Workforce Language Services

There are a lot of statistics out there showing that Latino and African-American students are more likely to leave high school before finishing, but little information about gifted and talented minority students thriving in schools.  A school district in California is trying to even out the disparity between minority youth in the general school population and those in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) track as early as the first few years of elementary school.

The district is achieving this by constantly being aware of the demographics of the GATE program versus the general population, using different techniques with English language learners, and training teachers to recognize the signs of a gifted and/or talented student.

From the article, a description of how school systems identify ELL for the GATE program:

Corona-Norco school officials review the California English Language Development Test scores of English-language learners to identify potential GATE students. Rapid acquisition of English can be a sign of giftedness, said Cecilia Arzaga-Chester, a curriculum and instruction coordinator who oversees the district’s GATE program. The district also uses non-verbal tests for its GATE program.

Such changes have helped diversify the program, Arzaga-Chester said. “We’re seeing many more (English learners) being referred for GATE testing and many more are being qualified,” she said.

Changes in testing and identification have transformed the GATE population in the Rialto Unified School District, said Jennette Harper, its GATE director.

“With that non-verbal test, we started identifying a lot of our non-English speakers as GATE kids,” she said. “Everything is pictures or you complete a pattern.”

To read the entire article, click here.