Frankly, this research is based on so many variables as to be useless: __not all states are required to identify gifted (the last I looked only 35 had requirements)
__of those required to identify some of these states require only that they are identified and any programming offered is optional and relegated to districts with the cash flow to do so
__”gifted” in the study was reported by teachers and defined as kids receiving instruction in math or reading arts or giftedness is mentioned on their IEP with the exception of third grade where teachers were allowed to identify gifted as receiving “gifted instruction” in any area. This makes the creative and critical thinking a small subgroup but the lack of results is being relegated to those methods. Perhaps the small gains are only due to those methods and we would see larger gains if we employed those efforts more. Perhaps not but at current we don’t know the answer to that and therefore one shouldn’t write as though the answer is self evidentiary.
From there we get into what the scope of that service is – an entire school day (rare) or one class per week (much more common) or an adjunct teacher going to the regular class one day per week and providing support or … the fact is there are so many variations that again, a sweeping generalization is meaningless.

The only thing that this article gets right is the underrepresentation of Black children in gifted identification and over identification of giftedness amongst the affluent. This should be no surprise when society’s expectations of Black children are so low. Often a gifted child, due to boredom or distractibility, will show behavioral issues – the whiter and more affluent (and more educated the parents of) the child is the more we are likely to look for a cause for these behaviors and in Black children we simply dismiss this as evidence of a “bad kid.” Certainly, anti-racist and active breaking of implicit biases is beyond necessary for all of our school administrators in order to identify more Black children who are gifted.

Another important tool to that end and something sorely missing from your article is an understanding of what giftedness is – it is not simply a high intelligence and it is most assuredly not merely “high achievers” – in fact, gifted kids may well be low achievers for a myriad of factors not related to intelligence. Secondarily is an understanding of that myriad of factors because this is where gifted kids need help. Intelligence is a factor in success up to a certain level – past that level it can often be a hindrance to success particularly if paired with a lateral thinking approach. This is where the support is needed but generally not being provided.

Mark Twain’s advice to “write what you know” is not limited to fiction and I’d offer this axillary – don’t write until you know.

Articles like this are, whether consciously or simply an obvious outgrowth of uncritical thinking, damaging to all school kids.

{I am an interim gifted and talented teacher in a state that does not require any gifted educational supports}

The “gifted and talented” designation is more about aptitude then it is about academic success. It is actually quite common for g & t kids to do poorly in school. This is partially why gifted and talented programs are needed. To challenge children with higher aptitudes, teaching them the importance of hard work. Instead of conditioning them to believe they can succeed with little or no effort.

As the author points a child being gifted and talented has almost no correlation to their academic success. However what this author doesn’t acknowledge is gifted and talented children need to be challenged from early on. To prevent the development of negative habits that will hinder them in the future.

It is better to have imprecise
answers to the right questions
than precise answers to
the wrong questions.

Donald Campbell

In a recent Hechinger (April 19, 2021)) entitled “PROOF POINTS: Gifted Programs Provide Little To No Academic Boost, New Study Says,” the author cites a recent research study that is based on the same old way that most researchers gather data on any types of school performance. And the article has been picked up by several news feed using headlines such as “Study: Gifted Programs Not Beneficial.”
If the author and cited researchers believe that focusing on common core standards and increasing reading and math scores on standardized achievement test are the major goals for gifted education, they simply do not understand the difference between lesson-learning giftedness and creative productive giftedness. The major goal of gifted education is not to INCREASE TEST SCORES OR standardize young learners. Rather, most people in the field believe that GIFTED programs SHOULD contribute to AND INCREASE the reservoir of people who contribute to creative innovations in the arts and sciences and to all areas of human endeavor that are designed to make the world a better place.
Providing an inductive, investigative, and inquiry-based pedagogy rather the traditional deductive, didactic, and prescriptive brand of learning SHOULD BE a major goal of today’s gifted education programs. The focus is on applying knowledge-of and knowledge-how to real-world problems and situations in ways that model the modus operandi of the practicing professional, even if at a junior level of adult professionals. This approach increases collaboration, cooperation, the development of thinking skills and creativity, and the construction of models, scientific and artistic contributions, and preparation of publications and other creative products.

If some educagors argue that the prime mission of gifted education is to raise scores on high stakes testing, we MUST REMEMBER that people who make high level contributions in their respective fields DO SO BECAUSE OF their interests, task commitment, analytic and creative thinking skills, and a range of executive function skills that are necessary for getting a job done. These kinds of introspective and exploratory skills are the OUTCOMES we should USE to determine the effectiveness of gifted and talent programs rather than INCREASES ON test score. Although these skills cannot be measureD as precisely as math and reading test scores, they are WHAT count when it comes to developing creative and productive giftedness.

These skills cannot be developed through the sit-memorize-and-repeat teaching that improves the standardized the test scores that most researchers use as the dependent variables in their studies. Rather, an innovative pedagogy teaches young people how to find and focus a problem in which they have developed an interest and to apply investigative methodologies. Expert advice from adults, How-To books, and virtually unlimited Internet tools are necessary resources that must gain advice about from their teachers. And like practicing professionals, student must explore various product formats and potential audiences for their final products, performances, and presentations and other modes of communication.

If we are going to evaluate and pass judgment on the importance and value of gifted education programs, we must first and foremost examine the main purpose of these programs, THAT is, to increase the worlds reservoir of creative and productive people. A good model for this brand of evaluation might the ways in which we ASSESS THE quality of doctoral program, medical school graduates, or conservatories that prepare HIGHLY CREATIVE artists and performers.

Joseph S. Renzulli
Department of Educational Psychology
The University of Connecticut