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Meeting the needs of gifted learners through innovative high school programs. (Innovative Programs).

Article Excerpt
High schools of the past attempted to meet the academic and social needs of gifted and talented students through college preparatory, advanced placement and International Baccalaureate programs. These were augmented by performing arts, athletics, and a variety of special interest clubs (Shermis, 1994). The comprehensive high school model worked well for many G/T and other students then, but times have changed. Since the 1980s many educational leaders, products of comprehensive high schools, have begun critically appraising today's secondary schools and exploring innovative replacements (Raywid, 1997).

In addition to academic considerations, schools are being asked to adopt strategies that promote equity such as heterogeneous grouping and full inclusion of disabled students in regular classrooms, while at the same time striving to achieve excellence through high standards (Darling-Hammond, 1997). At the secondary level, emerging networks of schools such as the New American High Schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2001), High Schools that Work (Southwest Regional Education Board, 2001), and the Coalition for Essential Schools (Sizer, 2001) are providing guidelines and best practices research to assist schools and districts in reculturing secondary schools. According to Hannay and Ross (1997), "reculturing involves adapting the cultural norms in schools, including how individuals interact, how priorities are established in the school, and/or conceptions of what is deemed to be the essence of secondary school education" (p. 589). Instead of adding new structures to the traditional model of a comprehensive high school, recultured schools begin with fundamentally different assumptions about the role of the school in adolescent development and learning, and in the local community (Holtzman, 1997; McQuillan, 1997; Meier, 1995; Noddings, 1993; Oxley, 1997).

With the political spotlight on education, demands for equity and excellence, and a move to replace comprehensive high schools, it is not surprising to find even advocates of gifted and talented education asking if gifted education is still viable (Plucker, 1998). There are similarities between recommended practices of programs for the gifted (Shore, Cornell, Robinson, & Ward, 1991) and those of secondary education reformers (Legters, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 2001; Southwest Regional Education Board, 2001).

Are these ideals and practices actually being implemented? If so, are they meeting the needs of G/T students? Here we examine five high schools that successfully meet the needs of G/T students through innovative curricular programs and supportive structures. Evidence for this article is part of a larger study of exemplary high schools that featured successful instruction that is integrative (curricula built around important "Big Ideas" and real world problems without using disciplines to organize content), integrated (curricula built around a theme which is explored through the various disciplines), or interdisciplinary (curricula built around a theme with experiences designed by teams made up of teachers from each discipline).

Inquiry Methods

The staff at the West Hawai'i Explorations Academy (WHEA), an innovative, integrative high school program, became interested in locating similar programs nationwide (Buchanan, Woerner, Cascade, & Bigam, 1998). As our research developed, it became clear that there was little information available on the very specific questions we were posing.

Site Identification

To find exemplary sites, we employed several purposeful sampling techniques. All of the sample sites should be considered extreme or deviant case sampling, in that we specifically reviewed the literature looking for exemplar sites that had successful integrative, integrated, or strong interdisciplinary curricula, a diverse student body, and had been judged exemplary by at least one external evaluator. We employed chain sampling throughout our research process, querying contact persons for leads to additional sites. Each site identified appeared to be near the same end of the continuum from traditional to fully integrative scales (Fogerty, 1991). We examined high schools or high school programs that:

* had some form of integration, and if interdisciplinary, had more than two teachers

* were recognized as an especially effective school or program

* were lauded and/or recommended as a model school

* served a heterogeneous population.

We began by developing a list of nationally known educational researchers who advocated integrative, integrated, or interdisciplinary programs and enlisted their help. Other leads came from reviews of recent literature and books that focused on exemplary high schools (Gregory & Smith, 1987; Horenstein, 1993). A search of the world wide web yielded additional sites through such sites as the George Lucas Educational Foundation (1999) and the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (1998) that led to sources such as the "Catalog of School Reform Models." We contacted the school/program leaders by phone and e-mail asking each school to provide a brief description of their program and to help determine if their program matched the desired profile.

We were not able to visit the schools simply on the basis of our determined priorities. With limited funds, high costs of airfare from Hawai'i, and the rarity and distributed nature of the target sites, we tried to balance priorities with logistics. Adding to the mix were other scheduling challenges such as programs with major field trips, unusual trimester schedules, spring breaks, as well as our own intervening conferences. Our final list included 15 schools in 6 states.

Data Collection

Early on, we determined that the best way to get an accurate view of each school or program was to collect information from as wide a range of sources as possible. This would be more likely to capture unique features that might otherwise be missed and would assist in triangulation of data. The identified programs would generally be considered "special," so, like WHEA, would be expected to have quite a few visitors and therefore would have developed prepared information: national and state reports, journal articles, brochures, prepared exemplary student artifacts, and so forth. Before the first site visit, we drafted a list of information deemed important to know about each site. This list included such categories as demographics, philosophy, and curricular structures. We reviewed this list with the WHEA staff for additional input, then developed a final set of information needs and questions. The list was revised as new information from the site visits was discovered that suggested new, interesting features...