News 

ABC NewsChannel 20 covered the new acceleration law last night:

"District 186's Gifted Program continues to help former student thrive"

https://newschannel20.com/news/local/district-186s-gifted-program-continues-to-help-former-student-thrive

And again tonight: 

"Law requiring schools to create gifted student policies takes effect" 

https://newschannel20.com/news/local/law-requiring-schools-to-create-gifted-student-policies-takes-effect

The Daily Southtown wrote an article about the new Illinois Acceleration law, which requires all districts in the state to have a written acceleration policy.  Interested in reading the article?  Find it here: 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/news/ct-sta-early-entrance-kindergarten-st-0731-story.html

Are you interested in helping to form an IAGC Social Emotional Special Interest Group?  There is an organizational meeting planned for  April 19th from 11am-12pm at the Center for Identity Potential offices at 1440 Renaissance Drive, Suite 440 Park Ridge, IL 60068, to begin discussing what this group should look like and what its goals should be.  We are at the beginning of this process so all ideas, thoughts, and support will be helpful.  

If you are interested in joining us, please follow this link and register so that we know how many are coming and can plan appropriately.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iagc-social-emotional-committee-meeting-registration-43907111352

If you have questions or comments, please contact the organizer: Jenny Nilsen.  

The new report Is There a Gifted Gap? by the Fordham Institute shines a glaring light on how unevenly and unfairly services for high-ability students are distributed throughout the state of Illinois and how out of step we are with the rest of the country. 

A few important statistics from the report underscore just how far behind Illinois is in providing equitable access to gifted services:

• Only 35.2% of schools in Illinois offer gifted services, which is far below the national average of 68.3%.
• Only 32.8% of Illinois’ high poverty schools (where at least 75% of students receive free or reduced price lunch) have gifted programs, which is drastically lower than the national average of 69% of high poverty schools with gifted programs.
• In Illinois, high poverty schools are far less likely to have gifted programs than low poverty schools (high poverty = 32.8%; low = 57%).  This is in stark contrast to the fact that, nationally, high and low poverty schools are equally likely to offer gifted programming.
• Even within the relatively small number of Illinois schools that offer gifted programming (35.2%), black, Hispanic, and low-income students are significantly underrepresented in these programs.

The Illinois Association for Gifted Children has been a voice for disadvantaged high-ability children, arguing that the steep drop in the number of Illinois’ elementary and middle school districts that offer gifted programs – from over 80% in 2003 (the last year that the state provided funding to districts for their gifted programs) to 27% as of 2016 – has had a disparate impact on black, Hispanic, and low-income students. 

The State Board of Education, legislators, and the Governor heard our message and supported the passage of the Accelerated Placement Act this past year, which requires all Illinois districts to create policies allowing early entrance to Kindergarten and 1^st grade, whole grade acceleration, and single subject acceleration.  This is a great step forward in providing advanced students with appropriately challenging learning opportunities, but we have more work to do to close opportunity and excellence gaps, and to ensure that we identify and nurture talent equitably throughout Illinois. 

The Gifted Gap report helps emphasize how critical it is that Illinois continue to strengthen its policy support for advanced students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Visit our Policy & Advocacy webpages and contact the co-chairs, Carolyn Welch (carolynEwelch@comcast.net) and Eric Calvert (eric.calvert@northwestern.edu), to get involved!

One of the featured speakers at the annual conference of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children is Dr. Sally Krisel. Sally has been a strong and vocal leader in the field of gifted education and is currently the president of the National Association for Gifted Children. She strongly believes that gifted education practices are best practices for transforming education. Sally asks, “What if gifted education turned out to be our country’s secret weapon in total school improvement? What if the best way to improve education for ALL children is to focus on ways to engage and challenge those who are gifted?” Sally enacted her beliefs about the value and effectiveness of gifted education practices in the design of a special school in Hall County, Georgia. Educators at DaVinci Academy implement personalized programming with a problem based curriculum, enabling students to create projects and showcase their work to authentic audiences. Sally’s sessions at the conference will help teachers understand how they might also use gifted education practices to recognize and develop the abilities of many students and impact their schools.

IAGC represented educators, families, and community members who care about high-ability students throughout the development of Illinois' ESSA accountability plan over the past year and a half, and it paid off! The Thomas B. Fordham Institute in its "Rating the Ratings: Analyzing the 51 ESSA Accountability Plans" gave Illinois a perfect score, along with six other states. 

Illinois will now hold schools accountable for the growth of all students across the achievement spectrum, without diminishing weight for the growth of students above the proficiency threshold. We are also on the cusp of getting a new accountability indicator added that will measure student participation in enrichment and acceleration opportunities. Stay tuned!

From the Fordham Report released today, November 14, 2017:

"Altogether, twenty of the fifty-one proposed school rating systems are either good or great—earning at least two strong grades and one medium. And those of seven states—Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Washington—are the best, having received perfect scores."

Students in need of financial support for a special project or program, educators looking for professional development funds to work with advanced learners, or administrators looking to recognize staff dedicated to identifying and developing exceptional talent in young people are encouraged to apply an IAGC award or scholarship. Visit the awards and scholarships web page for details.

In a major victory for high-ability students throughout Illinois, the Accelerated Placement Act (SB1223) and the Report Card Act (HB2461) were both signed into law by Governor Rauner on August 25, 2017!

Championed by IAGC and the Untapped Potential Project, the Accelerated Placement Act requires Illinois public school districts to establish policies that provide equitable access to grade acceleration, subject acceleration, and early entrance beginning in July 2018.

The Report Card Act requires the State Board of Education to publish on Illinois Report Cards information it collects about gifted education and advanced academic programs and the number of teachers with gifted education endorsements.

Thank you to our members and supporters for your help in getting SB1223 and HB2461 through the Illinois General Assembly and to the Governor's desk.  Your advocacy made this possible! 

HB 2461 amends the School Code.  It requires the State Board to include in the school report cards certain demographic information concerning gifted education and advanced academic programs, as well as information concerning the number of teachers in a school who hold a gifted education endorsement. HB 2461 has passed both the Illinois House and Senate and has been sent to the Governor for his approval.

IAGC would like to thank the wonderful supporters who "slipped in favor" of HB 2461.  You made a difference!

On May 28th, 2017 the Accelerated Placement Act passed the House by a vote of 99:11.  It passed the senate unanimously on May3rd.  

This act allows early entrance to kindergarten or first grade, accelerating a student in a single subject, compacting curriculum, concurrent enrollment, credit by examination, online learning courses, Advanced Placement courses, International Baccalaureate programs, grade acceleration, grade telescoping, and early high school graduation to all students in Illinois.