Educating High Ability Learners? Bah Humbug!

One of the great things about being the executive director of a state gifted organization is that I get to meet some pretty sharp people from all over the country. It makes the more painful aspects of the job (lack of funding, general disrespect from the gen. ed. community, etc, etc,) much more tolerable. It is great to routinely network with some of the brightest folks in education to share information and ideas.

My good friend from Indiana, Ginny Burney, (Indiana Association for Gifted Children) passed on a gem to me, yesterday. Written by a (very clever) student of hers, The High Ability Carol by Rhonda Cheney is a rewrite of Charles Dicken’s more famous A Christmas Carol.  The main character Scrooge is replaced by a school superintendent named Clutch. Clutch’s general disdain for gifted students combined with natural miserly ways leads him to the conclusion that he should do less for students of high ability.  His opinion, shared by so many was, “If these kids were so smart, why couldn’t they educate themselves?”

The night before Christmas, Clutch is visited by three spirits, the Ghost of Individual Impact, the Ghost of Social Impact, and the Ghost of Global Impact. The Ghost of Individual Impact shows Clutch what his life could have been. Unfortunately, his “dreams and hopes for the future died at a young age because no one ever showed me what I could be capable of in life.” The Ghost of Social Impact is a little feistier, breaking Clutch’s window as his delivers his message, “I’m not satisfied with my life, but what else am I supposed to do? My background of poverty, behavior issues in the classroom, and achievement test scores all hid the fact that I was a student with high abilities. No one identified me for what I could be.” Finally, the Clutch is visited by the Ghost of Global Impact who shows that the effects of not educating high ability students at an appropriate level were far reaching.

The United States could no longer compete in a global market because of a lack of workers with problem solving skills and creativity. Businesses moved to other countries where they could find the employees they needed. Civil and individual effort towards improving lives dissipated as cultural apathy grew.  Scientists no longer looked for cures to diseases, and entire cities were eliminated by viral infections. Institutes of high learning closed their doors with so few applicants. Those looking for more education had to find it in another country.

The story ends on a high note with Clutch waking up to reverse course and embarking on a journey to do whatever he could to meet the needs of high ability students.

And this is where I have to become the Scrooge in the story and offer up a  hearty “Bah Humbug.” I am ever optimistic about moving things forward for gifted children in Ohio and the rest of the country. However, I know from years of experience that policymakers and others, even when presented with the stark evidence of the impact of ignoring the needs of gifted children are not as easily convinced to do the right thing.

Business magnates don’t necessarily care that we don’t produce great thinkers. Their answer is to outsource or expand the H1B visas to bring in foreign talent. Policymakers who view the state and national score comparisons of our brightest students against international talent prefer to believe that the comparisons are unfair, even while there is a good deal of evidence that international benchmark tests are extremely well-vetted to make sure comparisons are accurate.

What is it going to take before policymakers and others get a clue? I honestly don’t have an answer to that. What I do know is that advocates of gifted children need to continue to serve as the Ghosts of Individual, Social, and Global Impact. Let’s chip away at the Scrooges of education policy and work toward a happy future where public education blesses every child with appropriate opportunities.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Shouldn’t College and Career-Ready Students be a Given?

The Columbus Dispatch ran an article recently entitled “College, School Erase Remedial Courses.”(11/20/11)  The gist of the article is fairly straight-forward. Reynoldsburg City Schools has embarked on a new program with Columbus State Community College designed to eliminate the need for remedial coursework at the college level. The computer-based math courses were designed by Columbus State, required special training for the teacher, and ensures that students master 85% of the material of each module before they can move on in the course. So far, so good, right? Who can argue that this is a bad idea? Not me. But then I read the following quote and just about choked on my morning coffee. Jack Cooley, the dean of arts and sciences at Columbus State says,

“I give the high schools immense credit for coming to realize the discrepancy between being able to graduate and being college-ready.”

