Meeting the needs of gifted and talented (GATE) middle school students in two southern California public school district

In the light of budget reduction, some southern California public school districts have elected to continue serving their identified gifted and talented (GATE) population through GATE programs. Researchers, who purport acceleration, are concerned that the gifted and talented student who will remain in the regular classroom without cluster groups comprised of students of similar advanced academic ability nor teacher(s) trained to support academically advanced students (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004; VanTassel-Baska, 2009). In their 2008-2009 GATE program applications, two school districts modeled their GATE plans based on current research in differentiation: acceleration and enrichment.;This study examined two clearly defined, traditional GATE programs and related academic services in English-Language Arts for middle school students in 7th and 8th grades in the regular classroom using the prescribed accommodations outlined within the two school districts' plans. The focus of the study was to determine (1) what instructional practices were used to differentiate instruction in the selected districts' middle schools; (2) how the differentiation instructional practices aligned or differed from one district to the other, and (3) how the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores of GATE students who received accommodation as acceleration only compared with STAR scores of GATE students accommodated by enrichment only.;A survey, sent to teachers of English-Language Arts in the nine middle schools of the two selected districts, comprised twenty-three questions that pertained to instructional strategies used in acceleration and enrichment. The survey statistical analysis per district indicated the responses from the two districts were not significantly different for the vast majority of the survey questions. Both districts tend to use differentiated instructional strategies as the responses to the survey questions indicate, but overall, there is not much difference in the instructional strategies across the districts. However, the survey statistical analysis per school indicated a trend in the use of acceleration in four schools in one district and a trend in the use of both acceleration and enrichment strategies in three schools in each of the two districts. Finally, the analysis showed little correlation between the STAR scores per school and district. Despite showing that teachers of the selected districts used differentiated instruction to accommodate GATE students in English-Language Arts in the middle schools, the results indicated there was no clear preference for acceleration or enrichment, and that the STAR scores of GATE students per district and per school were not correlated to the use of such strategies.