Metrolina Regional Scholars’ Academy Charter Application Excerpt:
MISSION 1 1 5C-23 g .29F(g)(5) The Metrolina Regional Scholars’ Academy is a nondiscriminatory, public charter school that provides a differentiated, exceptionally challenging education for children of extremely high academic or intellectual ability, ages 4 to 13. We meet the distinctive intellectual, social and emotional needs of our students by providing a supportive environment in which they can meet academic challenges and develop relationships with peers of all ages. We strive to prepare our graduates to become independent, productive, responsible and creative individuals capable of making original contributions to society. PURPOSES OF PROPOSED CHARTER SCHOOL 115C-238.29A North Carolina has long been the home of exemplary programs for gifted students. This State led the nation with the first Governor’s School, the first residential high school for the arts, and the first residential high school for mathematics and science. North Carolina is one of only four states in the nation to house a national talent search program, the Talent Identification Program at Duke University. Highly, gifted four-year-olds in North Carolina now have access to kindergarten. In addition, the North Carolina legislature recently passed ground-breaking legislation which recognizes that giftedness, like other areas of special education, lies along’ a continuum, and requires a variety of services. This application extends the legacy of North Carolina’s support for gifted students by requesting the establishment of a charter school for highly gifted children. The identification and education of gifted children are controversial topics, and there is no universal consensus on the best approach to these issues’. However, charter schools provide new educational alternatives for populations of children who, for whatever reason, may fall through the cracks in traditional public schools, without requiring the universal agreement of all stakeholders in the educational system. Indeed, in passing the Act, lawmakers specifically intended to “increase learning opportunities for all students, with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as at risk of academic failure or academically gifted.” The primary purpose of the Academy is to provide expanded learning experiences for highly gifted children. This special population is both gifted and, all too often, at risk of academic failure. The general approach to gifted education in most school districts, including many of those in the Metrolina region, is to provide occasional enrichment for students identified as gifted, and to assist regular classroom teachers in teaching gifted students in the regular classroom. The Academy will take a different approach. Based on the best available research and classroom practices, the Academy will provide full time special education for highly gifted students in a school environment specifically designed to deal with their unique intellectual, social and emotional needs. The Academy’s philosophy is based on a number of basic ideas, including the following: • there are varying degrees of intellectual and academic abilities which must be taken into account in determining the optimal educational placement for a particular child; • highly gifted children do not simply learn faster — they learn in a qualitatively different way — and therefore benefit from being with other highly gifted children rather than, for example, simply skipping grades; • highly gifted children often have special social and emotional needs, and are at risk of academic failure if not properly identified and supported; • outstanding talents are present in children from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor; and —. • highly gifted children from disadvantaged backgrounds are doubly at risk of academic failure, and will benefit disproportionately from a public school educational altei1iative specifically geared to their needs. Not everyone will agree with each of these ideas. However, one of the advantages of charter schools is that they do not require universal consensus on the need for a new school. For those parents who agree with the Academy’s philosophy and choose to enroll their children, the Academy will provide a small, dose community of administrators, teachers, parents and students, all of whom are dedicated to the success of the Academy’s students. Particularly for these children, and particularly in school systems already overcrowded with the “baby boom echo” generation, such an academic community is desperately needed. Characteristics of the Highly Gifted Child – Experts increasingly recognize that there is more than one level of intellectual or academic ability. For example, in Vision 2000, its plan for gifted education, CMS recognized that there are different levels of giftedness that should be taken into account in providing educational services, Vision 2000 states that The strengths of gifted students encompass a continuum as broad as any heterogeneous population. These diverse strengths demand a continuum of educational opportunities and experiences. The most intensely gifted students in CMS deserve appropriate rigor, complexity, novelty, depth and acceleration in what they learn. Meeting that challenge requires engaging curricula and instruction that enables these exceptionally gifted students, as well as all other students, to demonstrate significant academic and intellectual growth, When that is accomplished, CMS will have met its responsibility to lead gifted students toward realizing their contributions to self and society. N.C. law (Article 9B, July 1996) states that “placement procedures.., allow for the identification of specific