As a product of Fairfax County Public Schools and as an African American, this issue has been a source of frustration for me.  It became apparent to me at an early age that there was a huge racial and socioeconomic discrepancy in the gifted program and the regular program at my elementary school.  I believed that there were many other students who were very capable but were not given the chance to exceed early on in their education, including me. 

The gifted program at the elementary level fed into the honors classes in middle school, where it was clear that kids in the honors program had more resources (i.e. SAT vocabulary books) in addition to a more rigorous curriculum. Regular classes were hardly challenging and the environment in regular classes made it is extremely difficult to grow academically as a result of not being challenged enough.  By high school, students were allowed to choose their own classes (regular, honors, AP), but after being stuck on a certain track for so long and not encouraged to challenge themselves, the majority of students in the regular program chose to stick with the regular courses.

I believe that this system reinforces the achievement gap between both low-income and minority “high-achieving” students and their more affluent and majority “high-achieving” peers.  The failure to prioritize the underrepresentation of low-income/minority students in gifted programs will certainly undermine efforts to reduce the achievement gap.  All students in Virginia deserve fair and equitable access to state and locally funded gifted services.  Without a strong foundation, these students will not reach their full potential which is totally unacceptable.

I strongly urge our elected and appointed officials to accept and implement the NAACP recommended changes and amendments to the gifted education regulations.  The NAACP recommendations will result in a more equitable gifted and governor’s school program throughout Virginia.  Minority and low-income gifted students will receive needed services so they can reach their fullest potential and make their necessary contribution to Virginia, the United States, and our global community.

In Fairfax Public Schools:  African American students are 11% of the student enrollment but only 7% of students receiving gifted education services.  Caucasian students are 48% of the student enrollment, yet 57% of students receiving gifted education services.

 Fairfax reports erroneous data to the VADOE on its gifted student enrollment.  Fairfax reports its Caucasian student enrollment is 79,427.  Fairfax reports 34,132 Caucasian students as gifted; therefore 57% of Caucasian students in Fairfax are gifted.  This data is false and inaccurate.

 The Regional Education Laboratory Appalachia used its own definition of “students identified as gifted”, relying on the “Student Record Collection”, to generate its report because of the unreliable data collected by VADOE and absence of uniformity in gifted data reporting procedures across school divisions.

 Recommend:  Change 8 VAC 20-40-20 Definitions.  Operationalize the definition of a gifted student to facilitate accurate and uniform demographic data collection of gifted programs between school divisions and the VADOE as required by the Code of Virginia Section 22.1-18.

Recommend:  A provision in the regulation requiring VADOE to implement data collection as required in the Code of Virginia 22.1-1-18, on school division gifted programs, level of gifted services, governor’s school programs, summer regional governor’s school programs, and Math & Science Innovation Center gifted programs.

Require school divisions to report annually in school division gifted plans demographic data on the criteria relied upon for the identification of gifted students for school division gifted programs and governor’s school (for example:  referrals and source, ability test scores, achievement test scores, teacher ratings of gifted students, index scores, cut scores, and grade point averages) (including prerequisite courses for governor’s school).