Is a federal mandate the answer? If so, what was the question? (Advocating for the Gifted).

The field of gifted education has long been preoccupied with a particular, narrowly delineated problem: In what ways might the field achieve broad, federal statutory protection for gifted children and youth such that they may pursue legal challenges to gain access to special, ability-appropriate programming? The problem as given has resulted in a decades-long conversation and resulting focus on a single solution--a federal mandate--as the only means for resolving inadequacies and disparities in publicly available opportunities for gifted children. One objective of this article is to reframe the question.

We begin by reviewing the seemingly perpetual cycle of legal arguments for special rights for gifted children. We then reframe the major problems facing the field through creative problem solving (CPS; Isaksen, Dorval & Treffinger, 1994). We address a growing body of evidence on the availability and distribution of opportunities for gifted children, noting that the central issue is that opportunities for gifted children are neither adequately nor equitably distributed by geography, race, or socioeconomic status. We then explore alternative frameworks for understanding the concept of equity; underlying sources of inequity in public education; and the relationship between inequity and local, state, and federal policies. We use the information to assist us in reframing the problem. We conclude with policy recommendations relative to the appropriateness of a federal mandate for resolving inequities. (1)

Problems with Legal Protection Frameworks

Federal Constitutional Arguments

One frequently employed legal argument is that gifted and talented students are deserving of special programming opportunities on the basis of "equal protection" under the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution (Brown, 1997; Ford, Russo, & Harris III, 1993, 1994; Gallagher, 1994; Passow & Rudnitski, 1994). To apply the equal protection clause, plaintiffs' council must be able to show that plaintiffs are being treated differently by a state action NOT to provide them with special programs commensurate with their abilities. (2) Furthermore, it must be convincingly demonstrated that this different treatment (failure to provide ability-appropriate programming) significantly disadvantages those gifted students. Even if plaintiffs were able to indicate that they were being treated differently by way of being treated the same, defendants--states or local districts--would merely have to provide a reason, or "rational basis" for the differential treatment in court. That is, to successfully fend off the plaintiff' s equal protection challenge, the district or state need only show that the differential treatment is not arbitrary or capricious. (3)

Occasionally, gifted education advocates invoke either the claim that gifted children should be considered a "protected class" or that depriving gifted children of an ability-appropriate education is depriving them of a constitutionally guaranteed "fundamental right" (Brown, 1997; Ford, Russo, & Harris III, 1993, 1994). One reason for attempting such arguments is that when a state makes a law or policy that either treats "suspect classifications" (4) differently (e.g., race-based admissions policies or racially segregated schools) or deprives someone of a "fundamental right," then the defendants --the state--must show a "compelling state interest" rather than a "rational basis" for their actions.

Only race, religion, alienage, and national origin are presently considered suspect classifications in federal equal protection litigation, warranting the highest level of scrutiny on defendants' policies. (5) To suggest that the Supreme Court might accept intellectual or creative and artistic ability differences as suspect classifications is a pipe dream at best. Historically the Supreme Court has been reluctant to expand suspect classifications and apply strict scrutiny, refusing "wealth," for example, as a suspect classification in a case involving children attending property poor districts in Texas (San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez [411 U.S. 1 (1973)]). Early federal equal protection challenges in district courts regarding children with disabilities, though ultimately successful, did not warrant, nor request heightened (strict scrutiny) review. (6) Given the courts' general reluctance to expand suspect classifications, and lacking precedents regarding children across the ability continuum, it is hardly likely that the court would accept gifted children as a group needing protection under the federal constitution.

That a special education for gifted children, or an ability-appropriate education could ever be found to be a "fundamental right" is also questionable. To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to recognize any quality or quantity of education as a fundamental right (San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez [411 U.S. 1 (1973)]). In Plyler v. Doe [457 U.S. 202 (1982)], the U.S. Supreme Court did accept that it was inappropriate for the state of Texas to deny outright the participation of illegal alien children in public education. The court, however, did not go so far as to recognize education as a fundamental right, nor did it accept illegal alienage as a suspect classification. In a subsequent case (Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265 [1986]), the court noted that neither Rodriguez nor Plyler "definitively settled the questions whether a minimally adequate education was a fundamental right and whether a statute alleged to discriminatorily infringe that right should be accorded heightened equal protection review." Yet, "minimally adequate" is not equivalent to "ability appropriate."