Okay, so I actually think Reynoldsburg is doing the right thing here, but really is this how stupid we have become in Ohio? Do we really have to give “immense credit” to high schools for turning out graduates who are college- or career-ready? Silly me, I was under the impression that this was the whole purpose of high school. Of course, I already know that Ohio’s high schools are not always preparing their students for college or careers. The average remediation rate for students graduating from  Ohio districts was 41% in 2009 according to the Ohio Board of Regents. That is an astounding figure. Pictorial, it looks even more interesting:

For those of you having trouble reading the index, the deeper blue color denotes a lower college remediation rate. Deep red means the remediation is high. As one can see from the map, there is a whole lotta red going on in Ohio’s districts. Given that almost 60% of Ohio’s districts are rated excellent or excellent with distinction, it seems counter-intuitive that there are so many districts that are turning out students who are not prepared for college or career level work. How did Ohio get to this point? As with so many issues there is no single best answer to this question. But one thing is crystal clear to me. Until we have an education accountability system in Ohio that relies less on minimal mastery of low standards and more on measures such college remediation rates, we will continue to see highly-rated districts that are doing little to address issues such as college remediation.

For now, kudos to Reynoldsburg. They are doing the right thing for students even though Ohio’s current accountability system provides no reward for their efforts. Surely, that makes no sense.  I wonder how long Ohioans will have to wait for policymakers to develop a more coherent education accountability system that looks at measures beyond minimal standards?  If we are to be competitive on a national and international basis, we cannot afford to wait too long.

Grading on a Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio’s Schools

Three years ago, I sat in a Senate Finance committee hearing where a number of superintendents spoke of the need to eliminate spending requirements for excellent-rated school districts. Their logic was simple: Excellent districts are doing a great job, and they do not need the state to tell them how to spend their money. Just give them funding and step aside to let them do their high-performing work. Of course, the first thing I knew that would be cut if spending requirements were eliminated would be gifted education. So, with that motivation, I decided to take a look at just how excellent these districts were. I was frankly a little shocked by what I saw when I delved into the data. I continued to do the analysis annually and provided key policymakers with the statistics, but while many were appalled at what they saw, nothing happened.

This year, at the urging of many individuals, I took the analysis a step further. With the help of my colleague, Colleen Grady, we put together a report that looks not just at excellent school districts, but the accountability system as a whole. We wanted to answer the following questions: How accurate are the annual school and district ratings handed out by the Ohio Department of Education? Does the level of student performance in Ohio warrant a quadrupling of the number of districts in the excellent category over the past decade? Are highly rated districts meeting world-class levels of performance?

Our report “Grading on a Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio’s Schools,” finds that actual educational excellence may be far more elusive than our ratings would lead us to believe.

Some of the report’s findings are sobering:
• 67 districts rated excellent or excellent with distinction had zero students take AP exams.
• 109 districts rated excellent or excellent with distinction had average ACT scores below the state average.
• 160 districts rated excellent or excellent with distinction had fewer than 20% of their graduating class receive diplomas with honors.
• 136 districts rated excellent or excellent with distinction had college remediation rates above the state average.
• 220 districts rated excellent or excellent with distinction serve fewer than 20% of their identified gifted students with 85 of the highly rated districts reporting no gifted services at all.

It would be easy to dismiss this report as just another assault on public school districts. But that truly is not the intent of the report. Ohio’s accountability system is deeply flawed. It really does a disservice to policymakers, the public at large, and of course, students, when we pretend that the majority of our districts are doing a stellar job when in many cases it just isn’t true. Gifted services are being reduced at a record pace. Part of the reason is funding, of course. But services have been dwindling for a number of years. I am convinced that one of the main reasons for the decline is an accountability system that includes perverse disincentives to districts when it comes to serving gifted students.

Briefly, the report recommendations include the following:

• Incorporate high quality metrics such as college remediation rates, ACT/SAT scores, Advanced Placement performance and graduates qualifying for Honors Diplomas.
• Move to nationally normed or internationally benchmarked high school assessments such as the ACT or SAT.
• Eliminate the labeling of districts until a meaningful system can be developed.
• Incorporate an automatic trigger to increase cut scores as more districts receive higher ratings.
• Reevaluate how the value-added growth measure is used and provide results by performance quintile.
• Eliminate multiple pathways to ratings in favor of a single pathway with multiple components.

I hope you will all take the time to read the report. To download a copy, please go to the following link: http://www.oagc.com/files/OAGC_Grading_On_A_Curve_Final.pdf . I will be the first to admit, it is not a fun read. But hopefully, it will cast a light on a problem that has been hidden too long.

Ohio’s Gifted Services in Grave Jeopardy

Advocacy Alert – 4.28.11 – Action needed now!!!! The House Finance committee released the substitute budget bill HB153. I am stunned to share with you there were no positive changes for gifted. No increase in funding, no maintenance of effort provision, no softening of the budget blow from Governor Kasich’s executive budget. The only change made was to allow principals to serve as gifted coordinators if they are qualified under the operating standards. Of course this change only makes it less likely that gifted children will be appropriately served in districts. We need phone calls and testimony for April 29, April 30, and May 1.

