To determine if a person is gifted or not, the government sets the criteria of identification since giftedness is an abstract concept. However, the standard has always been decided and affected by the attitudes of the education authority and the allocation of resources. The opportunities for some potential learners to participate in gifted…

For the past several decades, issues such as underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minority students in gifted programming, as well as the widening of the existing achievement gap between specific minority and majority groups have persisted. The majority of gifted education researchers studying underrepresentation in gifted programming focus on…

"Everyone else was turning the page but I had not yet finished the first item." That is how the author remembers the beginning of his interest in intelligence. For whatever reason, he decided while in elementary school that intelligence is modifiable, and every year he authored a work book with exercises children could complete to increase their…

Leading researchers describe the field of special education as sharply divided between two different theories of disability. In this article Scot Danforth takes as his project addressing that division from the perspective of a Deweyan philosophy of the education of students with intellectual disabilities. In 1922, John Dewey authored two articles…

When Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004 (IDEIA 2004), local educational agencies (LEA) were permitted to use a Response-to-Intervention (RtI) approach for identifying children with possible learning disabilities for special education. Furthermore, IDEIA 2004 no longer required LEAs to establish an…

How did standardized tests become the measure of performance in our public schools? In this compelling work, Mark J. Garrison attempts to answer this question by analyzing the development of standardized testing, from the days of Horace Mann and Alfred Binet to the current scene. Approaching the issue from a sociohistorical perspective, the author…

There is great controversy in the field of learning disabilities (LD) regarding the establishment of criteria for LD identification. The traditional approach to LD identification is to use the IQ-discrepancy. Lyon and colleagues (2001) point out the numerous problems with such an approach, including faulty assumptions about the adequacy of an IQ…

Exceptionally bright and capable students with learning disabilities, often referred to as being twice exceptional, may fail to meet learning disabilities criteria if a strict psychometric approach is taken. To make an accurate diagnosis, an evaluator must consider their special circumstances, unique abilities, educational histories, and…

The motivation and methodology for measuring intelligence have changed repeatedly in the modern history of large-scale student testing. Test makers have always sought to identify raw aptitude for cultivation, but they have never figured out how to promote excellence while preserving equality. They've settled for egalitarianism, which gives rise to…

The purpose of this article is to provide readers with an overview of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). Special education is often used for meeting the needs of African American children and youth. Assessment reform is needed that emphasizes reliable and valid alternative assessment, linkages to the curriculum, and progress monitoring. CBM may…

This paper describes new approaches to assessment in dance and dance education. The first part examines assumptions behind traditional models of evaluation in academic and performing arts contexts. I consider whether it is useful to understand human ability as unitary or if it is meaningful to evaluate people according to a single dimension of…

When trying to explain the discrepancy between the numbers of white students in gifted education programs and the number of culturally diverse students in gifted education programs, it becomes apparent that there are multiple factors at play with the most prominent one being the identification process. Most districts begin the identification…

With so many unanswered questions and controversies regarding intelligence, testing in general, and testing diverse students in particular, what can educators in gifted education do to ensure that these students have access to and are represented in gifted education programs and services? In this monograph, the author examines test bias by first…

Under Title V, Guidance, Counseling, and Testing of the "National Defense Education Act of 1958," the Congress of the United States has recognized the value of tests as a tool which may be used to help make an early determination of the aptitudes and abilities of the students in U.S. schools. This bulletin attempts to explain the use and…