A new wave of arguments addresses race-based disparities in the availability of gifted programs and their participation rates. These arguments suggest that because fewer minority students have access to and/or participate in state and local district sponsored gifted programs, they may be able to use the equal protection clause to gain greater access to programs. Two major problems stand in the way of this argument. First, in order for plaintiffs to have a federal equal protection claim, they must be able to show that the state policies of providing programs or for selecting students for participation in programs intentionally discriminate on the basis of race, not merely that opportunities fall disparately across students by race, a concept known as "disparate impact." Second, this argument presumes that the state remedy to the problem must be to make programs available to all qualified students. However, the state is not legally obligated to provide such programs to begin with. In fact, the simplest approach to achieving uniformly available, nondiscriminatory services would be to eradicate gifted programs altogether.

Federal Statutes and Special Populations

Two other legal strategies are frequently discussed as potential avenues for staging legal challenges for appropriate programming for gifted children. The first is the use of disability legislation, including the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (20 U.S.C. [subsection] 1400-1485). The second is the use of civil rights legislation, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. [section] 2000d).

The only circumstance under which a gifted child's rights may be addressed under IDEA, or any disability legislation (The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 [[section] 504] (7) or The Americans with Disabilities Act (8)), is when the gifted child is also identified as having a disability named in the latter legislation. Under such circumstances, however, plaintiffs may only argue for appropriate educational services (under IDEA) or nondiscriminatory or exclusionary treatment with respect to his or her disabilities. As an illustration, in Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley (458 U.S. 176 [1982]), a case where attorneys for a child with both a hearing impairment and above average intelligence argued that the schools should be responsible for maximizing the child's potential with respect to his or her strengths as well as accommodating his or her disability, the court noted that the public schools' responsibility is to provide a "basic floor of opportunity" and not to "maximize the potential" of each student.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 indicates that policies of agencies receiving Federal funding may not intentionally discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin (42 U.S.C. [section] 2000d). Title VI arguments are similar to equal protection arguments regarding differential treatment by race and ethnicity. Like the equal protection clause, Title VI may protect equal access to gifted programs by race, ethnicity, or national origin, where unequal access is shown to be intentional. Title VI, like the 14th amendment, makes no guarantee that gifted programs should exist to begin with.

Some confusion remains regarding the question of intent to discriminate under Title VI. In Lau v. Nichols (414 U.S. 563 [1974]), the U.S. Supreme Court used the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as the basis for a judgment that a state be required to provide students with limited English language skills with special programming (e.g., that the policy of not providing such services was discriminatory). The court made no attempt to imply a constitutional equal protection basis for its decision. The court also did not suggest that the policy in question was intentionally discriminatory, but rather that the policy "disparately impacted" individuals on the basis of national origin, where "disparate impact" is prohibited not by Title VI itself, but by departmental regulations promulgated under [section] 602 of Title VI. A relatively recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Alexander v. Sandoval (197 F.3d 484 [2001]) raised several questions regarding the use of Title VI (and [section] 602 implementing regulations) of the Civil Rights Act as the basis for Lau, noting that the intent of Title VI was to prohibit intentional discrimination, not to provide individuals with the right to seek action against policies that happen to affect them disparately. (9)

State Constitutional Arguments

State constitutional challenges provide a potential avenue for pursuing special opportunities for gifted children, though the outlook does not appear more favorable. Each state constitution contains an education clause, which refers to the state legislature's responsibility toward providing public education. Such phrases range from requiring "thorough and efficient" systems of public education, to "uniform systems of schooling," to making "suitable provision" for the funding of public education. Education clauses of state constitutions have been successfully used on several occasions as the basis for challenging the equity and/or adequacy (suitability, uniformity or thoroughness, and efficiency) of funding for public schools.

Plaintiffs in some states have presented adequacy arguments for suitable provision of differentiated programming for special populations not protected under IDEA. In one case, the State Supreme Court of Washington affirmed that, while the state may be responsible for providing aid to districts to serve populations such as limited English proficient students (due to existing federal precedents), the state did not have a similar obligation to provide aid for gifted education (Seattle School District No. 1. v. State, 585 P.2d 71 [Wash. 1978]). In a recent Wyoming case, the State Supreme Court was called upon to evaluate a series of funding adjustments implemented as part of sweeping reforms [Wyoming v. Campbell, No. 00-120 (Wyo. 2001), at 84]. While the Wyoming Court made no specific judgment as to what constituted an adequate or equitable education for the gifted child, the court did recognize the need to provide supplemental services for gifted children by acknowledging expert testimony to that effect (though this was not contested by the legislature).

