The one thing I sometimes finds throws on a lightbulb - certainly for a lot of parents, and occasionally for some teachers too - is to talk about frequency in the classroom. IQ numbers and percentiles mean nothing. They truly have no concept that there is a meaningful difference between 98th and 99.9+ (or a meaningful difference between percentages and percentiles. urgh). Discussing LOG would just get their backs up so high they couldn't see over their shoulder blades.
But - - - where I've seen a little resonance when doing advocacy presentations is to talk about two things. One, is divergence from the norm. (But avoiding ALL mention of IQ. It's linguistically challenge but doable). Start by recognizing that gifted (in our district that identifies by IQ test results) is a purely statistical construct: by definition, it means being a certain distance from the norm in cognitive functioning. And as that distance from the norm increases, so do differences in functioning increase from the norm, often in an increasing range of ways (from divergent ways of thinking, seeing and experiencing the world, to OEs, to the seeming increased likelihood of multiple exceptionalities). As brains get more and more different from the norm, in other words, they seem to be more likely to be more different in more ways, and therefore more likely to have increasingly different needs in the classroom.
Then, a few numbers, which we put together using local stats on number of students, class sizes and length of teacher careers, to make a table which showed: Percentile.... IQ.... Rarity of this IQ and higher 1 / x.... A teacher will experience every... I don't expect anyone listening to absorb the table, but it supports a narrative along the lines of: We identify gifted as at the 98th percentile, or, statistically as we discussed before, two standard deviations away from the norm, which is a bit more than 2 out of every hundred children. So a typical elementary teacher will have worked with many such children, as they are likely to have one in their classroom once every two years. Our primary gifted program, in contrast, accepts only children who are much further from the norm, and therefore tend to have a greater range and level of need for different classroom approaches. These children start at the 99.6th percentile, or about 1 in every 260 kids. A typical elementary teacher will have such a child in their class once every 13 years or so, so they have limited opportunity to build up a lot of experience in understanding and meeting their needs. Our primary program also serves quite a number of children who are 99.9th percentile and beyond. Statistically, we would expect that there are probably 60 to 80 such children total in elementary school in our district. That means any individual elementary teacher would probably have one in her class once about once for every 50 to 100 years she teaches....
I'm not claiming to have ever hit it out of the park with all this, but it seems to at least shift the conversation into terms that teachers and school boards understand and are more comfortable in dealing with. It helps move from gifted=better=elitist=bad, to gifted=increasingly different=increasingly different needs=increasingly different educational approaches.
