Twenty-five years later--spinning our wheels or moving forward?

Although John Mulhern's article was written in 1978, he describes situations that are still the norm in gifted education today. That was 25 years ago--does that mean we have made little progress as a field during that time? I would answer no, for, of course, we have made much progress. I could not even begin to list all the contributions from the many talented researchers, teachers, parents, administrators, students, and others who have written, taught, mentored, suggested, and critiqued over the last 25 years to bring us to this place in time. Having established that we have progressed, I would like to examine several of Mulhern's points in relationship to today's field.

In the first paragraph Mulhern iterates several programming options and mentions that one can find nearly every type imaginable in use in school corporations. Programming options continue to be very real issues. Administrators are faced with budget cuts and lack of qualified personnel, making it difficult to provide a range of quality services to gifted students. One superintendent called me recently to ask if I could recommend a test that would select 30 gifted students because that was the number that his funding would support. Unfortunately, that is not the first time I have had such a request! Mulhern's issues with many of these programs--cost and effectiveness--are ones about which we still deliberate. Two tools we have in 2003 that were not around in 1978 are Karen Rogers' book, Re-forming Gifted Education (2001), and Aiming for Excellence: Annotations to the NAGC Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards (Landrum, Callahan, & Shaklee, 2001). Rogers describes in highly readable form, with excellent charts and tables, nearly every service option imaginable. Aiming for Excellence delineates explicit criteria that must be met for a service option to be effective. A newly published guide, Designing and Developing Programs for Gifted Students (Smutny, 2003), is another excellent tool. In combination, these books can assist most school corporations in establishing a range of services that is both cost effective and appropriate for gifted students.

Taffel's statement cited in Mulhern's article indicates many people believed that, left to their own devices in the classroom, gifted students will rise to the occasion, challenge themselves and "raise the level of the others in the class" (this issue, p. 113). On the Survey of Practices with Students of Varying Needs (SOP) (Tomlinson et al., 1995), one of the questions asks teachers to respond to the statement, "Gifted students will make it on their own without teacher direction." Another states, "Gifted students will take their regular assignments and make them more challenging on their own." Having used the SOP many times in research situations, I am still amazed at the number of respondents who choose "agree" as their response to these statements. As a pretest in my graduate-level class dealing with the characteristics and needs of gifted students, I have students respond to various statements about gifted students. They indicate whether each statement is a "myth" or a "reality." The above statements usually are marked as a "reality," indicating that this is still a widely held belief. Research since 1978 offers empirical evidence to counter this myth. For example, in their study of student learning outcomes, Delcourt, Loyd, Cornell, and Goldberg (1994) found that students in almost any kind of special program performed better in terms of achievement than their gifted peers who were in the regular classroom. The authors suggest that

   Policy makers should know that students from With-in-Class
   grouping arrangements received the lowest
   scores in all areas of achievement (mathematics concepts,
   mathematics problem-solving, reading comprehension,
   science, and social studies) when compared
   to their gifted peers in either Special School, Separate
   Class, or Pull-Out programs. (p. 9)

In his section, "Who are the academically gifted?" Mulhern provides a list of objections that many have toward the use of a single test score to identify gifted students. We continue to have these same concerns today. One national study of the uses (and misuses) of identification instruments was undertaken at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Virginia. Carolyn Callahan and her associates (1995) requested identification plans for gifted programs from schools across the nation. Over 540 school corporations sent materials that were reviewed using the Scale for Evaluating Gifted Identification Instruments to determine if the instruments being used for identification were appropriate for that use. In addition, eight criteria were delineated that should guide the selection of instruments and the creation of any identification plan for gifted students. Although the Callahan list is more extensive, all of Mulhern's concerns reappear, indicating once again that we are still dealing with similar issues 25 years later.

Little was available in 1978 about the identification of gifted students who are racially, culturally, and/or linguistically diverse. This is an area that still needs a major emphasis in our field. Minority students are overrepresented in special education programs and underrepresented in gifted programs (National Research Council, 2002). We have been fortunate that leaders in the field such as Mary Frasier, Alexinia Baldwin and Donna Ford have focused on this area, keeping it in the forefront, insisting that we not lose any more time remedying the situation.