educational needs and the assignment of academically and intellectually gifted students to appropriate services... The plan shall include a clear statement of the program to be offered that includes different types of services provided in a variety of settings to meet the diversity of identified academically or intellectually gifted students N. C. Department of Public Instruction Guidelines Governing Local Plans for Gifted Education (January 1997) states that “the emphasis for identification/placement should be to match students with particular services.., the degree of the precociousness of the student should be considered when making placement decisions, CMS identifies students as having “clear” or “extreme” strengths. A description of the type of instruction appropriate for students with extreme strengths, as provided in Vision 2000, is attached as Appendix 3. Distinguishing among degrees of ability is important for two reasons. First, highly gifted students have specific needs that are very different from those of other students, even those identified as gifted for purposes of traditional gifted and talented programs. Even when programming is geared to above average students, especially when it is integrated into the regular classroom, the needs of some gifted students are met, but the needs of highly gifted students often are not. Second, the number of highly gifted students in any given area is relatively small when compared to the overall number of students identified as gifted under identification methods generally used by public school systems. For example, CMS generally identifies 14-15% of its students as academically gifted, The relatively small number of highly gifted students creates challenges both in programming and in advocacy. Programming for highly gifted students is often difficult because there may be only one or two such students per grade level at any one school, and it is difficult to justify the expense of establishing a program for one or two students. Advocacy is problematic because there are more parents advocating for the needs of gifted students for whom moderate levels of enrichment may be effective, rather than for highly. gifted students who need special education services. While advocating for services for gifted children in general, supporters of highly gifted students can be drowned out by the equally legitimate concerns for other gifted students. When the needs of most gifted students are met, the general cry for appropriate services diminishes leaving highly gifted students right where they started, with little or no educational programming suited to their learning needs- The Academy is designed to serve the most rare, and arguably the least served, student in the public school system: the highly gifted child. The reasons why, highly gifted children require a differentiated education are multifaceted, and are qualitative as well as quantitative. A brief overview of the research demonstrates variation between highly gifted children and their age-mates not only in cognition, but in affective development and social interaction as well, Cognition. Highly gifted children absorb vast quantities of information, but this is perhaps the least remarkable of their skills. They also are capable of abstract and complex thought, problem solving, and intuitive thinking: While their age-mates are comfortable working with concrete material, highly gifted children are more at home with abstractions- They may have difficulty concentrating on isolated fragments of information, analyzing bits of learning such as phonics, or memorizing facts, yet they usually manipulate abstract symbol systems with ease and become animated when dealing with complex relations involving many variables. They are systems thinkers. These differences appear early in life. As infants, highly gifted children are often reported to have sophisticated language development, intense curiosity, heightened need for stimulation, and lengthy attention spans. Right from the start, highly gifted children are “decidedly different learners.” Affective Awareness. Highly gifted children apply their skills to all areas of their world, not just the classroom. As a result, they tend to be different from their age-mates in affective development. For example, they tend to have a heightened awareness of moral issues demonstrating an unusually early interest in philosophical dilemmas. The affective characteristics which tend to accompany high intellectual ability include extremes of emotional responses, complex emotions and feelings, empathy with others, strong affective memory, arid independence of moral judgment. Both Tenuan and Hollingworth identified heightened emotional awareness as a hallmark characteristic of their samples of highly gifted students. Heightened social sensitivity does not inevitably lead to the ethical high ground, however. Evidence suggests that in the absence of positive mentoring, gifted children can become clever hindrances to society. Experts estimate that as many as 8-12% of delinquent boys in juvenile facilities could be classified as gifted. In a study comparing gifted delinquent boys with other delinquent boys, Brooks found that the gifted boys had: 1) a heightened sensitivity to experience, including that of personal relationships; 2) a potentially heightened level of intellectual curiosity which, unless satisfied, could lead to feelings of frustration, anxiety, or rejection; 3) more pronounced potential levels of creativity and perception although, in practical terms, those perceptions could be quite unrealistic; 4) deeper critical faculties, which could result in a refusal to accept social models unless convinced intellectually and emotionally of the validity of