students is learning English as a second language, they only make up about 101,000 of the more than 3.4 million students in gifted programs across the nation. In Florida, a host of organizations-including the state chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the state conference of the NAACP, Sunshine State TESOL and its Miami-Dade chapter-are calling on state legislators to order a revision of the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan to ensure students have access to native-language assessments and that the state uses an accountability system that adequately monitors the academic progress of English-learners.Įducation Week has also written about the struggles schools encounter in identify English-learners in need of enriched education.Īn analysis by the Education Week Research Center found that while nearly 1 in 10 U.S. The research paper’s focus on native-language assessments may be especially striking to English-learner advocates in Florida and other states that decline to offer the tests, even though federal education law directs states to “make every effort” to develop statewide exams in students’ first languages if they constitute a significant portion of the student population. Department of Education’s office of English-language acquisition. The National Center for Research on Gifted Education conducted the study, commissioned during the Obama administration, with funding from the U.S. The researchers also created a 15-point tip sheet for identifying gifted English-learners with suggestions that include diversifying the teaching corps to reflect the student population and maintaining a list of multilingual staff who can administer gifted and talented assessments in student’s native languages. Use professional development to help educators identify giftedness in multiple ways.Ensure that more educators and parents are aware of the identification process.Use a variety of assessments to determine student eligibility, including tests that measure students’ ability and achievements in their native languages.Screen all students for admission to gifted education.Their findings led to four recommendations: The researchers examined the screening, nomination, identification, and placement processes in the schools and tried to pinpoint how professional development and communication strategies helped address the underrepresentation of English-learners in gifted and talented programs. The schools they studied also had ELL advocates, or talent scouts as Siegle called them, who were on the lookout for students in need of enriched instruction. The team found that schools with a “critical mass” of English-learners were more attuned to the needs of their talented students. In search of solutions, researchers from the center visited 16 elementary and middle schools across three states to conduct interviews with educators and parents at schools that had “exemplary” track records in spotting gifted English-learners.
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