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| Winter 2004 | Page 1 | Volume 8, Number 1 |
Fifty Years and Racing to the Future by Kay Simpson Indianapolis, Indiana-November 2003 This was my first trip to the national convention and it proved to be every bit as wonderful as anticipated. Indianapolis, a great convention city, provided the perfect backdrop to celebrate 50 years of gifted advocacy. As the weather turned cold and colder outside, the climate inside grew warm and jovial while 3,000 plus attendees met, studied, planned, ate, shopped, and encouraged one another. Participants could move between hotel, convention center, mall, and restaurants without ever venturing outside. As President of the Alabama affiliate organization, I attended every session available to help serve you better. My first event was the annual Leadership Seminar. This year's seminar was led by Dr. Mary Landrum from the University of Virginia. She provided insight to the topic of Collaborating with Classroom Teachers in order to foster differentiation for gifted learnersÑall in a thoroughly entertaining manner. No one was ready to leave even after three hours! I've already been in contact with Mary about coming to Alabama for this year's summer conference. (See the summary of Mary's session on Page 2 for more information.) Day two brought first-hand training for me in the Parallel Curriculum Model (PCM) at the hands of the creators themselves. I selected the PCM Institute as my primary focus for the day. As I sat waiting for the opening session, I was privileged to be seated at a table with several of the authors. I visited with Carol Ann Tomlinson, Deb Burns, Jeanne Purcell, and company, and I'm sure I soaked up extra PCM knowledge just from that close proximity to them! The overview of the model and optional in-depth sessions, together with many presentations by PCM practitioners, gave me a heightened understanding of the model and its importance for gifted education. We MUST continue working together as G/T educators to light the way toward a more rigorous curriculum for gifted children and all learners throughout Alabama. Another highlight of the convention for me was the Affiliate Breakfast. This early-morning session brought me face-to-face with leaders from across the nation as it provided the chance to visit at length with Presidents from Georgia and Mississippi. We discussed means for building a bridge throughout the southeast region as we collaborate to grow even stronger G/T programs within each sister state. I joined both the Curriculum Studies and Middle Grades divisions and attended both business meetings. By participating on a national committee in one division, I hope to enlarge the networking capability of this office. While there, I learned about a new NAGC publication, a user-friendly journal for gifted practitioners-much like the successful Parenting for Potential. The trip to NAGC was both enjoyable and beneficial. I appreciate this opportunity to attend our national convention. | Legislative Funding for Gifted Education The President's fiscal year 2005 budget will be sent to Congress the first week in February. We expect that the President, as in previous years, will request $0 for the Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act. This makes our work more difficult, of course, but we have prevailed before by going directly to Congress with our request, and we have no reason to believe that this strategy will not work again. Members of Congress develop an "appropriations letter" to their respective leaders on the House or Senate Appropriations Committees early each year. Please send letters to your Senators and Representative (s) requesting that the Member of Congress include $25 million in funding for the Javits program in the MemberÕs FY 2005 letter to the Appropriations Committee. Your letters should include a brief statement about why we need gifted education, and how federal support, in the form of grants to states, and research by the NRC/GT, can make a difference in your school district (and state). It is also important to note that the increase in funding ($11.2 million in fiscal year 2003) would go directly to the state grants, meaning that approximately $17 million would be available to the states in 2005, compared to approximately $3.65 million available in state grants in 2003.
Teacher Training The Congress is scheduled to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) in 2004. This is the federal umbrella law that addresses teacher preparation programs, among others. The House of Representatives has already passed large segments of the HEA and is awaiting Senate action. In the Senate, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) is drafting a reauthorization bill that we expect will be introduced in early 2004. For gifted education supporters, the reauthorization of the HEA offers the opportunity to improve the ability of general education teachers to address the academic needs of gifted and talented students. Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa) has introduced S.1638, a bill that amends the teacher quality enhancement grants in Title II of the HEA to permit states and university/school district partnerships receiving grants to incorporate the special learning needs of gifted and talented students into their activities. Three Senators have joined Senator Grassley as cosponsors of S.1638: Cochran and Lott from Mississippi, and Senator Sessions from Alabama. We need more Senate cosponsors to be successful in incorporating S.1638 into the Senate version of the Higher Education Act. | Legislative Contact is the Key Please contact your Senators as soon as possible and ask them to become a cosponsor of S.1638. For those of you who are affiliated with universities, please contact your university's government relations office to ask the university to contact your Senators in support of S.1638. Most universities have several staff members who follow legislative activities in your state capitol and in Congress. Universities are significant institutions within your state. Letters and phone calls from a university in support of legislation would carry some weight in your Senators' offices. This article is excerpted from an NAGC legislative update sent regularly to affiliate Presidents. SDE Update Anytime we do a presentation and mention Bloom's Taxonomy, there is an audible groan from the audience. Now, Dr. Bloom's work is certainly worthy of more than that, so why do people react that way? Maybe it's because the only thing many of us ever did with Bloom's Taxonomy was to memorize it for a college test. We were stuck on the bottom level-knowledge-and never experienced learning at the levels of application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Two current state initiatives-curriculum development and monitoringÑprovide opportunities for teachers and administrators to experience the "actively engaged" learning that Bloom put at the highest levels of his taxonomy. More than 250 teachers attended at least one of the training sessions this summer in the concept-based curriculum model. This model emphasizes designing curriculum around the major concepts and essential understandings of an area of study in addition to the basic facts. Powerful questions are posed from the essential understandings-the kind that have no one right answer, so the learner is naturally engaged in true critical thinking. As the questions are answered, projects and products emerge that reflect levels of deeper understanding and enduring learning. We are encouraged by the positive feedback from many of you who attended these sessions. We have seen many concept webs during our monitoring visits. We have heard from regional groups of teachers who are meeting together to share unit ideas. You are applying, analyzing, and evaluating. Dr. Bloom would be proud. In a less obvious way, perhaps, monitoring also allows for critical thinking at the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy: evaluation. The new monitoring procedures take the act of evaluation to an even higher level: self-evaluation. Gifted standards were developed for use as program goals and benchmarks of progress. Instead of the SDE monitors evaluating the quality of programs, teachers, principals, and program administrators evaluate themselves by using rubrics developed to accompany each standard. The process of self-evaluation pushes each of us to the sometimes painful level of higher order thinking. We will continue with the monitoring cycle through the 2004-2005 school year (unless lack of money closes us down completely!). Our goal is to develop plans with each school system that allow for continued growth and increased quality of services. If you were not at one of the monitoring training sessions this summer, you can download the new procedures manual from our website at www.alsde.edu (click on SECTIONS, click on SPECIAL EDUCATION, click on GIFTED.) Tentative plans for MEGA Conference in Mobile, July 13-16, 2004, include follow-up sessions on concept-based curriculumÑadvanced level for those who have been practicing, and introductory level for those who missed the sessions this summer.  If you are not on our "Friends of Gifted" e-mail list and want to be included, just send us a brief message and we will add your name to the list. We use the list for sending information on professional development opportunities, grants, or other items of interest to the gifted community. Best wishes to each of you for a productive and meaningful new year! lgrill@alsde.edu or npearson@alsde.edu |