Education clauses of state constitutions have been used to argue against providing special services to gifted children. In the course of a written debate with Joseph Renzulli in a publication of the National Middle Schools Association, Paul George (1997) argued that gifted programs are unconstitutional differentiation of educational services under Florida's "uniform" education clause. Then again, following this logic, so would all differentiated programming be.

State Statutory Issues

As discussed extensively in the work of Coleman and Gallagher (1995) and the more recent work of Baker and Friedman-Nimz (2001a, 2001b), state statutes regarding legal rights of and distribution of resources for gifted children vary widely, making generalizations difficult. Even in cases where due process and programming rights of gifted children appear protected by strong state policy, with no formal federal protections backing state policies, the state retains full discretion over the interpretation and application of its policies (Roe v. Pennsylvania, 683 F. Supp. 929 [E.D. Pa. 1986], Centennial School District v. Department of Education 539 A.2nd 785 [Pa. 1988]). In Centennial in particular, "The court made clear that the district's obligation was not to maximize the student's achievement, nor to become a `Harvard or a Princeton to all who have IQ's over 130,' but the district did have an obligation `to bring their talents to as complete fruition as our facilities allow" (as cited in Imber & van Geel, 2000, p. 352).

Summary

The lack of viable constitutional arguments combined with the lack of current federal statutory provisions and variation in state statutes for gifted children provide a basis for promoting new statutory protection for gifted children. There are other compelling reasons, however, for avoiding this temptation. State or federal legislation designed to classify and protect the rights of a finite set of students, grant what is referred to as a "positive right" to those students. Present federal policies grant such rights to students with specific disabilities (IDEA, RHA, ADA) and students with limited English proficiency (Equal Educational Opportunity Act (10)). Unfortunately, while the rights of unclassified students are formally "neutral," the outcome of creating positive rights for some, where resources are finite, is necessarily negative for others. A critical problem with litigation-based strategies for achieving equity for special populations is that they ultimately create divisive competition among defined student populations for access to finite educational resources, creating an unhealthy and ultimately nonproductive systemic tension, diverting attention from the central issue--providing suitable (ability-appropriate) educational opportunities to all students.

It is our opinion that nonlitigious strategies may ultimately be more productive and less divisive. However, a shift in emphasis first requires redefining the original problem statement. In the remainder of this article, we present alternative perspectives that do not necessarily negate the role of federal or state policies in solving the problems of gifted education, rather they redefine that role.

Reframing the Problem

We undertake this next section using creative problem solving (CPS; Isaksen, Dorval & Treffinger, 1994) as our framework and drawing from a body of research compiled over the last several years by Baker (1995; 2001a; 2001b), Baker and Richards (1998), and Baker and Friedman-Nimz (2001a, 2001b, 2002). The major issue at hand is that differentiated educational opportunities for gifted children are not uniformly nor even randomly distributed across states, local education agencies, schools, and students. Furthermore, it may be more productive for gifted education advocates to refrain from further solution-finding activities regarding the adoption of a federal mandate and return to the "mess" at hand:

MESS: The general state of availability of gifted and talented programs

Over the past several years we have gathered substantial data on the availability and distribution of opportunities for gifted children and the relationship of the distribution of opportunities to different state policy and governance structures. Below is a brief list of our pertinent findings:

DATA:

1. Gifted programs are neither neutrally nor uniformly distributed by race, geography or socioeconomic status (Baker, 2001a, 2001b; Baker and Friedman-Nimz, 2001a, 2002).

2. States with mandates tend to have higher percentages of schools offering programs, but states with mandates tend to have larger SES differences between schools with and schools without programs (11) (schools without programs tend to be lowest SES schools) (Baker & Friedman-Nimz, 2001a).

