[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 22 (Wednesday, March 2, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1934-S1935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      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

[[Page S1935]]

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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