After the holidays, we begin to hold our annual information sessions for prospective students and families to learn more about ANCS. Invariably, at each session in the past, a parent has asked about what our “gifted and talented program” looks like. To those parents (and to those of you reading right now who might be wondering), the response is that ANCS does not have a traditional gifted and talented program. Why? Because there’s virtually no evidence to show that the usual variations of these programs—pulling students out for special instruction a few days each week, having a gifted teacher “push in” to the classroom, or even having select gifted or “high ability” schools—actually add much value for high-achieving students. You can find current examples of such research about these different types of models here and here .
So ANCS does not have a traditional “gifted and talented program” because these programs have proven to have little to no return on the investment in them. Why commit money, people, and major schedule changes to strategies that don’t work? In a similar vein, we do not use wholesale leveling of classes or place students into different tracks based on ability. There are times when our teachers will shift students—within and between heterogeneously grouped classrooms—into smaller peer groups based on their mastery of certain skills for guided instruction in math, reading, or writing, but we do not divide students along these lines on a standing basis because it has been shown to lead to lower quality school experiences for students of all ability levels and to exacerbate racial and economic segregation within schools. The research on these shortcomings of leveling and tracking was most clearly and powerfully captured in the landmark book Keeping Track by Jeannie Oakes, but even more recent research shows little benefit to tracking and leveling among elementary and middle school students.
Though we do not have a separate gifted program and do not level classes at ANCS, that does not mean that our approach is to simply teach “to the middle” and hope for the best for students. Our teachers work carefully to design curriculum and structure teaching and projects to challenge students who have demonstrated high levels of skill. Carol Ann Tomlinson’s description of “what it means to teach gifted learners well” captures what we strive for at ANCS.
Of course, meeting the needs of high-achieving students is easier said than done (especially during times of budget cuts and class size increases), and we are constantly working on improving it ourselves. First, we try not to get wrapped up in definitions of which students are “gifted”, in part because the term can be so wide-ranging (the federal government defines a student as “gifted” when there is “evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity”) and also because how a student shows high levels of achievement varies over time and between subject areas. So we instead aim to provide resources—multiple teachers in a classroom, low student load for teachers—and teacher training so that teachers are able to respond to differing student needs at all levels, mix up groups within and between their classrooms, and to challenge and support students appropriately.
At the end of the article linked above, Carol Ann Tomlinson states that “teaching gifted learners [is] not so hard to articulate. It’s fiendishly difficult to achieve in schools where standardization is the norm, and where teachers are supported in being recipe followers, rather than flexible and reflective artisans. In schools where responsive instruction is a carefully supported indicator of professional growth, the capacity to extend even the most capable mind is a benchmark of success.” This is our challenge and our goal at ANCS.