3. States providing aid to local districts for gifted programs tend to have higher percentages of schools offering programs, but states with such funding tend to have (a) larger SES differences between schools with and without programs, and (b) stronger relationships between school SES and numbers of students participating in gifted programs (12) (higher SES, more participants) (Baker & Friedman-Nimz, 2001a).

4. State funding for gifted education is generally neither equitably nor adequately distributed (Baker, 2001c; Baker & Friedman-Nimz, 2001b).

5. When states eliminate public school gifted programs on grounds of elitism, private fee-based programs prosper, creating a truly elitist outcome (Baker & Richards, 1998).

Among the emergent themes from our own data and findings of other researchers (Curley, 1991) we find that state policies can indeed make a difference relative to program availability, but sometimes state policies make the "wrong" difference with respect to the equitable distribution of opportunities for gifted children.

Though there are numerous problem statements and wide ranging policy solutions that might be addressed herein, space permits pursuing only one line of logic in the current article. Drawing from the abbreviated findings presented above, the following problem statement is one alternative to the original problem statement:

PROBLEM: In what ways might we develop policies to create more equitable and adequate distribution of opportunities for gifted children?

Conceptions of Equity

At this stage, we return to data gathering and briefly discuss alternative theoretical frameworks that guide our subsequent path toward potential ideas and solutions. Admittedly, the following frameworks emerged from years of equity litigation, but their application extends beyond the courtroom. Berne and Steifel (1984) provide a framework for evaluating equity pertaining to school finance systems and the distribution of educational resources to children. This framework consists of two major components: horizontal equity and vertical equity. Horizontal equity is the "equal treatment of equals," and vertical equity the "unequal treatment of unequals." Under the principle of horizontal equity, for example, students with comparable educational needs should receive comparable educational services, and under the principle of vertical equity, students with different educational needs should receive appropriately differentiated educational services.

Imber (1990) presents a similar perspective, using different terms: active and passive discrimination. Imber suggests that active discrimination is the different treatment of similarly situated students, whereas passive discrimination is the similar treatment of differently situated students. Thus, Imber's system is a description of the violations to Berne and Steifel's equity framework.

In addition to horizontal and vertical equity, Berne and Steifel (1984) discuss fiscal neutrality, or the extent to which the quality of education received by a child is associated with wealth or fiscal capacity characteristics of the community in which the child attends school. In a fiscally neutral system, the quality of a child's education should not be related to community wealth. Baker and Friedman-Nimz (2001a, 2002) apply a broadened conception of neutrality: that educational opportunities should be neutrally distributed with respect to all student characteristics not directly associated with educational need. Baker and Friedman-Nimz (2001a, 2002) caution, however, that neutrality does not translate directly to uniformity (though a uniform system is neutral). That is, it is possible for opportunities to vary randomly across students of different characteristics. Such variance would be neutral, but because there is variance, the system would not be uniform. Without variance, opportunities for experimentation and comparative evaluation cease to exist.

Economic Theory and Sources of Inequity

If the inequitable distribution of opportunities for gifted children is a central underlying problem, then we must have some basis for interpreting the sources of that inequity prior to moving toward idea and solution finding. That is, we must move beyond the symptoms that we have previously identified --problems in the distribution of opportunities--to the underlying processes that yield those symptoms. Ultimately, the most effective solutions are those that address underlying processes rather than symptoms. (13)

Present federal policies play a negligible role with respect to gifted programs and present state policies vary widely in the extent to which they govern and/or support gifted programming. As a result, most decisions regarding whether, how, and to what extent to provide special opportunities for gifted children occur at the local district level and are subject to local administrative and community preferences. Yet preferences alone do not dictate what schools may or may not provide.

One economic model suggests that the "demand for local public goods and services" is influenced by (a) the preferences of local voters, (b) the financial capacity of local voters to pay for additional goods and services, and (c) the unit price of additional goods and services as reflected in additional taxes, or the "tax price" (Bergstrom & Goodman, 1973). This model, the median voter model, has been applied extensively in education finance and economics literature to estimate how different communities set spending levels for their local public schools.

Voter preferences, fiscal capacity, and tax price vary widely from one school district to the next. Analyses have shown that districts with higher percentages of families with children in school tend to support higher local educational spending (preference differences), that districts with higher median family income tend to support higher local educational spending (fiscal capacity), and that districts with higher taxable property wealth tend to support higher local education spending (tax price). Baker (2001a; 2001b) also finds that tax price differences in Texas were associated specifically with the availability of gifted programs.