social dogmas as applied to them; and 5) stronger levels of self-regard (which may be founded on illusion), often associated with an awareness that they are intelligent. This tendency often revealed itself as a sort of insufferable arrogance, which alienated them from other people. Gifted students need the watchful eyes of understanding adults and the social validation of like-minded peers to understand that, although they might be different, they do have a place in legitimate society. Social Interactions. The combination of advanced cognition and affective awareness results in a social distancing between the highly gifted child and her age-mates in the regular classroom. Hollingworth’s seminal research found that highly gifted children had trouble relating socially with their age-mates not because of lack of interest or lack of desire, but because of lack of shared knowledge. Seeking conversation about ideas they find interesting, highly gifted children often seem to prefer. the company of adults. For the highly gifted child, it is very difficult to find other children with the same interests, the same vocabulary, or the same way of looking at the world. This makes socializing very difficult, often leaving the highly gifted child with the sense of being alone in a crowd. Compared to their age-mates, highly gifted students spend more time alone and isolated, and they feel extremely lonely. Highly gifted students feel that they don’t have enough friends and that “being smart” makes it hard to make friends. Over time, such students sometimes develop a tendency to engage in “deliberate underachievement,” consciously choosing to make lower grades as a form of self-defense from their peer group, The pressure to underachieve is especially severe for students in traditionally under-represented groups, who often are seen as betraying their subculture when they pursue their passion to learn. Over time, these students may come to internalize the message they try to send to everyone else, and begin to deny their abilities. Even the classroom does not always provide a refuge for gifted students, Teachers untrained in the nature and needs of gifted students often find them annoying and threatening. These students sometimes are identified as behavior problems because their creative contributions to classroom activities are labeled inappropriate arid distracting. Although for the most part parents with gifted children are supportive, some gifted students cannot even find understanding in their own home: I had a very unhappy home situation where my parents were actually very intimidated by my being an academically talented child. And they were determined that I be normal. In fact, I had gotten scholarships to private school after Hunter, and they wouldn’t send me to private school. So I rebelled by almost flunking out of high school. The irony is that this disheartened rebellion is relatively easy to counteract, being in a school with other highly gifted children call mitigate negative responses and promote “a sense of belonging.” The longing for a like-minded peer group is so strong that, although most programs for the gifted are designed to meet intellectual needs, students who attend these programs generally appreciate them equally for intellectual stimulation and social validation. One young man attending the Johns Hopkins Talent Search program put it succinctly: “There [at his home school] I was one of ‘them,’ here, I’m one of ‘us.” Consequences of Difference. A commonly held myth about gifted students is that they will “take care of themselves” in the absence of appropriate programming to challenge and develop their skills. Nothing could be further from the truth. A failure to train gifted students to maximize their potential has several ramifications. The first is unfulfilled personal promise: The small amount of work often mundane, repetitious work that gifted students are asked to do in school, they can achieve quickly and with little effort. They rarely have to face difficult problems and often do not know how to cope when at some later educational level, they meet a challenging and intractable problem that does not easily yield to a facile but undisciplined mind. The second is a failure to support the intellectual needs of the nation: Our societal resistance to providing a quality education for the best and brightest of our students is [a) self-destructive act, and we, and our children, are likely to pay dearly for it in terms of second class science, business, education and art, We will have an increasing inability to compete in the economic and technological international competition in the near future.3’ At worst, the failure to stimulate highly gifted children in school could be detrimental to society: Gifted students, bored with the daily faze in school, may simply leave school and become part of the population of drop-outs, or even become delinquents: A study of the juvenile courts in Colorado revealed that 15 percent of the delinquent population was composed of students in the top 3 percent of the nation intellectually. This is five times the percentage that should have shown up if proportionally distributed. Highly gifted students are extremely different from their age-mates and require specialized education appropriate to their needs. The regular classroom does not yet seem structured to deal with the needs of these children The Highly Gifted Child in the Regular Classroom Under today ‘s practices, high ability students are forced to spend more time than they need on curriculum developed for students of moderate ability. Many become bored, unmotivated, and frustrated. They become prisoners of time. Academic Concerns. Academically gifted students have skills and