Buttiglieri draws attention to underrepresentation of minority students in gifted programs

Even though all states have some kind of screening process to see who is admitted to a gifted program, Buttiglieri sees the system as flawed.

“Someone determined that elementary schools, somewhere around third and fourth grades, would be the greatest place to start this and almost every state has followed suit,” he said.

Buttiglieri added there is no evidence that this is the best age to identify students by IQ or that elementary teachers are best suited to assess or recommend children for gifted programs.

He also questions the validity of using an IQ test since it is not designed to identify children gifted with attributes other than intellectual, such as artistic, linguistic, musical, creative or athletic. Only two of these qualities, artistic and creative, are mentioned specifically in the 1998 Nebraska definition of gifted that is still used.

“Imagine if we found measuring tools for these people,” Buttiglieri said. “Would our classrooms look different? I would venture to say ‘yes,’” he said.

Nebraska, like most states, does not require training or certification for gifted teachers and no data are available for the number of Nebraska teachers who have completed diversity training. About 39,000 gifted students are being served in 203 of the state’s 259 school districts, Buttiglieri said.

In addition to this concern, Buttiglieri emphasized there is a large amount of research that shows African-American and Hispanic children are underrepresented in Nebraska’s gifted programs while Caucasian and Asian students are overrepresented.

“We need to be more inclusive. I don’t think any reasonable person would argue against that,” he said.

Buttiglieri, who earned his gifted education certification in Florida, explained the experiences that sparked his research into the issue.

After hearing fellow teachers of many different ethnicities comment negatively about African-American and Hispanic students’ intelligence in the Jacksonville, Florida, magnet school where Buttiglieri taught, he decided to conduct research into the perceptions of elementary teachers regarding gifted students.

He also noticed a distinct disparity between his regular class, which was 100 percent African-American and his magnet class, which included no African-American students.

“How can this be? So there’s not one African-American with an IQ over 130 in the greater Jacksonville area? This cannot be,” he said.

He wondered if the trends in his Florida study would hold true in Nebraska, so he researched the rapid increase in Nebraska’s minority populations over the past two decades based on census records.

“The population is definitely changing and becoming more diverse in Nebraska,” he said. “The number of students in gifted programs in Nebraska is significantly out of whack.”

He bemoaned the behavior of many teachers he observed who leave gifted children to their own devices, knowing that they will pass standardized tests, and turn their attention to students who need more assistance.

Buttiglieri proposed leaders in education can eventually make a difference in a national system that is not currently providing an equal education opportunity for all students by seeking out improved identification procedures and placing a greater emphasis on teacher training in diversity and gifted learning.