In sum, when left entirely in the hands of local voters, local educational opportunities such as gifted programs will vary with respect to both the preferences of local voters and their ability to purchase (combination of capacity and price) goods and services. The greater the variability in preferences and fiscal capacity of local voters, the greater the variability of opportunities across districts.

Toolkit of Policy Solutions to Equity Problems

The pure local model of education funding has all but vanished in U.S. public education, (14) due in part to years of state level constitutional litigation challenging disparate educational opportunities. However, it is not the litigation itself, but a distinct set of state policy tools (often implemented in response to litigation) and variants of those tools that have led to the more and less successful remedies to inequities. The two basic tools of state education policy are mandates and funding.

Mandates (legislative or regulatory): Impose a set of preferences from the higher level of governance to the lower level of governance. For example, state mandates requiring that local districts offer gifted programs impose a preference for gifted education on local school districts, whether consistent with or in opposition to the preferences of local voters.

State Aid/Funding: State aid to local districts creates either changes to local fiscal capacity to pay for services, or can be seen as a discount to the price of gifted education (depending on how the aid is allocated). With this in mind, it is important to understand that for funding to achieve equity, districts with different fiscal capacity, or facing different tax prices, require different levels of capacity support or price reduction.

Our data gathering efforts show the positive influence of standardizing preferences via mandates. However, our present belief is that state funding solutions are potentially more effective, in part because mandates alone do not guarantee local district capacity to provide programs of comparable quality. Rather, mandates merely guarantee some level of compliance on paper, such as documentation that local districts are doing "something" for gifted children with whatever resources are available. We believe that solutions that equalize price or capacity may produce positive outcomes regardless of the presence of solutions that equalize preferences, but that solutions that equalize preferences cannot and should never stand alone. That is, mandates without funding are significantly problematic, but funding without a mandate is less so.

Granting rights to a special population without providing resources to meet the needs of that population ensures encroachment on the rights of others and "crowding out" of available resources (Lankford & Wykoff, 1999). Arguably, state and federal mandates regarding education for students with disabilities and limited English proficiency have played some role in the reduction of opportunities for gifted children, especially in periods when economies lag and resources become scarce, such as the early 1990s, a period referred to by Renzulli and Reis as the "Quiet Crisis," a period where the economy and education spending in general were lagging.

We believe, for example, that well-designed state funding policies can provide comparable local capacity to purchase the appropriate number of well trained specialists, necessary materials, supplies, equipment, and transportation and support the costs associated with the use of school staff (classroom teachers, counselors, etc.), allowing local districts to offer adequate differentiated programming for gifted children and identify children who require such programming. This approach is largely neutral regarding debates over service delivery models, supporting either diagnostic testing and programmed instruction or talent development, for example. In addition, this approach continues to allow states to experiment with alternative funding policies, and states and local districts to experiment with alternative methods of program delivery and configurations of resources. With the present limited knowledge base on costs, effects, and ultimately cost-effectiveness of the various alternatives, we are in no position to advocate a single national preference for either finance policy or program delivery.

We recognize that balancing capacity and price differences alone may be insufficient for completely balancing or neutralizing the distribution of opportunities with respect to characteristics unassociated with educational need. Certainly, the political preferences of local communities are not always aligned with educational needs of students living in those communities. As such, sufficiently flexible state mandates may serve as a secondary course of action.

Indeed, mandate and funding tools are available to the federal government, but the federal government has displayed a consistent historical preference for mandates and aversion to consistent or adequate funding. For example, since implementation of P.L. 94-142 in 1975 (now IDEA), federal legislators have continually failed to approach the targeted 40% level of support for special education programs. Similarly, Title VII programs (under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA), which help support programs for limited English proficient students, affected schools in only 112 of 15,842 (1995-96) reporting data to the Common Core of Data of the National Center for Education Statistics.

Conclusions: Solutions and Plans for Action

In conclusion, our current preference is for creative use of state level funding to enhance the distribution of opportunities for gifted children rather than further discussion of federal mandates and legal action. We concur with Landrum, Katsiyannis, and DeWaard (1998), who assert that programs require continuous public advocacy and legislative and regulatory activity by all levels of government, especially at the state level. This means shifting the energy of gifted education advocates and lobbyists toward informing state legislators of the special educational needs of gifted children and appropriate programming models for meeting those needs. One potentially effective approach is active dissemination of research and advocacy materials through outlets familiar to state legislators, including the National Council of State Legislators (www.ncsl.org) and Education Commission on the States (www.ecs.org).

