IES Blog

The National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE) at the University of Connecticut, in Phase I of a rigorous research agenda, examined how academically-gifted students are identified and served in three states in order to provide systematic information for the field. The research team focused especially on the representation of historically underserved groups in gifted education.

NCER recently spoke with the Center’s Principal Investigator, Del Siegle, a nationally-recognized expert on gifted education. 

What is the biggest challenge facing gifted educators today?

Unfortunately, many of our nation’s brightest students from underserved populations (e.g., Black, Hispanic, English Learner, and/or free and reduced-price lunch eligible) are not being identified as gifted and do not receive gifted education services. About 80% of states that completed the most recent National Association for Gifted Children’s State of the States survey indicated that underrepresentation of students from underserved populations was an important or very important issue in their state.

What did you find in your study of identification of underserved students for gifted programs?

During Phase I of our work, we analyzed standardized student achievement test data from three states that mandate gifted identification and programming. We found that schools were less likely to identify students from underserved groups as gifted—even in cases where the underserved child had similar achievement test scores. For example, students with similar test scores who received free and reduced price lunch were less than half as likely to be identified as gifted as students who didn’t receive free or reduced price lunch.

What identification practices are schools using?

Cognitive tests and teacher nominations were the most common identification tools across the three states we studied. The majority (90% to 96%) of the districts in all three states used these practices to select students. Identification for gifted services occurs most often in third grade. Districts seldom reassess identified students once they are identified and only about half reassess non-identified students in elementary schools at regular intervals. Screening all children and using a variety of identification criteria showed promise for reducing under-identification in one of our states.

How are students being serviced in gifted programs?

In the three states we studied, schools primarily focused on critical thinking and creativity followed by communication skills, research skills, and self-directed projects.  Mathematics and reading language arts acceleration was much less of a focus and were ranked among the bottom third of focus areas. Gifted students seldom receive gifted programming in core academic areas. Only 29% of the schools provided a separate gifted curriculum in reading/language arts. Only 24% of the schools had a separate gifted curriculum in mathematics. Gifted students spent 5 hours or more each week in regular education mathematics and reading/language arts classrooms. Of the 74% of schools reporting using pull-out services, only 32% offered separate gifted curriculum in reading/language arts and 28% offered separate gifted curriculum in math. 

What about gifted student growth in mathematics and reading?

In 3^rd grade, gifted students are approximately 2 grade levels ahead of students not identified as gifted, but gifted students grow more slowly than non-gifted students between 3^rd and 5^th grade. Most grouping arrangements for gifted students had no impact on the growth of academic achievement. We believe much of this has to do with the limited advanced mathematics and reading instruction gifted students receive in their classrooms and gifted programs.

What is the next step in your research?

We are examining the effect of attending dedicated gifted classes in core content areas on academic achievement in reading/language arts and mathematics in a large, ethnically, economically, and linguistically diverse urban school district. Our research will compare the reading/language arts and mathematics achievement of gifted students in three different settings: schools offering a full-time gifted-only program with gifted classes in all subject areas, schools offering a part-time gifted-only program with gifted classes in mathematics, and schools offering a part-time gifted-only program with gifted classes in reading/language arts.

April is School Library Month, which recognizes the important role that school librarians and libraries play in K-12 education. More than 90 percent of public elementary and secondary schools have a library media center, according to the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), which collects data about school librarians and libraries. In honor of School Library Month, here are some facts and figures from the NTPS.

Library staff

• Public schools employed approximately 56,000 full-time librarians and library media specialists in the 2015–16 school year, as well as an additional 17,600 part-time librarians and library media specialists.

• Since there were more library media centers (82,300) than librarians and since some schools may employ more than one librarian, not every school with a library media center also employed a school librarian. On average, had 0.7 full-time and 0.2 part-time librarians and library media specialists.

Library media centers

• In the 2015–16 school year, 91 percent of public schools had a school library media center. Overall, there were approximately 82,300 public elementary and secondary schools with a library media center.

• The presence of school library media centers varied by the grade levels taught at schools. In the 2015–16 school year, higher percentages of primary schools (96 percent) and middle schools (95 percent) had library media centers than high schools (80 percent) or combined schools (79 percent).

• The presence of school library media centers also varied by the type of community in which schools were located. About 88 percent of city-based schools had a library media center in the 2015–16 school year, which was lower than the percentage of schools located in suburban areas (92 percent) and rural areas (94 percent).

• While the vast majority of public schools have a library media center, the percentage fell slightly between school years 2003–04 and 2015–16, from 94 percent to 91 percent, respectively (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Percentage of public schools reporting the presence of a library or library media center: 2003–04 to 2015–16

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), “Public School Data File,” 2003–04, 2007–08, 2011–12, and National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Data File,” 2015–16.

More information about school libraries, public libraries, and academic libraries is available through the Library Statistics Program and the NCES Fast Fact on Libraries. In addition, analysts can access these data using DataLab to conduct their own analyses of NTPS and other National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys.

By Maura Spiegelman

Breaking down data by racial and ethnic groups, such as White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian, can provide a better understanding of education performance and outcomes than just looking at overall outcomes. But these broad racial/ethnic groupings can still be large enough to hide important information and nuances about student performance and outcomes.  