characteristics which distinguish them from their age-mates. These characteristics go beyond the ability to score well on tests, and encompass capacities of insight and information processing, problem solving, conceptual skill and information analysis and integration. Maximizing the potential of these skills requires a qualitatively different approach to education. However, regular classroom teachers are already strained to their limits trying to meet the basic needs of the diverse children in their classroom. Innocently — but mistakenly — thinking that gifted children can “take care of themselves,” teachers generally tend to focus on the overwhelming needs of the other students in their classes: • Teachers responding to a national survey report that they do not adapt instruction for gifted children in their classroom. These findings are consistent across geographic regions, public/private school distinction, and demographics of the school population. • Observational studies of teacher practice indicate that little differentiation occurs within the regular classroom, including grouping or conversation stimulating higher level thinking skills. • A survey of middle-school teachers showed that respondents who had no training in the nature or characteristics of gifted students thought there was no need for special programming. However, teachers who had completed courses in education for the gifted believed that differentiated programming was a necessity. • The content presented in the regular classroom is often substantially below gifted students’ ability levels. Current editions of some school texts have dropped as much as two grade levels over the past 15 years. • Many gifted students have already mastered 35 to 50 percent of the information in texts on the first day of class. • A review of elementary and middle school science curricula found that none of the basal texts presented information at a level appropriate for gifted students. Subsequent analysis of language arts texts revealed a similar lack of attention to gifted students. The consequences of leaving gifted students in this environment considered too low for all students and particularly low for gifted students is that students with potential, but insufficient training, graduate from high school without ever having been challenged to earn their achievement, As one young woman complained: I breezed through classes in 12 years, graduated from high school as the valedictorian, and then almost flunked out of college because I never learned to work hard at learning, I feel angry, jealous, and cheated about the potential that was lost as a result of my high school’s lack of special programs for the academically talented. Social Concerns. Several powerful myths persist regarding the role that highly gifted students play in the regular classroom. The first myth is that the highly gifted student is a classroom leader. In fact, this is a role that highly gifted students seldom play. Second, many voice the concern that highly gifted students need to stay in the regular classroom in order to learn how to socialize with all students However, in the regular classroom environment, the highly gifted student is almost always the “odd man out.” It is difficult to learn positive socialization skills when one is constantly at the fringes of a group, Often, the best pathway to positive social skills for the highly gifted child is to first be in a group of age/ability mates, where he can learn the skills of conversation, cooperation, and sharing as he simultaneously acquires the self-assurance that comes along with social acceptance. With that foundation in place, the highly gifted child can then be taught to transfer those skills to social settings with other children. These social issues are often magnified during adolescence, which brings with it changes in the growing individual’s relationship with self, peers, adults and the environment. Aside from the physical changes, young adolescents have a new ability to define themselves using abstract attributes such as character, philosophy or belief, Roughly drawn, the transitions associated with the development of this new, abstract and independent conception of self are to: 1) become less dependent on the family as the sole source of social support; 2) identify a peer group to take on the role of social support; 3) learn how to initiate and sustain intimate (romantic) relationships; 4) reassess skills and talents in light of a new, more abstract identity formation; and 5) eventually form a sense of identity that can be supported and defended through a sense of internal efficacy, All children face these passages; for highly gifted students it is a uniquely defining period of questioning or reaffirming their talent as a part of their self-definition. These students can be challenged in unique ways, looking for how being “gifted” fits in with their newly evolving identities. As gifted adolescents begin to address the tasks of self-definition they, like all adolescents, become understandably self-oriented as well as peer-oriented, Looking for personal meaning in concepts such as “truth” and “justice,” they begin to scrutinize their education more closely for signs of relevance. An appropriate curriculum alone is not enough to sustain and develop talent during adolescence. To create an environment where highly gifted students can enjoy a “culture of thoughtfulness,” the following should also be in place: • A cadre of intellectual peers or “kindred spirits,” preferably age-mates around whom gifted students can form new relationships and bases of support as they begin the natural process of becoming independent of their parents. |
 
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