biases that would impact the outcomes of the instrument. An effective assessment is valid, reliable, and fair—but just like shooting at a target, it is very easy to miss the mark—creating an assessment that is either valid, fair, or reliable. Keep working, keep practicing, until you hit the bullseye; all are essential. District-created tools need to be evaluated for fairness, reliability, and validity before being depended upon as a measure for student identification.

This brings us to the ultimate question, which educators wrestle with: Is there a perfect tool for identifying gifted learners? Unfortunately, there’s not a perfect tool. There are too many movable parts to be considered when selecting the perfect tool to have a one-size-fits-all approach. Districts have tried this—and the end result? Underrepresentation. Instead, you must select the tools which best meet the needs of your student population in your district. Factors to consider include the demographics of your district, availability of resources to administer and evaluate the assessments, as well as what kinds of services are available for identified students. Consider short-term and long-term goals, as well as take an honest look at your current identification process for areas of strengths and needs improvements. Teachers are great at networking and sharing what works—identification shouldn’t be any different—ask your colleagues, and go to conferences to learn about new tools. But, always keep your district’s specific needs in mind. Remember, you shouldn’t be afraid to make changes to the identification process already in place—just because we have always done something one way doesn’t mean that’s the best or only way.

Issues in Programming

Beyond the identification stage, missingness of gifted students continues to plague gifted programming in retention as well. Once students are identified for gifted programming, why don’t they stay? Let’s take a look at some of the factors impacting retention of gifted learners. Ideally, we should adjust our identification process to allow for more students to enter the gifted program; yet, as a practice, gifted education hasn’t yet moved toward making adjustments to accommodate these same learners in the gifted program. Rather than fixing the problem, we have, in essence, kicked the can down the road.

Programmatic Match to Identification Methods

“They” say to write what you know… two of Angela’s kiddos are 2e, or twice-exceptional, children. To protect their anonymity (not only current but future) we’ll use they/their pronouns and a pseudonym of Jay to tell this story. Jay is highly gifted, with coexisting exceptionalities of ADHD, or as Dr. Matt Fugate terms it, ADHG;⁴ they qualify for speech services and occupational therapy for motor skills, and were diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. Jay was identified in one state as gifted in English, then moved to another state, where they were identified in Math, then moved to another district within the same state, where the district took the identification from both the previous state and district and identified and served Jay in both Math and English. In this new district the identification methods included a standardized ability test score at the 98th percentile to qualify in both areas or above, or the 95th percentile or above on that same test with corresponding state test scores at the highly proficient rate and teacher rating forms to qualify in individual areas. The ability test and state tests had verbal and quantitative sections; the ability test also had a nonverbal section. Jay enjoyed the gifted pullout class at first, always loved the Math pullout class, but then suddenly shut down in the English pullout class. They refused to do the work, they didn’t want to go, and the teacher was emailing Angela with concerns, so Angela asked wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Endorsements
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Need for Equity-Driven Professional Learning
• 2 Introduction to the Four Zone Equity-Driven Professional Learning Model
• 3 Seven Guiding Principles for Equity Driven Professional Learning
• 4 Zone 1: Increasing Educators’ Understanding of Cultural Norms and Equity
• 5 Zone 2: Increasing Educators’ Understanding of Characteristics of Gifted Marginalized Students
• 6 Zone 3: Increasing Classroom Support for Educators and Gifted Marginalized Students
• 7 Zone 4: Increasing and Developing Partnerships with Parents and the Community
• 8 Professional Learning is an Iterative Process