A recent NCES report, Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2018, examines current conditions and changes over time in education activities and outcomes for members of racial and ethnic groups in the United States. The report also uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey^[1] to examine outcomes for U.S. and foreign-born individuals who identify with specific Hispanic and Asian ancestry subgroups (e.g., Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Asian Indian).^[2] For example, although 11 percent of Asian children under age 18 were living in poverty in 2016, the child poverty rate differed by more than 30 percentage points across the selected Asian subgroups—ranging from 6 percent each for Asian Indian, Filipino, and Japanese children to 37 percent for Bangladeshi children.

Matthew Soldner, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, delivered the remarks below at Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest’s February 27, 2019 Governing Board Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The remarks have been edited for clarity and to remove references to specific attendees or projects.

Good evening, and thank you for inviting me to share a few thoughts this evening about the Institute of Education Sciences’ vision for the REL program. I will promise to keep them brief, because I know you want to hear from REL Midwest about the work they have planned for the upcoming year, and I know they want to hear from you about the planned work and how it can be designed to meet your needs and the needs of your stakeholders.

As you meet over the course of the next day, I’d ask that you keep one question in mind throughout: how can our work together, across the various partnerships that are represented in this room, work to promote achievement for all students. I want to spend a moment on a few of those words.

First, achievement. When I talk about achievement, I’m not referring to only test scores or grades. I’m talking about measures and indicators of development and success from early childhood through adulthood, including outcomes in early childhood education, early and middle grades, high school, and college and university. This also must include indicators of success as learners move to and through the workforce.

Second, when I say all students – or, perhaps more precisely, all learners – I mean it in the most inclusive terms. We are deeply committed to ensuring each student, each learner, is well-served by our systems of education – from pre-Kindergarten to adult education, and all levels in-between.  

So what must we, as a REL program, do to work toward that goal? I think most of us would agree that nothing changes for students if adults don’t begin to do things differently and, hopefully, better.

That means our work must be focused on action. The kind of action you tell us is most needed in your states, your districts, and your communities.

Some of you are probably saying: “But I thought this work was about RESEARCH? Doesn’t the ‘L’ in ‘REL’ imply that we are out to experiment, test, and discover? Not ACTION?”

The answer is, of course, yes: Research is core to the distinctiveness of the REL program. Research, and a reliance on evidence in classroom practice and policymaking is at the foundation of everything that we do. And yes, in all of our work, we hope to inspire among our partners a desire and capacity to better use data and evidence.

But it cannot end there. The research that we do together must be in service of the action – of the change – around which you have invited us into your work. It must be part of a larger, coherent effort to improve the achievement of all students. Research is a means to an end, but it is not the end this program is meant to achieve.

I would offer one word of caution. This is not just, or even mostly, about improving dissemination. It isn’t about a better tweet, a better infographic, or a better video. We cannot be in the business of just putting research in peoples’ hands and expecting change.

Instead, this is about being in active partnership with you. And putting that relationship to work so that what we know and what we are learning can support the policy, program, and practice goals you have set to support all students.

I do not believe this is a radical departure from how this community thinks about its work. But it may call us to do our work with a different kind of intentionality.

So my ask of you, my charge to you, is that as Governing Board members and stakeholders you consistently challenge us to leverage the research, evaluation, and technical assistance skills of the REL staff in this room in ways that make a real difference in the lives of the learners you serve. Thank you being good partners with us on this journey. As always, please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have thoughts about how we might do our work better.

There is research evidence that having a teacher of the same race/ethnicity can have positive impacts on a student’s attitudes, motivation, and achievement^[1] and that minority teachers may have more positive expectations for minority students’ achievement than nonminority teachers.^[2] New data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that the public school teaching workforce is becoming more diverse, but is still predominantly White.

The majority of public elementary and secondary school teachers were White in both 2003–04 and 2015–16. However, the percentage of teachers who were White was lower in 2015–16 than in 2003–04 (80 vs. 83 percent). While the percentage of teachers who were Black also fell slightly in that time, the percentages of teachers who were Hispanic, Asian, and of Two or more races were higher in 2015–16 than in 2003–04.

Figure 1. Percentage distribution of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools, by race/ethnicity: School years 2003–04 and 2015–16

# Rounds to zero.
NOTE: Data are based on a head count of full-time and part-time teachers. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. Although rounded numbers are shown, figures are based on unrounded estimates.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), “Public School Teacher Data File,” 2003–04; and National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), “Public School Teacher Data File,” 2015–16. See Digest of Education Statistics 2017, table 209.10.

The racial/ethnic diversity of teachers differed somewhat by school characteristics. For example, schools with more racial/ethnic diversity in their student populations also tended to have more racial/ethnic diversity among teachers. In 2015–16, the percentage of minority^[3] teachers was highest at schools that had 90 percent or more minority students (55 percent) and was lowest at schools with less than 10 percent minority students (2 percent). The opposite pattern was observed for White teachers, who accounted for 98 percent of teachers at schools with less than 10 percent minority students but made up only 45 percent of staff at schools with 90 percent or more minority students.

Figure 2. Percentage distribution of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools, by percentage of minority students in school and teacher minority status: School year 2015–16

NOTE: Excludes the 7 percent of teachers for whom the percentage of minority enrollment in the school was not available. Minority teachers include all racial/ethnic groups except for White. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), “Public School Teacher Data File,” 2015–16. See Digest of Education Statistics 2017, table 209.23.

Are you interested in other differences in teacher characteristics by race/ethnicity? Then check out the spotlight feature in the Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2018 report.

By Lauren Musu