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ABSTRACT: The field of gifted education has faced criticism about the underrepresentation of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) in its programs. This article proposes that efforts targeting both recruitment and retention barriers are essential to remedying this disparity. Educators' deficit thinking about CLD students underlies both areas (recruitment and retention) and contributes to underrepresentation in significant, meaningful ways. The authors examine factors hindering the recruitment and retention of CLD students in gifted education, attending in particular to definitions and theories, testing, and referral issues, and offer recommendations for improving the representation of CLD students in gifted education. A persistent dilemma at all levels of education is the underrepresentation of African American, American Indian, and Hispanic/Latino students in gifted education and advanced placement (AP) classes. Research on the topic of underrepresentation has tended to focus on African American students, starting with Jenkins's (1936) study, which found that despite high intelligence test scores African American students were not formally identified as gifted. For over 70 years, then, educators have been concerned about the paucity of Black students being identified as gifted. During this timeframe, little progress has been made in reversing underrepresentation. This lack of progress may be due in part to the scant database on gifted students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). In 1998, Ford reviewed trends in reports on underrepresentation spanning 2 decades and found that African American, Hispanic/Latino American, and American Indian students have always been underrepresented in gifted education, with underrepresentation increasing over the years for African American students. (Unlike African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian students, Asian American

"When teachers say they are color blind, they are usually saying that they do not discriminate and that they treat all their students equally. Of course, being fair and treating each student with respect are essential to effective teaching. However, race and ethnicity often play important roles in children's identities and contribute to their culture, their behavior, and their beliefs. When race and ethnicity are ignored, teachers miss opportunities to help students connect with what is being taught. Recognizing that a student's race and ethnicity influences their learning allows teachers to be responsive to individual differences. In some cases, ignoring a student's race and ethnicity may undermine a teacher's ability to understand student behavior and student confidence in doing well in a school culture where expectations and communication are unfamiliar. An individual's race and ethnicity are central to her or his sense of self but they are not the whole of personal identity. Moreover, how important an individual's race and ethnicity is to her or his identity will vary and teachers need to take that into account as they seek to learn more about their students."

Concerns over recruiting and retaining minority students in gifted education programs have persisted for several decades, and, although many educators, policymakers, and researchers have deliberated about the underrepresentation of minority students in gifted education, few articles, reports, or studies exist on this topic. This article seeks to fill this void, describing factors that inhibit the recruitment and retention of minority students in gifted education programs. These factors include screening and identification issues (e.g., definitions and instrumentation); educational issues (e.g., quality of students' education); and personnel issues (e.g., lack of teacher training in gifted and urban education, low teacher referral). Also discussed are retention issues, namely, factors that may affect the decision of minority students to remain in gifted education programs. Finally, recommendations for recruiting and retaining minority students are offered.

Few school districts in the United States have successfully recruited and retained culturally diverse students in programs for gifted students. Black, Hispanic, and Native American students are underrepresented in gifted education programs nationally, with underrepresentation ranging from 50-70%. This article addresses two questions that are at least as old as gifted education itself" Why are diverse students underrepresented, and how can we recruit and retain more diverse students in our gifted programs? Factors contributing to the persistent underrepresentation of Black students in gifted education are presented, along with suggestions for changes. The central premise of this article is that deficit thinking held by educators about diverse students hinders access to gifted programs for them.

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 reviewing seminal publications and research. This discussion provides the historical context for the monograph. Next, a discussion of intelligence tests is presented, paying specific attention to interpretations of and explanations for the comparatively low performance of racially and culturally diverse students on cognitive ability tests. Most of the research has targeted Black students' test performance and Black-White IQ differences. Definitions of and strategies for determining the nature and extent of test bias are then explored. Finally, the findings are summarized and implications for the field of gifted education are discussed.

Outlines a proposed additional knowledge base that can be adopted by beginning teachers of American Indian and Alaska Native students. This additional knowledge base is above and beyond what is now in most mainstream teacher education programs. First, we discuss the idea of a knowledge base for teacher education and explain the need for a specialized knowledge base for Native education. Second, various aspects of that specialized knowledge base are outlined. We begin with the area of educational foundations, and then we describe specialized instructional methodologies and curriculum appropriate for Native students. Finally, we describe needed internship and student teaching opportunities. 1993 Tribal College Journal article.

