The disproportional representation of students from various demographic subgroups within identified gifted and talented populations has long frustrated policy makers, education advocates, researchers practitioners within the field, and those concerned with societal inequality in general. Despite the prevalence of articles in the media reporting on disproportional representation, little research has been conducted to track whether (a) the representation of these student subgroups, particularly students with limited English proficiency or students with disabilities, has changed over time or (b) states with and without policies differ in proportional representation of students identified with gifts and talents. For example, increasingly, gifted education advocates have pushed for mandates that all students be screened for gifted program eligibility as a way to combat disproportionality, despite little evidence that such methods influence proportionality. Therefore, this study sought to understand whether and how state and national gifted program demographics have changed over time and how proportionality is correlated with state mandates for gifted education identification or services. A preprint of this paper as well as additional figures are available at: https://osf.io/325m9/ .

The Fall 2009 issue of Gifted Child Quarterly focused on dispelling a wide range of myths related to the identification of gifted students (Borland, 2009;Callahan, 2009;Friedman-Nimz, 2009; Worrell) and touched on the ever-increasing prevalence of using multiple measures as a best practice in gifted and talented identification. In addition, the 2008-2009 State of the States Report (National Association for Gifted Children [NAGC], 2009) noted that multiple measures have become the most common form of identification for admission into gifted education programs used across the responding states. Multiple measures are used to improve aspects of measurement and evaluation, such as reliability, validity, fairness, and security. However, simply using multiple measures does not guarantee improvement in any of these areas (Chester, 2003;Cronbach, Linn, Brennan, & Haertel, 1997). In the context of student achievement, the use of multiple measures to improve these areas has been explored (Douglas & Mislevy, 2010; Erpenbach, Carlson, LaMarca, Winter, & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2002;Ryan, 2002); however, little research has considered the use of multiple measures in the context of identification of gifted students. Despite the increasing level of prevalence in state regulations and best practices, the degree to which schools and school districts correctly apply multiple measures for identification purposes remains unknown. Lohman (2006) and Lohman and Renzulli ( 2007) presented examples for combinations, but no research has documented the effectiveness of such methods in identifying gifted and talented students. Despite commonplace reference to the use of multiple measures in almost all aspects of education, including gifted education identification, no studies have evaluated the variability in the identified gifted populations that occurs when different combination methods are implemented. Literature Review Historical PracticesThe question regarding "Who are the gifted?" has raged for nearly 100 years, and yet only the weakest consensus exists on this topic. In fact, a recent study by Dai, Swanson, and Cheng (2011) noted that identification remains one of the most studied topics in the scholarly literature related to gifted education. Most states have formalized the definition regarding how to identify gifted and talented students. As of 2009, 41 of the 47 responding states reported having a formal definition (NAGC, 2009). Within these 41 states, the most common areas included (in order of prevalence) were intellectual, creative, performing/visual arts, specific academic, and leadership. However, of these 41states, only 29 states require its use by all local education agencies. Despite this variability, those states that have a specific definition and require its use

The use of the nomination stage as the first step in the identification process is pervasive across the field of gifted education. In many cases, nominations are used to limit the number of students who will need to be evaluated using costly and time-consuming assessments for the purpose of gifted program identification and placement. This study evaluated the effect of the nomination stage on the overall efficacy of a gifted identification system. Results showed that in nearly all conditions, identification systems that require a nomination before testing result in a large proportion of gifted students being missed. Under commonly implemented conditions, the nomination stage can cause the false negative rate to easily exceed 60%. Changes to identification practices are urgently needed in order to ensure that larger numbers of gifted students receive appropriate educational placement and to maintain the integrity of gifted education services.

