Measuring the Outcomes of State Policies for Gifted Education: An Equity Analysis of Texas School Districts

Abstract

Policy research in gifted education continues to maintain a relatively narrow focus, dealing primarily with policy inputs like the presence and design of written mandates or the existence or lack of state finding. Yet, little attention has been paid to the actual distribution of programming opportunities for gifted children. There continues to be a vast disconnect between policy analysts and gifted educators. The objective of this article is to help bridge that gap by (1) introducing a set of policy tools for measuring the outcomes of gifted education policies and (2) applying those tools to data on the distribution of gifted education spending and designated personnel in the state of Texas. According to generally accepted policy benchmarks, the analyses performed indicate (a) continued vast inequities across school districts in the availability of resources and (b) unacceptable correlations between student population characteristics, community wealth, and the availability of opportunity.