My current favorite standard is that of actual performance, since a class depends on what the others in the class can do. I think a kid with an IQ of 145+ who needs remedial writing shouldn't be in a class of HG kids writing four grade levels up for writing instruction. Maybe the kid needs math four grades up but not writing. I'd like to see the kids ready for *work* at a particular level given that work regardless of IQ scores or AT scores. If a kid has mastered 6th grade math, she ought to get 7th grade math, even if her IQ is 95th percentile rather than 99th needed for a given math program. Similarly, some kids with 99.9 IQ scores are ready for college at 8 and some are ready for 5th grade math. They shouldn't necessarily be in the same classroom even though their scores will look very similar. It would not be hard to have small classes for very outlier kids where the curriculum was individualized and allowed for flexibility in placement. I've never seen one though, even in a state with great GT funding!
I don't know....while I absolutely agree that performance should determine next instructional topics/skills regardless of IQ indicators, I think that that should be cross spectrum and considered outside of GT programming. I would argue that the kids who need GT
programming are the kids who--regardless of current acheivement levels--are highly unusual in their ability to synthesize/analyze/create/invent. Acheivement based measures speak to the next appropriate content. Alternate instructional approaches may not be necessary as long as the content provided is appropriate (e.g. fifth grade math standards have been mastered, sixth grade math standards are appropriate). In contrast, I think that gifted students--regardless of acheivement outcomes--often need (but don't get) a markedly different approach/instructional arrangement. I would agree that gifted students with high achievement outcomes should be served separately from gifted students who are underachieving for the sake of both groups, but a student who is at the 99.8 percentile at age 8 and only ready for fifth grade math probably isn't recieving, and probably has not been recieving, what he/she needs. Performance can be depressed by what is/isn't offered; the learning climate; the instructional approach. High achievers who are ready for fifth grade math will probably move at a predictable pace. Gifted students who are in fifth grade math AND are given instruction in a format that taps/reinforces the qualities that put them at 99.8th percentile are more likely to leapfrog through that content in less predictable ways.
It seems likely to me that the reason that so many kids are being called "gifted" by the schools is that within the typical range, kids from advantaged backgrounds are being contrasted with kids from less advantaged backgrounds (I use the term advantaged loosely--not necessarily in economic terms, but in terms of resources/supports that provide some children with a head start). If the curriculum and standards are designed to hit some "middle", then of course there will be a large portion of children who are acheiving well above those standards. That doesn't make those children gifted, it makes them high achieving. Deserving of appropriate content based on what they already know? Yes. Gifted? The performance level isn't enough to say one way or the other.
Although I know that it isn't a popular viewpoint, I continue to see gifted children in the same way in which I see children with disabilities. These are children who cannot be adequately served without specialized instruction and supplementary aids and services. That specialized instruction and those supplementary aids and services aren't going to match the specialized instruction, aids and services of a child with a disability (although for 2E there will be some overlaps), but it is also going to be qualitatively different than it is for high achievers who are not gifted. Our failure to identify and serve gifted students differently than we identify and serve high achievers in the typical cognitive range is probably why we see the problem of underacheivement within the gifted population, as well as the underidentification of gifted students in populations that are in some way disadvantaged.
Climbing off my soapbox now
I've enjoyed reading this discussion--lots of interesting perspectives here!
