- Draft of new gifted rule (PDF - 21kb)
Who's gifted? Criteria in flux
Changes that take into account motivation, talent could be enacted
Published: Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 2:43 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 4:41 a.m.
Florida policymakers are considering changes to the state's gifted education program that could redefine the smart kid and let more join the club next school year.
AT A GLANCE
The state may lower gifted IQ score requirements from 130 to 120 for students who score high on standardized tests. (A 4 or 5 on the FCAT.)
It also may require schools to screen all students, not just those identified by a teacher, for giftedness. The idea is to avoid bias by having someone other than the teacher look for gifted students. The changes would open the door to tens of thousands of students and could cost about $370 million.
The proposal, which effectively lowers IQ standards, has the potential to reshape one of public education's most loved and loathed programs.
It could also cost taxpayers about $370 million by shifting students from relatively inexpensive regular-education classes into pricey gifted classrooms, and requiring that every student be screened for giftedness.
The new admission requirements could strip the program of its elitist aura, opening special classes to students who work hard, not just those who post genius IQ scores.
But critics worry the changes will erase the very reason gifted programs were created: to make sure exceptionally intelligent students aren't stunted academically by regular classwork.
The changes have been proposed by the state Board of Education and could be voted on as early as this month. Although the proposal has not yet been widely publicized, many educators expect debate among parents and teachers to grow, leading up to a final decision before the next school year.
At the heart of the debate is the question of what it means to be gifted, a subject educators have debated since the first IQ test was developed in 1905, but which has reached a fever pitch in the past decade as more states turn away from the time-honored intelligence measure to things like artistic talent and even a student's motivation level.
If the rules are changed, students with IQ scores of 120 to 129 (just below the gifted mark and only one level above average) would be admitted as long as their FCAT or national test scores are high enough.
Parents and teachers, long frustrated by limited access to the elite program viewed as key to success in every step of life, are cheering. Parents of gifted children and some gifted-education advocates say the changes could steal services from the truly gifted students who need them.
"It's opening those floodgates so wide it will really change the character of what the gifted program is, and the kids up there who really need the services will get lost in the flood," said Diane Juve of Avon Park, a parent of gifted children.
The first gifted class started at a public school in New York City in 1922. Funding for widespread programs did not come about until 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. The federal government turned its attention to making sure the new generation would be competitive in science, math and technology.
The idea was driven by fear of being surpassed by other nations, but evolved to address concerns that the nation's brightest students were bored and unchallenged by traditional coursework.
Gifted programs were designed to remedy that by encouraging children to use higher-level thinking skills, tapping into their creativity, focusing on analysis and having students do problem-solving riddles and projects.
A typical gifted lesson might require students to build a robot to perform a specific task, while their fellow students in traditional classrooms would be doing math problems or reading a textbook on science.
Hard and fast IQ requirements help drive the perception that the programs are elitist, designed to separate and give special treatment to wealthy, white students, a belief seeded by the low numbers of minority students who have qualified.
In recent years, criticism has intensified because, increasingly, the thinking skills touted in gifted programs have been defined by educators as central to modern students' success in the work world.
"It's when your children are sitting in the regular classroom, bored, and you see children doing higher-level classes you think your child could be doing, that's when you have resentment," Juve said.
Many parents see gifted programs as little more than accelerated classrooms, where the same skills are being taught as in regular classes, just at a faster rate.
"We have children who are overachievers, they work hard, learn, study, do all the right things," said Jane McEowen, gifted program director at Vineland Elementary School in Charlotte County. "If they do as much or as good as the 130 IQ students, why shouldn't they be there?"
Historically, gifted programs in the United States held fast to the cutoff of a 130 IQ, the accepted measure of higher-level thinking abilities according to tests such as the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler intelligence scales.
But the tests have been viewed with more skepticism in the past 10 to 15 years, and many states have moved away from the cutoff score and incorporated other kinds of measures into determining giftedness, such as artistic performance.
The difference between 120 and 130 can be only a matter of several questions -- or only the few seconds more it may take a student to answer a question.
Also, because the tests rely on certain vocabulary words or concepts that low-income children may not have had access to, there has been a push to include other measures to bring more of those students into the program.
"There's a growing sense that IQ scores don't tell us enough about children," said Jane Clarenbach, director of public education for the National Association for Gifted Children. "They aren't conclusive about who would succeed in a gifted program."
Who will benefit?
State officials said the law is being revised to bring Florida up to date with the trend and give more children access to challenging work.
It also addresses affirmative action policy that has been overturned in the courts. Florida was forced to discontinue a policy allowing schools to drop the IQ requirement to 120 for low-income and minority students.
By allowing access to all students who score an IQ of 120, the new rule does away with those affirmative action policies. Some experts worry that will actually make the programs more exclusive by giving access to more white students.
"Generally, gifted education classes are comprised of upper-middle-class white kids," said Elizabeth Shaunessy, a coordinator for the Florida Association for the Gifted. "My concern is the new policies don't address increasing those under-represented groups."
What the proposal would do is give students with IQs below 130 other ways to qualify for gifted programs. A student with an IQ of 121 to 129 would need a 4 on the FCAT; a student with a 120 would need a 5.
But some experts are doubtful that FCAT scores can determine giftedness.
Florida State University professor Steven Pfieffer, a psychologist who developed a multi-measure of giftedness, is one.
He said the FCAT is ill-suited because even getting a perfect score on the test doesn't suggest that a student is gifted.
Nonetheless, Pfieffer said he belongs to the camp of gifted-education theorists who believe performance should be a ticket into gifted programs.
"A test score could be an indicator that you should try out for the band or the orchestra," he said, "but ultimately it comes down to how well they perform in the orchestra."
Paying for change
The financial impact of the proposed changes could be enormous.
Last year, 4.4 percent of Florida students, about 120,000, were enrolled in gifted programs. The new policy would increase the number of eligible students to about 237,000.
Nearly 7 percent of the population has an IQ of 120 to 129, meaning nearly 179,000 more students in Florida could qualify under the lower gifted requirements.
Because of the way Florida funds education, more gifted students means higher costs.
The state directs money to each county school district based, in part, on how students are classified.
Regular students generate about $4,000 each. Students who are not severely learning disabled but have special needs, including giftedness, generate about $2,000 on top of that.
Without changes to that formula, the new gifted requirements could cost the state about $370 million.
Gifted teachers, while not typically paid more than regular teachers, still have to be specially certified. Al Weidner, budget director for Sarasota County's schools, said the new proposal could send a lot of teachers back to school.
"The state would have to come up with the additional funding if they're going to double the population," Weidner said. "They would have to make some decisions if they're going to fund that. It would be an impact."
This story appeared in print on page A1
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