Early Childhood

N.C. Program Holds Promise for Gifted Classes

By Christina A. Samuels — June 14, 2005 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

With the help of a federal grant, North Carolina is expanding an early-childhood program it started with the goals of closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and moving underrepresented groups into education for the gifted.

Students in Project Bright IDEA, which stands for Interest Development Early Abilities, have shown growth in language arts and mathematics, state educators say. Bright IDEA began in the 2001-02 school year with 12 classrooms in six school districts and a budget of $10,000 for materials. About 1,000 students went through the pilot program over three years. Several teachers continued the program on their own during the 2004-05 school year.

See Also

See the related item,

Chart: Class Gift

The results were intriguing enough that the U.S. Department of Education awarded North Carolina a five-year, $2.5 million grant through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program to study the approach further and expand it into classrooms in six more districts. Eventually, the project will train more than 200 teachers in 36 schools across North Carolina, who will reach more than 5,000 students in kindergarten through 2nd grade. The first full year of the federally financed research program will begin this fall.

“It’s making a difference,” said Valorie Hargett, the state consultant for the academically and intellectually gifted for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and a principal designer of the program. “These are schools who need help. They’re wanting to do things differently.”

Project Bright IDEA trains teachers in how to encourage the same characteristics in their students that gifted people are believed to possess, such as flexibility, persistence, and an ability to grasp larger concepts. The young students are asked to find the “big ideas” behind every lesson, are given content-rich literature, and are constantly instructed in using “intelligent behaviors.”

The goal, Ms. Hargett said, is for children to learn to go beyond the standard curriculum.

“If they’re focusing just on knowledge, they’re leaving the classroom thinking they’ve got everything,” she said. “They must leave our classrooms asking questions.”

Schools with large populations of minority students and schools receiving federal Title I aid were chosen for the pilot study. Students were not screened to enter the program, but teachers underwent extensive training.

The results have been encouraging so far.

Students were assessed using the North Carolina K-2 Assessments for Literacy and Mathematics, and they showed significant gains by the end of the school year. The students were not measured against their peers in regular classes, though that will be a part of the expanded, federally supported study.

Achievement among black and Hispanic students increased close to the levels reached by non-Hispanic white students and Asian-American students.

Nurturing Intelligence

Thomasville Primary School, in the 2,600-student Thomasville city district, decided on its own to compare Bright IDEA 2nd graders with their peers in regular classrooms. The results showed Bright IDEA students scoring in the 80th percentile in reading on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, compared with the 39th percentile for students who were not in the special program.

The 659-student school is almost evenly divided among Hispanic, black, and white students.

“We found out that we are nurturing all our students by doing this,” Principal Phyllis Lupton said. “Even if we have brought children who were below average to average, that’s a good thing.”

Amie Cook, a 2nd grade teacher at Thomasville Primary, has taught two classes of Bright IDEA students. The program forces teachers to think conceptually about every lesson, she said. Instead of doing a collage after reading a piece of literature, Ms. Cook said, her students may write a “letter to the editor” or engage in a debate—anything to get them thinking deeply about the work they’re doing.

Too often, schoolwork for students considered to be low-achieving focuses on drill-based instruction and memorization, she said. But the important thing, Ms. Cook said, “is not what children do when they know the answer. It’s what they do when they don’t know the answer.”

Controlled Study

Margaret Gayle, the executive director of the American Association for Gifted Children, based at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and another designer of the program, said she was looking forward to what further study of the program would bring. In the federal study, children will be compared with control groups that are not in Bright IDEA classrooms.

“We want to know if we will continue to see gains that will make the project worth all the work,” Ms. Gayle said.

Related Tags:

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Early Childhood Without New Money, Biden Admin. Urges States to Use Existing Funds to Expand Preschool
There's no new infusion of federal funds for preschool, so the Biden administration is pointing out funding sources that are already there.
4 min read
Close cropped photo of a young child putting silver coins in a pink piggy bank.
iStock/Getty
Early Childhood Preschool Studies Show Lagging Results. Why?
Researchers try to figure out why modern preschool programs are less effective than the landmark projects in the 1960s and 70s.
7 min read
Black female teacher and group of kids coloring during art class at preschool.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
Early Childhood What the Research Says A New Study Shows How Schools Can Maximize Full-Day Pre-K's Benefits
Researchers said principals played a key role in students' academic success through 3rd grade.
6 min read
Teacher Honi Allen, right, supervises as children test how far they can jump at the St. John's Preschool in American Falls, Idaho, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Teacher Honi Allen, right, supervises as children test how far they can jump at the St. John's Preschool in American Falls, Idaho, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Kyle Green/AP
Early Childhood What's Behind the Gaps in Early Intervention Services—And What It Means for K-12 Schools
The GAO says better data could help remove barriers to accessing early intervention services.
3 min read
Close crop of the back of a pre-school girl's head showing her playing with foam puzzle pieces of shapes and numbers.
iStock/Getty