Grant Program in Nashua Schools Helps Teachers Look for Gifted Kids

By Sheryl Rich-Kern on Tuesday, March 20, 2007.

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A federal education program known as the Javits grant faces an uncertain future due to budget constraints.

The program, used in Nashua and 13 other school districts across the country, helps teachers identify gifted students who are typically overlooked -- students who come from underprivileged or minority groups.

NHPR Correspondent Sheryl Rich-Kern has more.

Are students from impoverished homes or minority populations any less likely to shine in the classroom?

Or simply less likely to get noticed?

CoteStats: If you are not on free or reduced lunch, youâ€™re four times as likely to be identified as gifted. If you are white or Asian, you are eight times as likely to be identified as gifted than if you were black or Hispanic.

That's Richard Cote, the director of the Javits Grant Program in Nashua.

Cote, a mathematician, says the numbers don't make sense.

For example, two years ago, in Nashua's middle school, among white and Asian students, over eight percent were considered gifted.

Among the school's Black and Hispanic population, teachers identified less than one percent of the students.

CoteEvidence: There is absolutely no evidence in the research we found anywhere that intelligence is a function of race, ethnicity, wealth. Indeed, we should find very able and talented individuals across those demographic areas.

Classroom sounds
At Pennichuck Middle School in Nashua, sixth grade students organize their chairs in groups of three or four.

They are planning what the teacher calls the ultimate vacation.

Healy: Iâ€™m Nate Healy. Weâ€™re doing a project about traveling across America, and weâ€™re going to Colorado. Itâ€™s really cool.

The project spans many disciplines like math and geography.

It also motivates students to write out directions and read guide books.

Kert: Sara Kert. We have a budget. And we have to like, look for times of tours and prices and stuff.

Students talking
The students' activities are leading to unexpected results.

Darcy Blauvelt, Javits program coordinator.

DarcyEngaged: I have a student; she hasnâ€™t done a lot for me in the earlier units. This vacation planning unit, she just invested in it. She became very engaged; she led her group.

The program is also part of an experiment Blauvelt and Cote are conducting.

Only some of the sixth grade classes are working on these projects.

It's called the Pathways Program.

At the end of the year, teachers will identify students they believe are gifted.

Theyâ€™ll send those names to evaluators at the University of Virginiaâ€™s Center on the Gifted and Talented.

And if Blauvelt and Cote are correct, a more equitable group of kids will be identified as gifted.

Cote says the goal of this research is

CoteGoal: To develop instrumentation to uncover kids who are economically disadvantaged and are very bright. Generally speaking, those kids donâ€™t show up under normal screening mechanisms.

Linda Burdick is president of the New Hampshire Association for Gifted Education.

She says the state doesnâ€™t fund gifted programs, and as a result, only a quarter of New Hampshire school districts offer one.

For those that do, Burdick agrees that pen-and-paper tests donâ€™t always reveal special talents.

She recalls her work with Appalachian kids.

BurdickApp: They were not verbally gifted at all. But they were performance gifted. So just by changing the IQ test to one that leaned more heavily on the verbal abilities to one that is more performance related, I increased the number of students in that program by 100 percent.

Carolyn Callahan, Director of the University of Virginiaâ€™s Research Center on the Gifted and Talented says itâ€™s not a matter of finding the right test, but the right program.

In preschool years, kids from low-income homes and minority groups, she says, often donâ€™t get exposed to books and enriching activities.

She says educators should be asking different questions.

Callahan2: How do we provide a high level, challenging, stimulating curriculum for these students that will give them the opportunity to develop the same level of thinking skills that other students would have.

On top of that, Callahan says teachers need to overcome their own prejudices.

Callahan2: So that when teachers are nominating students, theyâ€™re not looking for the well-dressed, well-behaved typical middle-class student.

And thatâ€™s the second, equally important goal of the Javitz grant: to help teachers recognize talented kids, no matter what their backgrounds.

The middle school is in Year 2 of its three-year grant from the federal government.

The Department of Education will have to decide whether to renew the program for its last year.

After that, itâ€™s not clear the Javits grant funds will continue.

The Presidentâ€™s current budget proposal eliminates it.

For NHPR News in Nashua, this is Sheryl Rich-Kern.