Educators have sought to understand and address the disproportional representation of students from certain student subgroups in gifted education. Most gifted identification decisions are made with national comparisons where students must score above a certain percentage of test takers. However, this approach is not always consistent with the overall goal of gifted education. Scholars have long argued for the use of local normative criteria to increase the diversity of students identified for gifted services, and although some districts across the country have applied such recommendations, little research has been carried out. In this study, we use a large data set to assess the extent to which identifying gifted students with either school-level norms or a combination of national and school-level norms would improve gifted education representation rates for students who are from African American and Latinx families. A preprint of this registered report and this project’s preregistration documentation are available at https://osf.io/z2egy/ .

K–12 gifted and talented programs have struggled with racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, native language, and disability inequity since their inception. This inequity has been well documented in public schools since at least the 1970s and has been stubbornly persistent despite receiving substantial attention at conferences, in scholarly journals, and in K–12 schools. The purpose of this article is to outline why such inequity exists and why common efforts to combat it have been unsuccessful. In the end, poorly designed identification systems combined with larger issues of societal inequality and systemic, institutionalized racism are the most likely culprits. I end the article with a hierarchy of actions that could be taken—from low-hanging fruit to major societal changes—in order to combat inequity in gifted education and move the field forward.

The identification of gifted and talented students and the accompanying fact that most identification systems result in the underrepresentation of students from African American, Hispanic, Native American, English language learning, and lowincome families are two of the most discussed and hotly debated topics in the field. This article provides an overview of past efforts to mitigate inequity in both K-12 and higher education program identification, highlights successes and limitations, and presents a particular perspective in order to help facilitate broader thinking about the purpose of identification, the development of talent, and how academic excellence can be fostered while simultaneously increasing equity in gifted education.

Students with exceptional academic potential who come from low-income families are frequently not identified for and consequently are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs. Because of this, new means of identifying such children must be developed. This article presents the findings of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses conducted on the HOPE Scale, a 13-item teacher-rating instrument designed to identify academic and social components of giftedness in elementary-aged students. Participants included 349 teachers who completed HOPE Scales on 5,995 ethnically and economically diverse students from three rural and two metropolitan school districts in the Midwest. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was also used to evaluate measurement invariance between income groups. Findings suggest a two-factor model represents good fit for the data while remaining loyal to the latent constructs of academic and social giftedness. Although showing some legitimate mean differences, invariance test results suggested equivalence of model form, factor loading, and factor variances across income groups. Putting the Research to Use This research has important implications for practice. Frequently, traditional measures of achievement or aptitude under-identify children from low-income families. Concerns exist about the usefulness of teacher-ratings forms or scales in gifted and talented student identification. However, when given specific items or descriptors, teachers can provide useful information concerning student performance. The HOPE Scale provides items that teachers can use to rate specific social and academic behaviors of their students. Findings from this study revealed that teaches can effectively nominate low-income students for gifted programs. Further, items on the HOPE Scale were not biased against low-income students as rated by their teachers, meaning that the social and academic scales provided similar information concerning students in either income group. However, mean scores for student from low-income families on both scales were lower than their non-low income peers, providing evidence that instruments need to be normed on the specific groups for which their use is intended. Practitioners, should not shy away from using teacher nomination instruments, but they should consider the psychometric information available concerning the use of these instruments or rating forms as used with students in demographic groups of intended use. The HOPE Scale, as developed with indicated revisions, will provide educators and researchers with a simple, psychometrically sound instrument to help with identification of underrepresented student for gifted education services.

For more than 30 years, underrepresentation of certain racial, cultural, and income groups in gifted and talented programs has been documented as a serious problem. Not only does this issue make gifted programs appear as if they are designed solely for upper class, dominant-culture individuals, but it also means that talented students from diverse backgrounds are not having their needs met. This study sought to determine the utility of applying group-specific norms to achievement tests in identifying more proportional numbers of gifted and talented students from low-income families. In addition, this study applied the use of a teacher-rating scale to locate even more underserved students with high potential. Results indicated that both practices helped identify more underserved students than did using traditional general norm-group comparisons. Implications for identification policy and practice are shared.