In 1978, Mulhern was already concerned about the responsibility for the education of academically gifted children falling to the classroom teacher "in the foreseeable future." The foreseeable future is now. As a result of budget cuts, lack of trained personnel, the inclusion movement and other factors, the classroom teacher's responsibility currently includes educating a class of students with a wide range of abilities, including students two or more standard deviations above and below the mean. It would be foolish to think that the teacher can provide an individualized education to all these students based on their abilities. Just as inadvisable would be teaching one lesson and hoping all students could learn the required material. Some will be bored because they mastered the material two years ago; others will be frustrated because they have not yet mastered the foundational material. Today we have an array of materials that can be used to assist classroom teachers with meeting the needs of all learners. The books by Carol Tomlinson (1999; 2001) focusing on differentiated instruction provide teachers with the tools necessary for providing a challenging, meaningful curriculum for all students. Reis, Burns, and Renzulli (1992) offer the Curriculum Compacting book with clear, concise directions for serving the needs of students who have mastered various content matter and/or skills. The Parallel Curriculum (Tomlinson et al., 2002) also offers a model for providing academic rigor while meeting the needs of all students.

I was very interested in Mulhern's suggestions for developing challenging classroom "encounters" in the content areas. As a former science teacher, I was not surprised to find his assessment of elementary science programs very similar to the situation that generally exists in elementary science programs in 2003. With the emphasis on standardized testing in many school corporations, science is placed on the back burner, because it is often not a tested subject. School corporations revert to "we treasure what we measure" thinking and place emphasis on math and reading. In areas where science is considered worthy of consistent, planned teaching time, several good sets of science materials can be purchased; unfortunately teachers will have to modify them to meet the needs of gifted students. There is, however, one outstanding set of seven problem-based science units designed especially for gifted students by Joyce VanTassel-Baska and her colleagues at the College of William and Mary's Center for Gifted Education (1997). These award-winning units (Dust Bowl, What a Find! Acid, Acid Everywhere, Electricity City, The Chesapeake Bay, No Quick Fix, Hot Rods) have been field-tested with gifted students across the country and are rigorous and challenging.

Mulhern closes with a description of a classroom environment that is still desired today. Attributes of this classroom include requiring critical thinking, promoting self-directed learning, and permitting individual pacing. When all classrooms mirror these qualities, not only will we leave no child behind, but we will also not keep any child from moving ahead.

REFERENCES

Callahan, C. M., Hunsaker, S. L., Adams, C. M., Moore, S. D., & Bland, L. C. (1995). Instruments used in the identification of gifted and talented students. Storrs, CT: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

College of William and Mary Center for Gifted Education. (1997). Problem-based science learning for K-8. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Delcourt, M. A. B., Loyd, B. H., Cornell, D. G., & Goldberg, M. D. (1994). Evaluation of the effects of programming arrangements on student learning outcomes: Executive Summary [Monograph No. 94107]. Charlottesville, VA: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Landrum, M. S., Callahan, C. M., & Shaklee, B. D. (2001). Aiming for excellence: Gifted program standards. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

Mulhern, J. D. (1978). The gifted child in the regular classroom. Roeper Review, 1, 3-6. National Research Council. (2002). Minority students in gifted and special education. Washington: National Academy Press.

Reis, S. M., Burns, D. E., & Renzulli, R. S. (1992). Curriculum compacting. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.

Rogers, K. B. (2001). Re-forming gifted education. Scottsdale: Great Potential Press.

Smutny, J. F. (Ed.). (2003). Designing and developing programs for gifted students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed ability classrooms (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Tomlinson, C. A., Callahan, C. M., Moon, T. R., Tomchin, E. M., Landrum, M., Imbeau, M., Hunsaker, S. L., & Eiss, N. (1995). Preservice teacher preparation in meeting the needs of gifted and other academically diverse students. Storrs, CT: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Tomlinson, C. A., Kaplan, S. N., Renzulli, J. S., Purcell, J., Leppien, J., Burns, D. (2002). The parallel curriculum. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Cheryll Adams received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Virginia. She directs the Center for Gifted Studies and Talent Development at Ball State University and is the project director for two Javits grants. Dr. Adams is the incoming president of the Indiana Association for the Gifted and her interests include gifted students in science and math, curriculum development, and preservice teachers' attitudes toward gifted students. Email: [e-mail].