Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. COCHRAN, Mr. LOTT, and Mr. BUNNING):

S. 493. A bill to amend title II of the Higher Education Act of 1965 to increase teacher familiarity with the educational needs of gifted and talented students, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am reintroducing a bill I proposed in the last Congress to help prepare new teachers to recognize and meet the needs of gifted and talented students. According to the federally funded National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, the large majority of gifted and talented students spend at least 80 percent of their time in a regular education classroom. Of course, gifted students are not gifted only 20 percent of the time. They are gifted all the time. Unfortunately, the lack of teacher preparation means that gifted students are not being challenged during much of the time they spend in the classroom. Their educational needs are not being met.

Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about the needs of gifted children. You might say, ``Why should we worry about these children? They are the smart ones that the teacher doesn't have to spend so much time on.'' First of all, I'm not talking about your average straight A student who maybe learns the material easily, but much the same way as other students in the classroom. What makes a child gifted and talented is not how well the child does in school, but how he or she learns. A straight A student may or may not be gifted and a gifted student may not always get good grades in school. Gifted and talented children actually have a different way of looking at the world. They tend to have distinct approaches to learning and interacting socially, and they frequently learn at a different pace, and to different depths, than others their age. The bottom line is that gifted and talented children have unique learning needs that need to be met in order for them to achieve to their potential.

To illustrate this point, I would like to remind the Senate of an example I first cited two years ago while speaking on another piece of legislation related to gifted and talented students. It concerns a young elementary school student from Iowa City named Jose. Jose was not putting much effort into his schoolwork and was getting bad grades. He was a good kid but he also had a tendency to act up in class. He got along with his classmates, but didn't have many friends. Jose's teacher was frustrated and couldn't figure out what to do with him. Still, Jose's parents saw in him a real hunger for learning and had his IQ tested over the summer. It turns out that what the teacher saw as behavior problems or a lack of work ethic were really symptoms of a gifted student who was not being properly challenged. Jose started leaving his regular classroom a couple of times a week to work with a teacher who was trained in meeting the needs of gifted students. As a result of the added stimulation he received, Jose started to enjoy school more, made friends with his gifted peers, and began to succeed with his regular school work.

Jose was fortunate that his parents were so perceptive and were able to have him assessed privately. However, not all parents are in a position to recognize the signs of giftedness or to advocate for their child's needs. Even in schools where there are active gifted and talented programs, many students go unidentified. Moreover, even with pull-out programs like the one I described that supplement the classroom experience and other strategies like grade skipping, it is inevitable that many gifted students will spend much of their time in a regular classroom with non-gifted students of the same age but far different ability levels. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that all classroom teachers should have at least a basic knowledge about how to recognize and meet the needs of gifted and talented students in their classrooms. However, a national survey of third and fourth grade teachers by the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented found that 61 percent of teachers had no training whatsoever in teaching highly able students.

Only one State currently requires regular classroom teachers to have coursework in gifted education. Some of the techniques used in classrooms to accommodate gifted kids include differentiated curriculum, cluster grouping, and accelerated learning. The time to make sure teachers have the necessary knowledge is when prospective teachers are in their pre-service teacher training programs. If teachers aren't exposed to information and strategies to meet the needs of gifted students in their pre-service training, they may never acquire the necessary knowledge and skills. With the Higher Education Act due for reauthorization, this is the perfect opportunity to encourage schools of education and States to take a greater look at how they can improve teacher preparation programs to integrate instruction on the unique needs of gifted learners.

Title II of the Higher Education Act already contains grants designed to enhance the quality of teacher preparation programs. My bill would simply add allowable uses to these existing grants to provide an incentive for states and teacher training programs to incorporate the needs of gifted and talented students into teacher preparation and licensure requirements. I should point out that this change would not cost the taxpayers any additional money.

Under current law, Title II State grants are awarded directly to States and are to be used to reform State teacher preparation requirements. The law lists seven potential reforms under the allowable uses for grant funds. The first three allowable uses include: strengthening state requirements for teacher preparation programs to ensure teachers are highly competent in their respective academic content areas, reforming certification and licensure requirements with respect to competency in content areas, and providing alternatives to traditional teacher preparation programs. My legislation would add another allowable use, referencing these three reforms, to encourage states to incorporate a focus on the learning needs of gifted and talented students into reforms of state requirements for teacher preparation programs, reforms of state certification and licensure requirements, or new alternative teacher preparation programs. In addition, my bill would add a new allowable use so that States could use grant funds to create or expand new-teacher mentoring programs on the needs of gifted and talented students. This way, new teachers could learn from veteran teachers about how to identify classroom indicators of giftedness and provide appropriate instruction to gifted students.

My bill would also add language to the Partnership Grants, which provide funds to partnerships among teacher preparation institutions, school of arts and sciences, and high-need school districts to strengthen new teacher education. These grants come with three required uses, including reforming teacher preparation programs to ensure teachers are highly competent in academic content areas, providing pre-service clinical experience, and creating opportunities for enhanced and ongoing professional development. One allowable use for which a partnership may use funds is preparing teachers to work with diverse populations, including individuals with disabilities and limited English proficient individuals. To this section, my legislation would add gifted and talented students. Recognizing that every teacher could have gifted students in his or her classroom, my bill would also add a new allowable use so that teacher preparation programs could use the funds to infuse teacher coursework with units on the characteristics of high-ability learners. In other words, the idea is not to require additional courses, but rather to discuss how to accommodate for the needs of gifted students throughout the teacher preparation curriculum when new teachers are learning how to present lessons.

Again, my bill does not create a new grant program and doesn't cost any more money. It simply provides an incentive through existing grant programs to encourage States and teacher preparation programs to make sure that new teachers have the skills they will need to identify and meet the unique needs of the gifted and talented students who will be in their classrooms. I think we all recognize how important a quality teacher can be in helping a student achieve. This is no less true with gifted and talented students. Having a teacher that is equipped to meet the unique needs of gifted students can mean the difference between a child hating school and a child loving school; a child falling behind, and a child succeeding beyond all expectations. When a gifted child is left behind, the loss of human potential is doubly tragic. Gifted and talented children are a national resource that we must nurture now for our nation's future. This modest step could reap rewards for generations to come. I urge my colleagues to join me in this investment in our future.

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