Researching the men and women who are the namesakes of local schools can be one of the best bridges students can use to cross the gulf of historical time. Granted, some schools are named after trees, flowers, or geological formations, but many of America's public schools are named after people who once walked the ground today's gifted students now…

Intellectually gifted 7th-grade students were surveyed approximately halfway through their 1st year of high school in order to investigate relationships between motivational and affective variables, commitment to schoolwork, and satisfaction with school. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling suggest that…

In a previous article, we (Naglieri & Ford, 2003) provided evidence from a large-scale study that similar proportions of White, Black, and Hispanic children would be identified as gifted using the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; Naglieri, 1997). Lohman (2005) has taken issue with our conclusions and our methods. We provide several…

Staff development practices that successfully implemented long-term applications of cluster grouping in two districts are analyzed, compared, and reviewed. Parallel practices and differences are discussed concerning program beginning, implementation, and maintenance. Conclusions are drawn and six steps for use and consideration by others engaged…

Females of all ages seem to be encouraged by literature to pick up a journal and document their lives. Indeed, the words diary and female seem to be synonymous with one another. Females everyday are exposed to the first hand benefits of keeping a diary or journal, but what sort of influences do males have to gain approval that journaling is…

One of the biggest challenges on the horizon in education is an increased emphasis on meeting the needs of exceptional students. Historically, we have done a more than adequate job of addressing the needs of students with physical and cognitive challenges, but those students who excel are often left to their own devices (Tomlinson, 1999;…

Leadership has been characterized by particular personal qualities and traits, specifically one?s ability to influence others? thoughts, energies, emotions, feelings, or behaviors within the scope of emergent leadership (Farrall & Kronberg, 1996). Based on self organization patterns of groups, a leader emerges while other group members move into…

For most of the past century, literacy has been associated with being able to read the printed word. The meaning of literacy, however, is changing (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Not only are reading experts expanding their notion of literacy to include technology use (Leu, 2003), but it is included in literacy in other disciplines, as well (Burkhardt…

High school students normally encounter the study and use of formal proof in the context of Euclidean geometry. Professional mathematicians typically use an informal trial-and-error approach to a problem, guided by intuition, to arrive at the truth of an idea. Formal proof is pursued only after mathematicians are intuitively convinced about the…

The purpose of this study was to identify common and domain-specific cognitive characteristics of gifted students based on an integrated model of human abilities. This study is based on the premise that abilities identified by tests can appear as observable characteristics in test or school situations. Abilities proposed by major models of…

This article examines the root causes for the overrepresentation of African American students in special education classes and their under representation in gifted and talented programs in America's public schools. The article (a) provides a historic overview of the legal struggles for educational equity, (b) examines key issues surrounding the…

This issue of the Center's "Systems Newsletter" will be the last one published under the aegis of Dr. JoyceVanTassel-Baska, the Center's founder and current Executive Director. As of this August Dr. VanTassel-Baska will officially retire from the College of William and Mary and the Center. She will still be an integral part of the Center…

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of public schools and their progress towards the goals of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. The purpose of the Oregon Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the…

Time perspective is a useful psychological construct associated with educational outcomes (Phalet, Andriessen, & Lens, 2004) and may prove fruitful for research focusing on academically talented adolescents. Thus, the relationship of time perspective to age, gender, and academic achievement was examined among 722 academically talented middle and…

Gifted eighth graders (N=432) in 11 U.S. states participated in a retrospective national study that explored the prevalence and effects of being bullied and being a bully during kindergarten through grade 8. No significant differences were found related to size of city, race/ethnicity, and geographical region in terms of either being bullied or…