How You Can Help

1. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to call the following selected members of the House Finance Committee and House Leadership every day until Tuesday. Tell everyone you know to call them. When you call, you will either get an aide who will take your message or voice mail. Please be polite but passionate about your request that gifted funding be fixed. The message is simple:
   1. Gifted education is taking a disproportionately large cut relative to the education budget (89%).
   2. District services will be drastically cut if there is no additional funding or at least a district maintenance of effort requirement for gifted. A survey of districts indicates that gifted services could decrease by 50 – 70% next year with no changes to in the budget.
   3. Allowing principals to now serve as gifted coordinators will mean an even further deterioration of support for gifted students.
   4. Why are gifted students being singled out as not deserving of adequate education and funding?
   5. Here are the people for you to call:

Speaker William Batchelder	614-466-8140
Rep. Ron Amstutz (Chairman)	614-466-1474
Rep. John Carey (Vice Chair)	614-466-1366
Assistant Majority Floor Leader Barbara Sears	614-466-1731
Assistant Majority Whip Cheryl Grossman	614-466-9690
Majority Floor Leader Matt Huffman	614-466-9624
Speaker Pro Tempore Lou Blessing	614-466-9091
Majority Whip John Adams	614-466-1507
Rep. Richard Adams	614-466-8114
Rep. Marlene Anielski	614-644-6041
Rep. Troy Balderson	614-644-6014
Rep. Peter A. Beck	614-644-6027
Rep. Dave Burke	614-466-8147
Rep. Mike Duffy	614-644-6030
Rep. Randy Gardner	614-466-8104
Rep. Dave Hall	614-466-2994
Rep. Richard Hollington	614-644-5088
Rep. Jeffrey McClain	614-644-6265
Rep. Ross McGregor	614-466-2038
Rep. Mecklenborg	614-466-8258
Rep. Bob Peterson	614-644-7928
Rep. Lynn Slaby	614-644-5085

1. In addition to making phone calls, please come to the Statehouse to testify Friday, April 29 beginning at 9:00 AM; Saturday, April 30 at beginning at 10:00 AM, or Monday, May 2 at 10:00 AM. The hearing is in Room 313, which is on the West side of the Statehouse on the 3^rd floor. The easiest way to get to the committee meeting room is to park under the Statehouse and make your way to the green and glass elevator as you enter the Statehouse through the garage.  You will need to climb a flight of stairs and veer to the left as you get up the stairs to get to the elevator. Take the elevator and go to Room 313. There are only two hearing rooms on the 3^rd floor, so you will find it.  If you have to park somewhere else, just ask folks how to get to the House Finance hearing room, and you will eventually get the right directions.  If you get lost, ask someone. Also, if you cannot make it by starting time, don’t worry. It would be good if you could email me to let me know if you plan to come so that I can give your name to the House Finance staff. Each person who wants to testify or submit written testimony will be asked to fill out a witness slip. A scan of the slip can be downloaded at www.oagc.com/?q=statebudget . Fill out your name and contact information. Under the section marked “Please give a brief statement of the grounds on which favor or oppose such enactment” write that you are opposed to the elimination of gifted funding as a separate and accountable line item in the budget.  The chair of the committee would like everyone to bring 50 copies of testimony.  But if you can’t bring that many or any, come anyway. Technical aspects to testifying:

Here is the standard way to address the committee:

“Chairman Amstutz, Ranking Minority Member Sykes,  members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on HB153. My name is _______……”

Questions? Please email me at anngift@aol.com.

No Spring Break for Gifted Advocates — State Homework with Extra Credit Federal Assignment

The Issue

Ah, spring break — the time to relax for a few days before finishing up the school year refreshed and rejuvenated.  Sorry, everyone, but spring break is canceled this year for gifted advocates.  Too much to do. In Ohio, gifted education funding is suffering, once again, from the unintended consequences of a funding system overhaul. Actually, the overhaul hasn’t taken place yet. Instead of an actual funding formula, every bit of funding not tied to federal maintenance of effort requirements (including gifted funding) was lumped together in one big line item, which will distributed to Ohio districts. Districts will be able to spend the funds on anything they see fit.

