gifted and talented programs massachusetts

Academically advanced black and Hispanic third grade students were about three times more likely than their white and Asian peers to be attending a low-growth school by sixth grade, with about 30 percent of Hispanic and black students in such schools. These are composite profiles of schools based on how each student is progressing compared with other students who started out with similar scores. The analysis also compared the schools attended by high-scoring students by examining their overall growth scores. “We are not meeting the needs of academically advanced students, particularly black, Hispanic, and/or low-income students,” said Dana Ansel, an independent education consultant who authored the report. “This focus on proficiency and the achievement gap has narrowed our view of what’s happening in urban schools.” Meanwhile, just 25 percent of low-income students who were top scorers in third grade remained at the top by sixth grade. Nearly 72 percent of Asian students and 43 percent of white students who had top scores in third grade remained in the top 10 percent of scores in sixth grade, but just 23 percent of Hispanic students and 21 percent of black students stayed among the top scorers. Both white and Asian students are overrepresented in this group compared with the overall racial and ethnic distribution of third-graders in the state.īut the most striking finding came when the study looked at where these advanced students landed three years later when they took the sixth grade MCAS. (Photo by Llyr Johansen)īecause there is no way to track systematically the progress of academically gifted students in Massachusetts, the state-commissioned report looked at the trajectory of students who scored in the top 12 percent of students on the third grade MCAS math test, the youngest cohort that takes the standardized state exam.

The state’s lack of attention to gifted education “is something we have to work on and remediate ASAP,” says education commissioner Jeff Riley. Just 69 of the state’s 1,872 schools reported having a talented and gifted program in a 2015-16 survey conducted by the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. In the most recent survey of state policies and practices for gifted students, conducted in 2014-15 by two national organizations focused on gifted education, Massachusetts was one of nine states that didn’t even respond to the survey.īased on data showing 6.6 percent of students nationally were enrolled in gifted education programs, the recently commissioned state report estimates that 6-8 percent of Massachusetts students, or 57,000 to 67,000 students, would be considered gifted.

In contrast, Massachusetts eliminated its specialized licensing of teachers for advanced learners because of the lack of instructors seeking the certification. Nearly every other state has a definition of giftedness, and 32 states require districts to identify and/or serve gifted students, according to the state report. Doing better at serving the needs of high-achieving black and Latino students, say advocates of gifted education, is also a civil rights issue if we’re truly committed to education equity.

Gifted and talented programs massachusetts