In Loudon Public Schools:  African American students are 8% of the student enrollment but only 3% of students receiving gifted education services.  Caucasian students are 64% of the student enrollment, yet 81% of students receiving gifted education services.

 

When identifying gifted/talented students from poverty and/or identifying students who are twice exceptional, one of the first obstacles to overcome is the perception of giftedness.

 

If a school district has a twenty-year history of primarily identifying gifted/talented students from middle and upper middle-class households, school boards and administrators may not understand how someone can be gifted/talented and not score high on a traditional, standardized test or also be receiving special services from special education.

 

Magnet schools and gifted programs were intended to achieve voluntary desegregation in the public schools and mitigate “white flight” from the public schools.  Now these programs serve to perpetuate class and racial advantage.

 

-Recommend 8 VAC 20-40-60 local plan, be amended to require local plans address:

 

Disproportionate representation.
 
-The VADOE must monitor school divisions in the priority areas:  disproportionate representation of racial, ethnic, and low-income students in gifted education, and governor’s school programs to the extent the representation is the result of inappropriate identification.
 
-The VADOE must identify school divisions with disproportionate representation, and of those, the number where the disproportionate representation is the result of inappropriate identification of children by race, ethnicity, and poverty status. 
 
-Identifying inappropriate identification could include a review of policies, procedures, and practices related to identification of gifted minority and low-income children.
 
-If disproportionality is due to inappropriate identification, require the school division to correct the noncompliance, including revising deficient policies, procedures, and practices.

 

-Recommend that annual plans address disproportionality and corrective action plans if warranted.

 

- Recommend the State Board of Education report with specificity in its’ Annual Report on the Conditions and Needs of Public Schools in Virginia to the Governor and General Assembly on the disproportionate representation of low-income and minority students in.