For researchers and policy analysts, this means validating the effectiveness of specific models and interventions for meeting the needs of gifted children and analysis of the costs of providing those interventions under varied circumstances. That is, researchers must provide advocates with useful information they can apply to creating viable, accountability-oriented plans of action--knowledge of program outcomes, and knowledge of their costs.

Finally, we continue to endorse the strategy of applying our critical thinking skills toward evaluating potential solutions to problems already stated. A thorough understanding of the problem leads to selecting an aspect of the "mess" that would be most amenable to a creative problem-solving process. The risk is that the same solutions are perpetually regenerated, and that opportunities for uncovering new, perhaps more durable and useful alternatives are overlooked. Thus is it critical to apply our creative, divergent thinking skills toward: (a) identifying new perspectives on old problems; (b) gathering and exploring available data and theories from within and outside of the self-imposed conceptual boundaries of the field of gifted education; and (c) generating and evaluating a plethora of new and novel state and federal policy solutions for the ensured future of gifted education.

(1) Unfortunately, due to space constraints, we are not able to fully explore the plethora of possibilities that might emerge from the divergent phases of idea and solution finding, Rather than giving shallow treatment to multiple options, we choose to provide greater depth on one type of solution, but hope that this article may serve as a stimulus for additional options.

(2) Where state action is defined as any explicit or implicit policy or action of any state agency or official (see <<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/18.html#3>>)

(3) The legal standard in this type of case is called the "rational basis test" and is the least stringent test applied in equal protection challenges. See Imber & Van Geel (2000), p. 188. The burden is on plaintiffs to show that the state's policy does not serve a legitimate purpose or is not related to a legitimate state goal. The burden on the state, or defendant, is merely to show that there is a reason, or "rational basis," for the policy. In the hypothetical case of the gifted child in the regular classroom, the state might argue that its primary responsibility is to provide a basic floor of opportunity to all children. As such, allocating additional resources to gifted children limits the state's ability to raise others to that basic floor.

(4) The phrase "suspect class" is an important concept in equal protection litigation. As discussed above, when the court recognizes that a "suspect class" has been treated differently by a state action, "strict scrutiny," or the need for the state to show a "compelling interest" for its actions, is invoked.

(5) Gender-based policies fall in a middle ground between strict scrutiny and rational basis.

(6) Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth, 334 F. Supp. 1257 (E.D. Pa. 1971). Mills v. Board of Education, 348 F. Supp. 866 (D.D.C. 1972).

(7) 29 U.S.C. [subsection] 701 et seq.

(8) 42 U.S.C. [subsection] 12101-12213.

(9) In response to the Sandoval decision, plaintiffs in a series of similar "disparate impact" cases have turned to Section 1983 (42 U.S.C. [section] 1983) as a potential pathway for enforcing Title VI disparate impact regulations. Also, while the Sandoval case suggests that individuals may not use Title VI [section] 602 implementing regulations to challenge agencies receiving federal funding, the Federal departments overseeing the operations of those agencies may opt to withhold Federal funding in accordance with implementing regulations.

(10) 20 U.S.C. [section] 1703(f)

(11) Evidence on this latter point is somewhat mixed, depending on statistical modeling strategies employed.

(12) Again, evidence on the latter points of state aid stimulating socio-economic related disparities is mixed.

(13) This view is a central premise of the field of System Dynamics Modeling which emphasizes construction and analysis of computer simulation models of processes over analysis of the data output of systems (though both are necessary). Such simulation models of processes can be used to test policy solutions. System Dynamics Modeling provides a rich complement to creative problem solving as both an educational tool and policy analysis tool. See <<sysdyn.mit.edu>> (MIT System Dynamics in Education Project) for related readings.

(14) New Hampshire being the last bastion of pure local control until the 1997 State Supreme Court decision. Claremont Sch. Dist. v. Governor, 703 A.2d 1353 (N.H. 1997).

