Endorsing Gifted Education

Thank you for this opportunity to address the State Board of Education about a pressing problem: The urgent need for teacher preparation in gifted education, to improve academic services to gifted students and better support educators assigned responsibility for gifted identification and programming in New Jersey.

“Gifted education” means educational programs and services appropriate to a gifted learner’s needs and abilities. It isnot a “gift,” or an extra, but the right of every child to learn at school every day, afforded to students of high ability.

By state law, gifted students must be identified through a multiple-measure assessment, kindergarten through 12thgrade, and educational programs and services appropriate to gifted students’ needs and abilities must be provided, K-12. In practice, districts rarely meet this unfunded mandate. Gifted programs are often limited to students in a few grades (e.g., grades 3 – 5 or 3 – 8) and conducted only one or two hours each week. When money is tight, some districts scrap their gifted programs, altogether.

Part of the problem is that so few K-12 educators and administrators have any academic background in gifted pedagogy.Although preservice teacher education requires two courses in special education, there are no courses required (and very few, offered) in gifted education. Consequently, most teachers enter practice with little to no understanding of gifted students’ characteristics, abilities and needs, or how they can differentiate curriculum and instruction to meet the special needs of this population of learners.

Many teachers are designated “gifted education specialists” or “coordinators” without any experience or knowledge of the field. Often, the gifted education specialist is the only teacher working with gifted learners in the building or the district, and so s/he is on his/her own to devise programs and services without benefit of colleagues who can share their experience and resources.The result is, sadly, an uneven and ultimately inadequate patchworkof gifted education programs statewidethat doesn’t begin to meet student needs.

Rutgers University has offered a 15-credit graduate professional development certificate program in gifted education for K-12 educators, counselors, administrators, and parents, since 2010. In December, four teachers completed the program, bringing the total number of certificate-holders to 95.

Until recently, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey offered the only graduate-level program in gifted education in New Jersey.Montclair State University now offers a nine-credit certificate series.

This is progress, but there is still a long way to go. There are nearly 600 active school districts in New Jersey and only 95 certificate-holders, and a handful of professionals who have earned certificates out-of-state - which means that the vast majority of New Jersey school districts have no one with any gifted education academic preparation.

We have to do better. We have to bring change faster. And so, in 2016, a small band of committed university and K-12 teachers, parents, and administrators, banded together as the New Jersey Coalition for Gifted Education to seek a required state endorsement in gifted education for gifted education specialists and coordinators. We convened lunch meetings in summer and through the fall with district superintendents and assistant superintendents, gifted education specialists and coordinators, and university administrators at other New Jersey universities that provide teacher education programs.

Over the past year, we have worked hard to move this project forward:

  • In January – The Coalitionsubmitted a formal proposal for a gifted education endorsement to the NJ Department of Education, which was rejected;
  • In June & October – Representatives of the NJ Gifted Education Coalition met with Department of Education officers to articulate our desire for a certification in the field; they encouraged us to continue to seek support from other stakeholders while we wait for the new governor to take office;
  • Last fall, we joined forces with the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children, and made presentations to the NJ Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (NJACTE) and the Bergen County Consortium for Gifted Education.

In 2018, we plan to meet with superintendents’ roundtables, leaders of the NJEA, and other stakeholders around the state, as well as continuing our conversation with the Department of Education, to promote a required endorsement for gifted education specialists and coordinators.We will also reach out to state legislators to pursue a legislative route to the improvement of teacher training in gifted education for the state.

I am speaking here today to make the case for teacher preparation in gifted education, and to seek the support of the State Board of Education in this endeavor.

Thank you for your consideration.

Cordially,

Elizabeth H. Beasley