This kind of free-for-all district spending formula usually doesn’t bode well for gifted students. In California, which allowed gifted funding to be redistributed in 2009, gifted funding was reallocated by 69% of districts to fund other areas. In Ohio, surveys of districts show that without a change to the executive budget to ensure that state gifted funding goes to serve gifted students, there will be a similar plunge in services next year. OAGC is predicting a decrease of 50 – 70%.

What You Can Do to Help!

What’s an advocate to do? Fight back, of course!!! While the budget bill is being re-written in the Ohio House, gifted advocates need to contact and re-contact their representatives and senators.

How You Can Help

1. During the break, please contact or re-contact your individual legislator to let them know of your concerns about gifted education. I know that there have one or two groups of gifted parents and educators who have contacted their legislators to meet with them personally on this issue. It is very helpful for legislators to get a local feel for what is going on. If they only hear from me, they do not think it is a problem. They need to hear from you! After the House votes the budget bill out (probably the first week in May), the budget moves to the Ohio Senate, so it is not too soon to begin contacting your senators now. To locate your legislators, use one of the tools on www.oagc.com/?q=legislators . To see if your senator is on the Finance Committee, go to http://www.oagc.com/files/129th%20General%20Assembly%20Senate%20Finance%20Committee.4.20.11.pdf .
2. Possible points to include in your emails and phone calls:
   1. Gifted education is taking a disproportionately large cut relative to the education budget (89%).
   2. A survey of districts indicates that gifted services could decrease by 50 – 70% next year.
   3. Gifted funding should be restored to gifted units and supplemental identification funds.
   4. Districts should be held accountability for the performance of gifted students. Local control should dictate how they are served not if they are served. Thirty one states mandate gifted services. Why doesn’t Ohio?
   5. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars for gifted students to sit in classrooms learning very little.
   6. There is evidence across the state that unserved gifted students are showing up in credit recovery programs more frequently and that the performance of gifted students who are no longer being served is decreasing.

Questions? Please email me at anngift@aol.com.

Special Assignment for Extra Credit

As you may be aware, the federal “Talent” Act was recently introduced. If passed, it could be a game changer for states that are routinely ignoring the needs of gifted students. Here is a summary of the act:

Success in the 21st century requires a commitment to developing student talent as early as possible.  To address this urgent need, gifted education supporters have introduced legislation to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to provide responsible federal leadership in meeting the needs of gifted and high-ability students.  To Aid Gifted and High-Ability Learners by Empowering the Nation’s Teachers (TALENT) Act, which replaces the Javits Act, has four key emphases:

1.  Changes to Assessment and Accountability Systems: The TALENT Act seeks to ensure that assessments are able to accurately determine student mastery of state content standards, which will enable teachers to make appropriate instructional adjustments.  The Act also makes changes to the accountability and assessment system to ensure that all students make learning gains.

2.  Emphasis on Classroom Practice: Identifying gifted and talented students and supporting their needs in the classroom requires specialized knowledge and skills, yet more than 60% of teachers have never received training in gifted education strategies.  To address this paradox, the TALENT Act expands professional development opportunities in gifted education pedagogy for teachers nationwide and develops research-based best practices.

3.  Focus on Underserved Populations: The TALENT Act responds directly to the concern that advanced students of color and those from low-income backgrounds are losing academic ground compared to their more advantaged, high-ability peers.  There is strong evidence that these students do not move into the top achievement levels over time, and those who do reach high levels do not remain in the top achievement percentiles.  The bill recognizes the traditional federal role in addressing the needs of students in poverty and focuses on students in Title I schools and rural schools to ensure they have adequate support to achieve their full potential.

4. Emphasis on Research and Dissemination: The TALENT Act recognizes the development of best practices in gifted education through research and data collection as essential to effective teaching and learning.  The bill addresses these essential components and importantly, includes a critical dissemination requirement so that more districts have access to the latest developments in the field.

Your Assignment

Yep, you guessed it! Contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and urge them to support the act.

Contact information for Ohio Senators is here.

Look up your individual Ohio Representative here.

Okay, everyone, those are your spring break assignments.  Enjoy!

