State Offices of Gifted

National Standards

Prekindergarten through Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards, published by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) in 1998, addresses standards in seven program areas for gifted learners, and Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted Education, published by NAGC and the Council for Exceptional Children, define teacher candidate knowledge and skill competencies determined by the field of gifted education. NAGC, working with the Council for Exceptional Children, has revised the standards, which are used by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education to accredit college and university teacher preparation programs in gifted education. National standards have not been developed for state offices of gifted.

Local Control

State and local entities are responsible for gifted and talented education funding initiatives. With neither a national mandate nor a federal funding stream, the depth and breadth of services varies greatly throughout the United States. Sole responsibility rests upon each state to develop policies and procedures that recognize and respond to the needs of this unique population. Differences in laws and regulations regarding the definition of giftedness, mandates to identify and serve gifted learners, programs and services, personnel preparation, accountability, allocation of funding and human resources reveal a considerable diversity of state perspectives. Numerous states assign the responsibilities for key decisions of these areas to local education agencies.

In 1993, all 50 states had policies recognizing the needs of gifted learners, according to A. Harry Passow and Rose A. Rudnitski as reported in a 1993 collaborative study with the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. By 2007, nearly all states had a state office of gifted providing information, consultation services, and some level of advocacy on behalf of gifted learners residing in their state. Additional roles and responsibilities of state offices of gifted differ and are significantly influenced by the structure of their state education agency.

Local education agency control prevails in many states, such as California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, and Minnesota. Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon, and Virginia are among the states that have highly prescriptive legislation, which defines identification, service, educational placement, procedural safeguards, and support services for gifted and talented learners.

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