REFERENCES

Baker, B. D. (1995). The economic health of gifted education in three northeastern states. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children, ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education.

Baker, B. D. (2001a). Measuring the outcomes of state policies for gifted education: An equity analysis of Texas school districts. Gifted Child Quarterly, 45 (1), 4-15.

Baker, B. D. (2001b). Gifted children in the current policy and fiscal context. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23 (3), 229-250.

Baker, B. D. (2001c). Living on the edges of state school funding policies: The plight of at-risk, limited English proficient and gifted children. Educational Policy 15 (5) 699-723.

Baker, B. D., & Friedman-Nimz, R. C. (2001a). State policies and equal opportunity: The example of gifted education. (under review--available on request).

Baker, B. D. & Friedman-Nimz, R. C. (2001b). Gifted children, vertical equity and state school finance policies. Working paper, Gifted Education Policy Series, University of Kansas School of Education. http://www.soe.ukans.edu/faculty/baker/gifted.htm (accessed August 22, 2002)

Baker, B. D. & Friedman-Nimz, R. C. (2002). Determinants of the availability of opportunities for gifted children: Evidence from NELS `88. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 1 (1) 52-71.

Baker, B. D., & Richards, C. E. (1998). Equity through vouchers: The special case of gifted children. Educational Policy, 12 (4), 363-379.

Bergstrom, T., & Goodman, R. (1973). Private demands for public goods. American Economic Review, 63 (3), 380-397.

Berne, R. & Steifel, L. (1984). The measurement of equity in school finance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.

Brown, C. N. (1997). Gifted identification as a constitutional issue. Roeper Review, 19 (3), 157-160.

Coleman, M. R., & Gallagher, J. J. (1995). State identification policies: Gifted students from special populations. Roeper Review, 17 (4), 268-275.

Curley, J. (1991). Financing programs for education of the gifted in New York State. Journal of Education Finance, 16 (3), 332-47.

Ford, D. Y., Russo, C. J., & Harris III, J. J. (November/December 1993). The quest for equity in gifted education. Gifted Child Today, 8-11.

Ford, D. Y., Russo, C. J., & Harris III, J. J. (1994). Meeting the educational needs of the gifted: A legal imperative. Roeper Review, 17 (4), 224-228.

Gallagher, J. J. (February 26, 1994). An action plan: Follow-up on U.S. Department of Education report on National Excellence. Meetings in Washington, D.C. Unpublished paper.

George, P. S. (1997). Middle schools, ability grouping and gifted students. In T. O. Erb (Ed.), Dilemmas in talent development in the middle grades: Two views. (pp. 9-42). Columbus, OH: National Middle Schools Association.

Imber, M. (1990) A Typology of Discrimination in Education. Readings on Equal Education, Vol. 10. AMS Press

Imber, M., & van Geel, T. (2000). Education law (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Isaksen, S. G., Dorval, K. B., & Treffinger, D. J. (1994). Creative approaches to problem solving. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Landrum, M. S., Katsiyannis, A., & DeWaard, J. (1998). A national survey of current legislative and policy trends in gifted education: Life after the National Excellence report. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 21(3), 352-371.

Lankford, H., & Wyckoff, J. (1999). The allocation of resources to special education and regular instruction in New York State. In T. B. Parrish, J. G. Chambers & C. M. Guarino (Eds.), Funding Special Education (pp. 147-175). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Passow, A. H., & Rudnitski, R. A. (1994). Transforming policy to enhance educational services for the gifted. Roeper Review, 16 (4), 271-275.

Bruce Baker is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Leadership at the University of Kansas. Dr. Baker specializes in the areas of school finance policy and the economics of education. His recent research can be found in Educational Policy, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, The Economics of Education Review, The Journal of Education Finance and Gifted Child Quarterly. He is currently working on a graduate level textbook on school finance policy. Reva Friedman-Nimz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Research and Special Education at the University of Kansas, where she is responsible for degree and graduate certificate programs in gifted child education. Most recent books are Talent in Context (edited with Karen B. Rogers) and Talents Unfolding (edited with Bruce M. Shore), both published by the American Psychological Association. She is a member of the NAGC Task Force on State Legislation and Policy and the co-chair of the National Association for Gifted Children's task force on needs of gifted/talented students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.

Manuscript submitted September, 2001.

Revision accepted December, 2001.