
Back in December 2018 our blog post, “Using local norms in GT identification”, described a new idea that was beginning to circulate among scholars and researchers in the field of gifted and talented education; could local norms be used to identify students for accelerated learning and would this increase representation among students who have been traditionally underrepresented in GT programs? That post has the second most view of any of our published posts and for good reason — interest in this has remained very high, particularly as researchers have found that moving from national norms to school building norms for the purpose of identifying students for advanced learning opportunities resulted in a 157% to 300% increase in the proportionality of Black and Latinx students in gifted education. (See: “Effect of Local Norms on Racial and Ethnic Representation in Gifted Education,” Scott J. Peters, Karen Rambo-Hernandez, Matthew C. Makel, Michael S. Matthews, Jonathan A. Plucker. AERA Open, April-June 2019. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23328584 and “Optimal Gifted and Talented Student Identification: Maximizing Efficacy, Efficiency, and Equity” https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/09/S206A190007-East-Tennessee-State-University.pdf
“The research team looked at third graders’ test scores across ten states over ten years, changing the limit for what constitutes “gifted” and observing how it would change student demographics in gifted programs. They began by comparing students across their entire ten-state population as if they were using a national standard, in which only the top 5 or 15% of all students qualified for gifted services. Then they stepped the geographic boundaries down to compare students by state, then by school-districts, then by individual schools, where the top 5% or 15% of every school would be eligible for gifted education services. They found that the smaller the geographic comparison got, the more racially representative the gifted programs would be. By their calculations, going from national averages to school-specific averages quadrupled African American representation, nearly tripled Hispanic representation, and consistently improved the likelihood for both demographics to be identified as gifted. But even with those massive improvements, the number of students identified as gifted was still not proportional to the actual number of African American and Hispanic students in the overall population.”
https://today.duke.edu/2019/08/tip-finds-local-criteria-identify-more-students-gifted
With a focus on equity and representation, many public elementary and high schools are reckoning with biases seen in their gifted learning programs. Utilizing local norms holds promise for finding more proportional numbers of high potential students than have previously been recognized and in a cost-effective way. The goal is for more students from diverse backgrounds to have their needs met and to be able to develop and use their talents to benefit their communities and the world. This begins by school principals looking within their own schools and asking “who are my highest-performing students and how can I best accommodate their learning needs?”
Using local norms forces a change in thinking at the individual school level. If the average achievement level is a D in a particular school or in a particular classroom, but there is a student who’s performing at a B level, then that student would need different resources than their peers and would trigger school personnel to consider that student for accelerated learning options. If that same student moves to a different school where the achievement is at an A level, then that student may need a different type of support. This variation across school districts serves as an opportunity to use local norms as a means to make a dent in the national “excellence gap”, which currently separates Hispanic and Black students from their Asian American and white peers.
“In some high poverty schools, using national norms may
result in the identification of few or no high ability students,
yet talent exists in every zip code. Using local norms helps
find these students and sends the implicit message that every
school in every neighborhood has talented children.”
Plucker, J. A., & Peters, S. J. (2016)
The use of local norms, while fairly new, is being adopted by multiple states, from Kentucky:
to New Jersey:

to Connecticut:
“A district can use a locally normed cut-score to identify students for consideration by a PPT for the gifted and talented classification. In this approach, the district may convene a group PPT to review the cases of the students who meet or exceed the established cut score. The use of local norms over state/national norms has the advantage of potentially being more informative of a child’s standing with respect to the general education program of a school. Objective measures such as these also allow for the possible identification of students as gifted and talented who are members of historically underrepresented populations.”
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/SDE/Gifted-and-Talented/Gifted-an
d-Talented-Education—Guidance.pdf
to Illinois:

to Texas
and

to Maryland:

Indeed, right here in Baltimore County, Maryland, the school system is considering how they might use local norms to improve representation of Black, Hispanic, and students receiving special services in the Advanced Academics program as outlined in The Compass’ Key Initiative 3: English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Advanced Academics and Gifted and Talented (GT), and Special Education Programming and Supports :
“English learners continue to struggle to demonstrate proficiency, and achievement gaps continue to widen. There is a rapid increase in English learner enrollment in BCPS and an increase in the number of students waiving these services. The needs of this growing population require a deepening of general educator and content teacher understanding in strategies that work best for English learners. In Advanced Academics and Gifted and Talented programming, students identified as African American, Hispanic and students receiving special services are underrepresented. Baltimore County Public Schools conducts universal screening in Grades 3 and 5. In Grade 3, universal screening results in students being provided access to advanced curricula in English language arts and mathematics. In Grade 5, universal screening results in students being placed in Gifted and Talented courses in Grade 6 in English language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science. Although screening processes are in place, there is underrepresentation for some racial student groups and for students receiving special services. As a result, staff within BCPS need professional learning in equitable identification strategies in order to close this gap by identifying the potential talents of students in underrepresented groups.”
https://p3cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_9046340/File/Department/Performance%20Management/Strategic_Plan_WCAG_FINAL.pdf
This was the focus of discussion at the September 16, 2021 BCPS equity committee meeting and demonstrates the focus the district has on more equitably identifying students for advanced learning and how using local norms may help in reaching this goal.