Putting Standards Into Practice: Evaluating the Utility of the NAGC Pre-K

Abstract

Despite their importance, there has been surprisingly little scholarly examination of the NAGC Pre-K --Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards (NAGC, 2008/2000; Landrum, Callahan, & Shaklee, 2001) since their publication a decade ago. As part of a larger study investigating the effectiveness of local policies developed within the framework of state law, we used a qualitative approach to examine the ‘minimum’ and ‘exemplary’ criteria from the Student Identification portion of these NAGC Standards. Through this process we developed a 27-item checklist, which we then used to evaluate 43 locally developed plans for identifying diverse gifted learners from one large state in the southeastern United States. Based on this experience, we identify the strengths and weaknesses that we encountered in using the Standards for this purpose. We provide the checklist items we developed, and we offer specific suggestions for how the Gifted Program Standards in their currently ongoing revision process might be made more user-friendly for practitioners to apply toward effective evaluation of gifted program documents.

Putting the Research to Use

Our experience in using the Student Identification portion of the NAGC Pre-K --Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards highlights some difficulties in using a national standards document directly to evaluate district-level program descriptions and policies. Specifically, we found three aspects that hindered the application of the Student Identification framework to the evaluation of local policies: 1) A standard identified as Exemplary could be met in some cases without first satisfying the Minimum requirement of the same numbered standard; 2) Some standards included more than one criterion within a single numbered standard, and district documents satisfied one but not all of these criteria; and 3) The lack of consensus on terminology led to the use of some words such as “screening” to mean different things in the NAGC Standards than in the district documents, while other terms were too broad (such as “culturally fair”) or too narrow to prove useful in evaluating plan quality.

The responsibility for developing and implementing policies and procedures often rests at the local level. Consequently, we believe that practitioners will find a checklist such as the one we have developed and presented here to be a useful bridge between the language and aims of standards documents and the tangible goals of those who develop and implement policies within the framework of state rules. We suggest that the currently ongoing revisions to these NAGC Standards should consider our findings in the three areas described above, and we recommend continued support for the development of ancillary materials as has been provided for these and other national standards documents.

Keywords

NAGC Pre-K—Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards identification evaluation special populations/underserved gifted professional development

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anfara, V.A. , Brown, K.M. , & Mangione, T.L. (2002). Qualitative analysis on stage: Making the research process more public. Educational Researcher, 31, 28-38.

Baker, B.B. , & Friedman-Nimz, R. (2004). State policies and equal opportunity: The example of gifted education. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 39-64.

Briggs, C.J. , Reis, S.M. , & Sullivan, E.E. (2008). A national view of promising programs and practices for culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse gifted and talented students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 52, 131-145.

Brown, E.F. , Avery, L.D. , VanTassel-Baska, J. , Worley, B.B. , II, & Stambaugh, T. (2006). Legislation and policies: Effects on the gifted. Roeper Review, 29, 11-23.

Callahan, C. ( 2005). Identifying gifted learners from underrepresented populations . Theory Into Practice, 44, 98-104.

Callahan, C.M. , & McIntire, J. ( 1994). Identifying outstanding talent in American Indians and Alaska Native students. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Coleman, L.J. ( 2006). A report card on the state of research on the talented and gifted. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 346-350.

Delcourt, M.A.B. ( 2003). Five ingredients for success: Two case studies of advocacy at the state level. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 26-37.

Florida Department of Education. (1998). Assessing Limited English Proficient (LEP) students for eligibility for gifted programs (Technical Assistance Paper No. FY 1999-6). Tallahassee, FL: Author.

10.

Flynn, J.R. ( 2000). The hidden history of IQ and special education: Can the problems be solved? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 6, 191-198.

11.

Ford, D.Y. , & Harris, J.J., III (1999). Multicultural gifted education . New York: Teachers College Press .

12.

Gallagher, J. J. (Ed.) (2004). Public policy in gifted education. Washington, DC: National Association for Gifted Children.

13.

Gallagher, J.J. ( 2006). How to shoot oneself in the foot with program evaluation . Roeper Review, 28, 122-124.

14.

Gallagher, J.J. ( 2007). We are masters of our test, or are we? Roeper Review, 29, 159.

15.

Grantham, T. ( 2003). Increasing Black student enrollment in gifted programs: An exploration of the Pulaski County Special School District’s advocacy efforts. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 46-65.

16.

Hansford, S.J. , Bonar, A.M. , Scally, J.M. , & Burge, N.A. ( 2001). Student identification. In M. Landrum , C. Callahan , & B. Shaklee (Eds.), Aiming for excellence: Annotations to the NAGC Pre-K- Grade 12 gifted program standards (pp. 39-52). Austin, TX: Prufrock Press.

17.

Hays, T.S. ( 1993). An historical content analysis of publications in gifted education journals. Roeper Review, 16, 41-43.

18.

Johnsen, S. , VanTassel-Baska, J. , & Robinson, A. ( 2008). Using the national gifted education standards for university teacher preparation programs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

19.

Kitano, M. , Montgomery, D. , VanTassel-Baska, J.L. , & Johnsen, S.K. ( 2008). Using the national gifted education standards for PreK-12 professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

20.

Krippendorff, K. ( 2004). Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

21.

Landrum, M. , Callahan, C. , & Shaklee, B. (Eds.). (2001). Aiming for excellence: Annotations to the NAGC Pre-K-Grade 12 gifted program standards. Austin, TX: Prufrock Press.

22.

Lohman, D.F. ( 2005). Review of Naglieri and Ford (2003): Does the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test identify equal proportions of high-scoring White, Black, and Hispanic students? Gifted Child Quarterly, 49, 19-28.

23.

Lusi, S.F. ( 1997). The role of state departments of education in complex school reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

24.

Matthews, M.S. , Gentry, M. , McCoach, D.B. , Worrell, F.C. , Matthews, D. , & Dixon, F. ( 2008). Evaluating the state of a field: Effect size reporting in gifted education. Journal of Experimental Education, 77, 55-68.

25.

National Association for Gifted Children. ( 2008/2000). Pre-K- Grade 12 Standards Introduction . Retrieved July 30, 2008, from http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=546

26.

Parker, J. ( 1996). NAGC standards for personnel preparation in gifted education: A brief history. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40, 158-161.

27.

Robinson, A. , & Moon, S.M. ( 2003). A national study of local and state advocacy in gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 8-25.

28.

Special Instructional Programs for Students Who Are Gifted. (2002). Florida Administrative Code Section 6A-6.03019. Retrieved March 31, 2009 from https://www.flrules.org/gateway/ruleno.asp?id=6A-6.03019&Section=0

29.

VanTassel-Baska, J. ( 2006). A content analysis of evaluation findings across 20 gifted programs: A clarion call for enhanced gifted program development. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 199-215.

30.

VanTassel-Baska, J. , & Feng, A. X. (Eds.). (2004). Designing and utilizing evaluation for gifted program improvement. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

31.

VanTassel-Baska, J. , & Johnsen, S.K. ( 2007). Teacher education standards for the field of gifted education: A vision of coherence for personnel preparation in the 21st century. Gifted Child Quarterly, 51, 182-205.

32.

Ziegler, A. , & Raul, T. ( 2000). Myth and reality: A review of empirical studies on giftedness . High Ability Studies, 11, 113-135.

Putting Standards Into Practice: Evaluating the Utility of the NAGC Pre-K—Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References