Ohio Gifted Advocacy Alert

Things are dire in Ohio for gifted children. Here is a post from OAGC Parent Division Chair, Densie Gold:

I’m here to let you know that it is still important THIS WEEK to take some action to try to preserve gifted services in Ohio, if you haven’t done so yet. To give you an example, scroll to the end where I’ve copied with permission one of the emails an FHPOGS members sent to her local representative. We need more of your voices to be heard now in the voice mailboxes and email inboxes of the full finance committee members listed below. This is the last chance to give input before the Ohio House makes changes to the budget bill.

I participated in giving testimony last week before the subcommittee about the personal impact of gifted services in helping to address and avoid underachievement in gifted kids. Although some testimony will be needed this Wednesday, your phone calls or emails are what will be most helpful.

Think about your own story, and your own kids. Possible points include the following. These are abbreviated so please let me know if you need a fuller explanation – I wanted to try to keep this short.

1.       Gifted services will not continue in many districts without specific funding earmarked from the state especially as there is no mandate for gifted services.

2.       Districts are not held accountable for the performance of gifted students.

3.       Regardless of whether they are in a wealthy or poor district, gifted students are the least population to receive an appropriate education.

4.       There are no tools for gifted parents in this budget to hold districts accountable.

5.       We cannot retain the best and the brightest in this state if we do not invest in the education of gifted students.

Please go to the following link to find the phone numbers and email addresses of finance committee members you should contact.

Also, please send letters to the editor of your newspapers. It is important that legislators continue to hear from you. If you are a coordinator or Gifted Intervention Specialist with responsibility for district gifted services, please contact Ann Sheldon at anngift@aol.com if you have not filled out the gifted status survey. Also, Ann asks that if you have been holding back from contacting parents, now is the time to get them in action. They need to testify, contact legislators, and fight for their children’s education.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much for your time, and thanks for all you do to parent and teach children.

Denise Gold

OAGC Parent Division Chair

513-324-6498

From: Theresa Winhusen
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 12:21 PM
To: ‘SD07@senate.state.oh.us‘
Subject: Please block proposed funding cuts to gifted education

Dear Senator Jones,

I am writing to you to about the funding cuts to gifted education in the current proposed Ohio education budget.

I was born and raised in Cincinnati and am committed to the success of our city as well as to the entire state of Ohio. That success will depend, in large part, on the strength of the education provided to our children. While the needs of the students performing at the lower end of the continuum often receive a good deal of focus, those at the upper end are often overlooked despite the fact that research suggests that they have special needs.

I can testify to the special needs of gifted children based on my experiences with my son, a fourth grader, who is gifted. Fourth grade is the first year in which he has received gifted (extended learning opportunity -ELO) education and it has made a huge difference in his attitude toward, and success in, school. While he continues to have difficulties with his standard classes, which he reports are exceedingly tedious, he absolutely loves his math class, which is taught by the ELO teacher, and I consider the class to be a saving grace for him.

I know that we have a budget shortfall in Ohio that must be addressed but I think it is important to address it in ways that will not short change our future. Please work to maintain specific funding for gifted services in Ohio.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Sincerely,

Theresa Winhusen

Mom of a gifted child

Wow, Here’s an Intriquing “New” Idea: Grade Kids on What They Know

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting a new practice that is being explored by some Ohio high schools: grading students on what they actually know!  The article points out that in many (if not most) high schools, students are rarely graded just on their knowledge of a subject.  They are graded on attitude and effort.  Many teachers provide extra credit opportunities for students to beef up their grades.  Extra credit, good attitude, and effort are all great things to encourage.  However, it usually does not work in favor of those high ability students who know the material in half the time and don’t really want to jump through the hoops of showing effort.

I had lunch with the parent of a just such a student, who very nearly didn’t graduate this past year.  The student was a national merit scholar, an AP Scholar, and is entering college with two years of college credit.  Sounds like a great student, right?  Well, not according to the student’s high school.  Even though the student aced every exam, he refused to do the homework.  He considered it busy work, and he (legitimately) had better things to do with his time.  His high school disagreed.

The bottom line is that the student did graduate, but the cost was great:  even with all of his academic awards, he was unable to get scholarship money because of his low grades.  How different it would be for him, if his school had a adopted a 85% or 90% content mastery rule as the Metro School has done in Columbus.

The truth is, most colleges don’t care too much about whether you do daily homework.  They care about how well you do on exams and projects.  Extra credit for attitude?  Yeah, that doesn’t happen so much in college.

I do believe that work ethic is important.  But there is a big difference between meaningful homework and homework that merely serves the purpose of showing good attitude.  There is research that shows that students who already know a concept and are forced to “re-learn” the concept often re-learn it incorrectly.

