Who Provides for Gifted Education?
An Overview of Funding and Services for Gifted Programs in Schools
Lacking American federal guidelines or support, states and local school districts pay the bills and make the decisions regarding Gifted Education.
As a famous amphibian orator once noted, “It’s not easy bein’ green.” While Kermit was lamenting his existence as a frog, he could have just as easily been complaining about what it is like to be a gifted student in America; “It’s not easy bein’ gifted.”
What Happens on the Federal Level?
“Gifted preschool, elementary, and secondary school children have very limited protections under state and federal laws.” - Frances A. Karnes and Ronald Marquardt.
Cutting back all of the details and going straight to the heart of the issue, there are no federal statutes that safeguard the civil rights of gifted children. Further, aside from some competitive grant money available through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1994 and followed by Public Law 107-110, better known as The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which incorporated the Javits Act, the federal government does not fund gifted education. It does, however, provide for The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, which focuses research on meeting the needs of gifted and talented youth.
The federal government mandates and funds numerous other educational concerns and issues through a number of entitlement programs, but when it comes to gifted education, providing the resources and protection to nurture the country’s greatest intellectual ‘gifts,’ everything is left to the states and localities.
What Do the States and Local School Districts Do?
The key issues to consider are funding gifted programs, and the services that are provided. Is there enough money guaranteed to meet each gifted child’s needs? If there is enough money, are the appropriate services being offered? Does the school district carefully screen its students to identify the gifted?
Many states and local school districts do as much as they can to support gifted education; however, not every state participates. As of 2003, 37 states did require that gifted students receive some educational programming, while far fewer actually required that every student receives ample support to meet his or her needs. Many states do not even report their funding totals for gifted education even if they have required services.
One of the problems of not having a federal mandate regarding gifted education is that every state has a different interpretation regarding what is necessary and what is not. This means that there are vast differences in the levels of services provided among the states. Further, within the states that do provide programs, the local school districts themselves are not consistent. Like most schooling issues, gifted education takes money to support, and when funding is left to the local districts that have their own financial concerns, when cuts have to be made, gifted education is often first on the list.
The policies within the states and the districts also vary greatly. Consider that even if a state has a policy to identify gifted students, it does not automatically have to provide services. Even within states that do provide services, some of them do not allow several of the most direct and easy ways to assist gifted children such as academic acceleration, early admission to early childhood programs, and allowing them to take classes at colleges while still enrolled at high school.
Is There Any Consistency?
The most consistent academic resources for parents and teachers who are concerned about gifted education are their state and national gifted advocacy groups. On the national level, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) is the umbrella organization for all of the groups. The NAGC’s basic mission is to, “support and develop policies and practices that encourage and respond to the diverse expressions of gifts and talents in children and youth from all cultures, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic groups.”
