Gifted Education at a Crossroads: The Program Status Study

Abstract

The program status study was designed to examine the status of local programs for students with high abilities and the reasons to which educators and key personnel attributed the status of these programs. This descriptive ex post facto research, completed in a purposive sample of 19 states, was completed in two phases. Phase 1 included a mail survey to approximately 3,000 local teachers, coordinators, and/or principals who were responsible for programs for students with high abilities. Phase 2 included interviews with key personnel (state directors of gifted education, presidents of state advocacy organizations, school superintendents, chairpersons of local boards) and was designed to triangulate the findings from Phase 1. Results indicated that programs in states with mandates and in good economic health are intact and expanded; programs in all other groups of states (states with mandates and in poor economic health, states without mandates and in good economic health, states without mandates in poor economic health) are being threatened, reduced, and eliminated. More than half of the respondents from states with mandates and in good economic health attributed their expanded or intact status to the mandate and advocacy efforts. About half of the districts from states without mandates attributed their jeopardized status to a decline in state and local funds.