My advice to high schools: Let students who show content mastery move on.  All the add-ons to inflate grades ultimately do a disservice to students in college.  Possibly, this could explain the 40% remediation rate in Ohio’s colleges, no?

When Being Right is Wrong…

If a child you love has ever come home from school with a note like this one, you probably understand the need for gifted education programs.

(From the Huffington Post “Punished for Being Awesome” archive.)

Revisiting (Ohio) Gifted in the 21st Century — Finding 7

The Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC) has been invited to share  concerns/requests at the April State Board of Education regarding the upcoming education budget.  As a prelude to this presentation, the High Ability bloggers thought it would be interesting to highlight the progress made on the seven findings in the “Gifted in the 21st Century” Task Force Report.  This report was released in 2002.  This week we will look at Finding 7.

Finding 7. Families and Community: VanTassel-Baska (1997) recommends stronger parent involvement in local programming in Ohio districts. Families and community are an integral part of all children’s education. It is imperative that the ODE and local districts acknowledge the importance of families in the entire process of educating our children who are gifted.

Some important initial steps have been taken to promote greater involvement of families and communities in gifted education. For example, the last revision of the gifted education operating standards added language requiring districts to provide a copy of a gifted student’s WEP to his or her parents, and the state model acceleration policy requires districts to allow parents to participate in the acceleration evaluation and planning process. The ODE has also taken first steps to reach out to parents of young children on gifted issues with assistance from its family and community engagement coordinator and to parents who speak languages other than English by translating frequently accessed documents into foreign languages commonly spoken in the state. Increased funding for gifted coordinators should also help build capacity at the local level for family engagement over time. Two parent organizations (in addition to the OAGC) currently have representation on the new gifted education task force.

Increasing community involvement is another area in which the credit flexibility initiative could be helpful for gifted students at the secondary level. The gifted operating standards explicitly allow gifted coordinators to facilitate mentorship and internship experiences for gifted students, and the credit flexibility policy allows students to earn credit for mentorships and internships aligned to academic goals. The stage, therefore, is set for leaders and experts in local businesses, governments, community groups and arts organizations to work directly with gifted students and extend their learning beyond the walls of the school.

A parent’s involvement in his or her child’s education is ultimately a matter more of personal responsibility more than of state or local policy, but policy can help responsible parents play a stronger and more effective role. This starts with providing access to more and better information about what and how gifted students are doing in school. Expanding screening efforts and communicating results would yield helpful information to parents on their children’s needs and abilities. A quality gifted education performance indicator would help parents of gifted students understand and support district improvement efforts. Finally, requiring and providing basic training on characteristics of gifted students and appropriate educational strategies for classroom teachers, whom parents rely on for guidance and who serve as the primary points of contact between families and schools, is perhaps the most important step that state and district leaders could take to help parents help their gifted children attain their goals and achieve to their full potential.

Revisiting (Ohio) Gifted in the 21st Century — Finding 6

The Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC) has been invited to share  concerns/requests at the April State Board of Education regarding the upcoming education budget.  As a prelude to this presentation, the High Ability bloggers thought it would be interesting to highlight the progress made on the seven findings in the “Gifted in the 21st Century” Task Force Report.  This report was released in 2002.  This week we will look at Finding 5.

Finding 6. Leadership: The ODE currently funds two consultants for gifted education. To build capacity for the task force’s recommendations, it is critical for additional staff to be funded to serve Ohio’s school districts. Technical assistance, policy review and development, professional development and accountability are critical activities of state leadership.

ODE staffing levels for gifted education have risen and fallen with the economy, climbing from 2.0 FTE when the task force report was published, to a peak of 5.5 FTE. Currently, the state employs two full-time gifted consultants, two half-time intermittent consultants and a college intern. The state is undertaking a new educational funding model, revising academic content standards, developing performance-based assessments, addressing 21st Century Skills, reforming accountability processes, developing guidance for credit flexibility implementation and gearing up to manage Race to the Top initiatives (all of which have major implications for gifted students)—not to mention important gifted-specific initiatives like revising funding rules, developing gifted education performance indicators and sustaining Project I-GET-GTEd without federal dollars. it is clear that a return to higher staffing levels is needed if the state is to avoid missed opportunities and unintended consequences for gifted students in the new generation of policies and programs. (See 2002 task force report finding #1.)