Gifted Voices from Rural America (original) (raw)

This report focuses on gifted and talented education in six rural schools. An introduction summarizes a 1999 national assessment of rural gifted education and points out that the standards movement may hinder development of both effective rural schools and gifted programming. Of the six schools profiled, two were founded especially for gifted and talented students, all are small, and each has a niche developed by a special teacher or in response to specific circumstances. Akron-Westfield Community School in northwestern Iowa serves 700 K-12 students; features include social support and mentoring for gifted students, a schoolwide History Day, and yearlong history projects by high school students. Jackson River Governor's School (Clifton Forge, Virginia) offers community college courses to gifted high school juniors and seniors from surrounding rural school districts. At Voznesenka School on the Kenai Peninsula (Alaska), a teacher reflects on the situation of gifted students in a ...