The most significant educational challenge facing the United States is the tragically low academic achievement of many students of color. TDSi helps educators meet the challenge with a collection of research-based tools and resources designed to improve the teaching of racially and ethnically diverse students.

The effort to provide an equitable education to all students has led to extensive research on the effects of racial and ethnic differences, and of gender, on access, learning, and achievement. It has also led to great debate about which student population has been most shortchanged, with the argument about gender inequities perhaps most fierce. The impact of ethnicity on gender differences had been only minimally considered by researchers, however, until the Educational Testing Service (ETS) began looking at the topic several years ago, first with a study on test taking (Willingham & Cole, 1997) and now with a report on a variety of education and employment measures (Coley, 2001). The ETS publications, while demonstrating generally that there are "more similarities than variations in gender differences among racial/ethnic groups" (Coley, 2001, p. 3) present statistics showing some interesting twists in the way the differences are manifested. They also raise some questions about educational equity that transcend the issue of gender fairness. Thus, as part of an ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education series consisting of facts about specific student groups, this digest presents highlights from the education findings in Richard Coley's Differences in the Gender Gap: Comparisons Across Racial/Ethnic Groups in Education and Work.

Each year, Young Women's Leadership Charter School (YWLCS), the only all-girls public school in Chicago, takes nearly 350 urban girls grade 7-12 and prepares them with the tools to graduate high school, continue through post-secondary education, and go on to lead fulfilling and productive lives. Any young woman residing in Chicago and of the right age is eligible to attend YWLCS, but admission is based on lottery. With a waiting list of more than 300 students, YWLCS students and families know their experience is unique. What distinguishes YWLCS from other Chicago public schools? Single-sex education provides a cooperative, supportive working environment Emphasis on math, science, and technology Small classroom size with teacher to student ratio of 1:12 On-site social workers and school clinic Highly developed college preparatory program Enrichments programs and external partnerships Highly qualified staff and faculty

The Equity Alliance at Arizona State University is one of 10 regional Equity Assistance Centers in the U.S. that are funded by the U.S. Department of Education to support the work of the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Justice in enforcing federal civil rights laws. While the efforts of the Office of Civil Rights have improved educational opportunities for formerly excluded and marginalized students, there is still much work to be done to address achievement gaps and to ensure that all students are provided with high-quality education (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2005; Donovan & Cross, 2002; Klingner, Méndez Barletta, & Hoover, 2008; Losen & Orfield, 2002).

In many classrooms across America, race and ethnicity are very much on the table. Teachers dream of seeing their students discuss difference in a constructive way. Some educators actively encourage their classes to get outside their comfort zones and confront the country's racial history. But in many faculty rooms, there's little to no talk about race. Whether the topic is a racial disparity in students' academic achievement, a teacher who feels victim to racial discrimination or even simply a question about a black student's hair, teachers often elect to keep their mouths shut. If teachers can't have the race talk with each other, how can schools effectively educate their students about difference?

As state-defined standards of learning and standardized tests become more and more closely identified as measures of achievement, not only for students, but also for teachers, administrators, schools and school districts, teachers are feeling less empowered to employ creative means for make their curricula more inclusive and accessible to all students. Even as the Internet and other new educational media broaden classroom access to a virtually endless stream of new resources, perspectives, and interactive capabilities, most curricula are necessarily built around textbooks and standardized tests. These and other contextual factors highlight some of the formidable challenges to any process of curriculum transformation. An additional set of challenges emerges when one attempts to develop a process for curriculum transformation within a multicultural education paradigm. One such challenge is a set of critiques regarding multicultural education, usually coming from educational conservatives. (These critiques and responses to them are listed here.) A second challenge is a lack of training or preparation on the part of teachers for developing inclusive multicultural curricula, and a lack of training or preparation on the part of administrators to support teachers in such efforts. This section of the Multicultural Pavilion will serve as a starting point for teachers who, despite these challenges, are determined to create a more inclusive, multicultural curriculum for their students.

Two major premises are developed in this discussion. One is that many students of color are disproportionately assigned to special education because educators lack knowledge about or appreciation for their cultural values and socialization, and how these affect learning behaviors. The other premise is that the educational quality of students of color in both special and regular education can be improved significantly by using instructional programs and practices that reflect their cultural heritages, experiences, and perspectives. Several components of this ``culturally responsive teaching'' are explained, along with some research findings about its effects on student achievement. These include critical cultural consciousness of teachers; culturally pluralistic classroom climates; diverse communities of learners; and multicultural curriculum and instruction. The author concludes that without culturally responsive teaching education can never be the best it should be for students who are not part of the majority and mainstream of schools and society.

