Academic May Shake Up Programs for Gifted
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A quarter-century ago, Joseph Renzulli theorized that “giftedness” isn’t just about top test scores and good grades – it also relates to “task commitment” and creativity.
Now Mr. Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut, is one of two key academics on a panel the city’s Department of Education established to re-evaluate comprehensively its programs for the gifted and talented.
If his ideas are implemented here, the test-score cutoffs for gifted programs could drop. It could also mean the creation of new enrichment programs for above-average students, on top of the gifted and talented programs that already exist.
The think tank, as it is called, hasn’t made any final decisions, but the other lead academic on the panel, Dona Matthews, said Mr. Renzulli’s influential but controversial Schoolwide Enrichment Model has won strong support from fellow panel members.
A department spokesman, Jerry Russo, said the think tank’s goal is “strengthening, not watering down, gifted and talented,” but some politicians and academics caution that adopting Mr. Renzulli’s theories wholesale could destroy high-quality programs that keep top-notch students at public schools.
Mr. Renzulli did not return telephone and e-mail requests asking for an explanation of his ideas.
In an essay he wrote in 1999 in the Journal for the Education of the Gifted, he said his model is based on a “broadened conception of giftedness.”
“This definition focuses on the many kinds of aptitudes, talents, and potentials for advanced learning and creative productivity that exist in all school populations,” he wrote. “The goal is not to certify some students as ‘gifted’ and others as ‘non-gifted,’ but rather to provide every student with the opportunities, resources, and encouragement necessary to achieve his or her maximum potential.”
Before Mr. Renzulli entered the field of education of the gifted in the late 1960s, most states allowed only students with high IQ scores into special programs. In his writings, he calls that method “absolutist.”
Truly gifted people don’t just have “schoolhouse giftedness,” Mr. Renzulli wrote. They are also creative people who dedicate themselves to tasks.
In 1983, Mr. Renzulli created the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, which synthesized his previous theories. He calls it a “blueprint for total school improvement.” It involves three interacting dimensions that affect instruction. He recommends three levels of enrichment, which students can transfer into and out of, depending on their levels of interest.
Although Mr. Renzulli advocates opening enrichment programs to a larger group of top students, he says he doesn’t want to eliminate differentiated instruction for academically advanced pupils.
“Our intention in developing SEM was never to replace special programs,” he wrote. “Rather it is our hope that by applying good learning principles to all students, we will diffuse traditional criticisms of gifted programs and make schools places where scholarship and creativity and enthusiasm for learning are honored and respected.”
Ms. Matthews, director of the Hunter College Center for Gifted Studies and Education, said: “The Schoolwide Enrichment Model is a nice way of thinking about getting gifted understandings into every school.” But she warned that schoolwide enrichment on its own would not be sufficient.
“I don’t think it’s enough, but I do think it’s a good foundation,” she said, explaining, “It’s important to think about making sure that there are special programs for kids that are seriously advanced relative to their peers.”
Politicians who have been strong proponents of the gifted and talented programs in their districts were less diplomatic in their criticisms of Mr. Renzulli’s model.
“Reforming something isn’t always the right thing to do,” state Senator Carl Kruger, Democrat of Brooklyn and Manhattan, said. “I believe what they’re talking about is basically disemboweling [the existing programs], taking them apart, and at some point just sort of amalgamating them into the normal school structure.”
Rep. Anthony Weiner, Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens, said from what he’s read, it seems as though Mr. Renzulli wants to take lessons from programs for the gifted and spread them among all kinds of students. That might be a nice theory, the congressman and mayoral aspirant said, but it might damage the programs for gifted students that enhance New York City’s schools.
“We have a substantive problem in our schools, but we also have a perception problem,” Mr. Weiner said. “The perception problem is that the public schools are no longer a place for the best students. The only hedge against that thinking is the gifted and talented programs. If they seek to mainstream our best students and best teachers, it would be a mistake from which many communities might not recover.”
Mr. Weiner said he fears the Department of Education created the think tank so that it could radically alter existing programs. Drawing an analogy to the federal government’s approach on military posts, he said: “You don’t set up a base-closing commission unless you want to close bases.”
Despite fears, people in Mr. Renzulli’s field said the notion that he’s in favor of eliminating all programs for the gifted and talented is a misunderstanding of his model.
The chairman of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Columbia’s Teachers College, James Borland, said there is continuing controversy in the field about the definition of “gifted.” Mr. Borland said that he doesn’t necessarily agree with all of Mr. Renzulli’s ideas, but that Mr. Renzulli doesn’t advocate lowering academic standards for top students, his opponents’ biggest fear.
“It’s not a matter of lowering standards,” Mr. Borland said. “It’s a matter of not missing those kids who are likely to make the greatest contributions to society.”
That is, many of the adults who are considered gifted didn’t have top scores in school and might have been passed over by a typical program for the gifted and talented.
Mr. Russo, of the education department, didn’t comment directly on Mr. Renzulli but said the think tank “includes a distinguished group of people who are working through a wide range of issues relating to the best practices for our most advanced students, including national experts.” He said the goal of the analysis is to “expand educational opportunities for students who deserve the most academically challenging work and who have special talents in the arts and other concept areas.” The spokesman said another goal is making existing programs “more rigorous” so they challenge the city’s top students.
He said the panel would seek input from the community education councils and parents before making recommendations to the chancellor sometime next year.