Rethinking Schools began as a local effort to address problems such as basal readers, standardized testing, and textbook-dominated curriculum. Since its founding, it has grown into a nationally prominent publisher of educational materials, with subscribers in all 50 states, all 10 Canadian provinces, and many other countries. While the scope and influence of Rethinking Schools has changed, its basic orientation has not. Most importantly, it remains firmly committed to equity and to the vision that public education is central to the creation of a humane, caring, multiracial democracy. While writing for a broad audience, Rethinking Schools emphasizes problems facing urban schools, particularly issues of race. Throughout its history, Rethinking Schools has tried to balance classroom practice and educational theory. It is an activist publication, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students. Yet it also addresses key policy issues, such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that teachers should attempt to "live part of their dreams within their educational space." Rethinking Schools believes that classrooms can be places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make that vision a reality. Rethinking Schools attempts to be both visionary and practical: visionary because we need to be inspired by each other's vision of schooling; practical because for too long, teachers and parents have been preached at by theoreticians, far-removed from classrooms, who are long on jargon and short on specific examples.

Many school districts are making efforts to inform administrators and teachers about the religious practices of their students. Knowledge about students' religious needs and requirements promotes understanding between parents and school officials and prepares teachers for questions or concerns when they arise.

Two major premises are developed in this discussion. One is that many students of color are disproportionately assigned to special education because educators lack knowledge about or appreciation for their cultural values and socialization, and how these a€ ect learning behaviors. The other premise is that the educational quality of students of color in both special and regular education can be improved signi®cantly by using instructional programs and practices that re¯ect their cultural heritages, experiences, and perspectives. Several components of this ``culturally responsive teaching'' are explained, along with some research ®ndings about its e€ ects on student achievement. These include critical cultural consciousness of teachers; culturally pluralistic classroom climates; diverse communities of learners; and multicultural curriculum and instruction. The author concludes that without culturally responsive teaching education can never be the best it should be for students who are not part of the majority and mainstream of schools and society.

Talking about what appear to be racial issues with respect to student interactions, student-teacher interactions or interactions among members of the school staff is uncommon. Race is a "hot button" issue in our country, and it may feel that discussing potential misunderstandings or conflicts would make things worse. Moreover, many worry about being seen as insensitive or preoccupied with race. No doubt some issues that could be race-related are not actually related to race. But, this cannot be known without bringing up the issue. The country has made great progress in reducing racial prejudice and discrimination, but negative stereotypes, concerns about fairness, and the absence of comfort in interracial relationships persist. For racial issues to be openly dealt with, school leaders must make clear that it is important to be candid and to trust one another while ensuring that action is taken when problems are identified.

This resource is the web site for The Equity Alliance at ASU. The Equity Alliance at ASU works with principals, teachers, parents, community members, students, school boards, and other school leaders to create the conditions necessary for culturally responsive schools. Our systemic approach to equity is designed to help every district and school succeed. The Equity Alliance at ASU is devoted to promoting equity, access, participation and outcomes for all students.

Summarizes the history of government policy towards American Indian languages from colonial times to the passage of the Native American Languages Act of 1990 and links language policy to the academic success of American Indian students in terms of a subtractive English-Only curriculum that is designed to assimilate Indian children into the dominant culture of the United States versus an additive English-Plus curriculum that recognizes and values American Indian traditional cultures. 1993 Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students article.

"American Indian students who prepare for the transition from high school to postsecondary experiences based on a clear understanding of themselves and their mental, physical, spiritual, emotional selves are more likely to weather this transition smoothly. Add to this awareness the ability to set goals, organize, communicate, self-advocate, problem solve, and work in teams, and young adults are able to face the challenges of the future. The Expanding the Circle curriculum offers culturally relevant activities that facilitate the successful transition from high school to postsecondary experiences for American Indian students. The curriculum is designed to help youth explore who they are, what skills they need, and what their options are for life after high school. Lessons are designed for use by teachers as well as elders, community members, or other professionals who may work with American Indian youth."