2015 Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act Grants
Statewide Grants (8) & Demonstration Grants (3)
The Arizona Department of Education.
Aligning Efforts for Talent Development project will be
to improve the equitable access, participation and
performance of high ability and high potential students,
particularly those students from traditionally
underrepresented groups. The project is collaboration
between the Arizona Department of Education and five
of Arizona’s regional service centers.
The Colorado Department of Education. The CDE will
use various resources and implement innovative,
locally defined programs so strong sustainable gifted
programs exist in every part of the state, especially in
rural and at-risk populations where aspirations and
practices fluctuate depending upon person, vision, and
recorded history. CDE will partner with the University
of Denver to build workshops, materials, protocols for
interactions with administrators and teachers,
workshop facilitation outlines, and evaluator support
activities.
The Kentucky Department of Education. KDE will
partner with the University of Louisville, Western
Kentucky University and Jefferson County Public
Schools on the Reaching Academic Potential Project, a
demonstration of the Young Scholars Model. With 5001000 participants, in a total of 10 schools, the project
will serve grades K-3.
The Minnesota Department of Education. Project
North Star is designed to elevate the identification and
programming approaches provided for disadvantaged
and underserved rural working through six of the
state’s Regional Educational Centers. The project
design includes developing three, two-year professional
development asynchronous online training modules:
one for teachers, another for school leaders, and a
third for family and community. The project also
provides support for implementing services and
instructional practices through teacher and school
leadership collaboration and peer coaching.
The Ohio Department of Education. Online Curriculum
Consortium for Accelerating Middle School (OCCAMS) is
a partnership that includes five diverse school districts
and two university centers. The goals of OCCAMS are
to increase the ID of underrepresented students by
raising academic achievement and expanding screening
opportunities and access to advanced coursework for
disadvantaged students who are identified as gifted but
are not currently receiving gifted services, and create a
sustainable online multi-district infrastructure to
enhance diverse schools’ capacity to identify and serve
all gifted learners.
The Utah State Office of Education. The grant will
support a comprehensive initiative to improve services
for advanced and gifted readers through the Utah
Center for the Advancement of Reading Excellence. The
focus of the project is to identify advanced and gifted
readers throughout the state, provide professional
development for teachers around organizing
instruction for gifted readers, and use strategies to
address the learning profiles of these students. A
professional development coaching model will be
implemented. The goal of the model is to build the
capacity of teachers in the selected schools to improve
the identification and services to gifted and advanced
readers. Utilizing technology will be a key resource in
implementing a statewide project (goal of up to 60 Title
I schools).
Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction. Project HiCapPlus will identify effective
practices for instruction and program operation, and
distribute new information and knowledge essential for
the continuous improvement of WA’s gifted education
program. The project is a partnership between the
state agency, seven pilot LEAs, University of
Washington, and Whitworth University. The goal of the
project is to develop a comprehensive and innovative
system of professional development and technical
assistance to help educators identify learning potential
and serve gifted and talented students–regardless of
economic disadvantage, disability or proficiency with
English.
The Wisconsin Department of Education. Expanding
Excellence seeks to mitigate the excellence gap that
exists for low-income students and English language
learners in three large urban school districts. This
project seeks to expand the expertise of site staff
regarding best practices in gifted education with a
targeted emphasis on how to best meet the advanced
learning needs of two groups of disadvantaged
students: those who qualify for free or reduced price
meals and English language learners. A larger goal is to
increase identification rates and rates of high
achievement among these populations to close the
excellence gap.
2015 Demonstration Grants
The University of Virginia. Project KALEIDOSCOPE goals
are to (1) increase the gifted identification of primaryaged students from under-represented groups by
focusing on wrap-around services in the area of
literacy; and (2) increase the reading achievement of
primary-aged students from under-represented
populations. Four schools will receive services through
the project and across the four schools there are
approximately 900 preK-1 students. Of the 900
students, 50% percent of the students are classified by
the school systems as economically disadvantaged, 20%
African American or Black, and 20% Hispanic.
Seminole County Public Schools, in partnership with
the Univ of Central FL, proposes to significantly reform
the identification and service models for gifted and
talented education within the district’s highest minority
and most economically disadvantaged schools, with a
special focus on including English Language Learners
(ELL). Centered on best practices in gifted education,
the project – ELEVATE: English Learner Excellence
eVolving through Advanced Teacher Education – will
present all students with alternative methods for
identification of giftedness and ensure the foundation
for developing excellence. The project will serve five
focus elementary schools (3748 students) in years 1-2;
and expand identification and talent development to
seven additional schools (6075 students) in year 3, 4
and 5, to include two middle schools with significant
ELL populations.
The University of Wisconsin proposes to address both
the opportunities for and achievement of
underrepresented gifted students by increasing their
access to sustained, high-quality gifted programming by
scaling up “Smart Spaces,” a research-based systemic
model of gifted instruction, and then leveraging this
increased access to improve the students’ achievement
in writing and reading. Grant funds will be used to scale
up tested, high-quality, and challenging curriculum
modules targeting underrepresented students within
the Response to Intervention (RtI) framework.
2014 Javits Grants (10 demonstration grants) +
Nat’l Center for Research on Gifted Education
University of Connecticut
Project SPARK will scale up the Fairfax County (VA)
Young Scholars Model, which was designed to increase
participation of underrepresented groups in gifted and
talented programs, to support their achievement in the
core subject areas, and to promote their readiness for
participation in advanced coursework.
University of Hawaii
Twice Exceptional students Achieving and Matriculating
in STEM (TEAMS) will scale up and evaluate a model
designed to increase the number of underrepresented
students who perform at high levels of academic
achievement through gifted and talented education
programs.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
STEM Starters+ “scales up” a previous Javits project
(STEM Starters) that produced learning gains in
identified gifted students, general ed students, and
teachers. STEM Starters+ is scaled up to an additional
grade level (Grade 1) and to additional geographic
locations with schools serving high proportions of
culturally diverse and low-income children.
George Mason University
The project scales up the use of Problem-Based
Learning to ID and serve low-income gifted students.
Drawing from results from three previous projects, the
project will provide traditionally underrepresented
groups of middle school gifted students Experiences
Cultivating Exceptional Learning (EXCEL).
Purdue University
This project experimentally scales-up Total School
Cluster Grouping (TSCG) with a sample of 100
elementary schools, thereby enabling trueexperimental longitudinal design, with random
assignment of schools to treatment or control
conditions, with three-level growth curve modeling.
University of St. Thomas
Collaborative Planning: Utilizing a Technical Assistance
Collaborative to Upscale the Identification Process and
Programming for Gifted At Risk Learners, has five goals:
to collaborate (1) in the development, implementation,
and field testing of a valid ID protocol for finding ‘at
risk’ (AR) learners who are either twice exceptional,
culturally diverse, and/or economically disadvantaged;
(2) in scaling up appropriate differentiation in all
academic core areas for both AR and regular GT
learners; (3) in the development, implementation, and
evaluation of professional development for cluster
teachers, advanced class teachers (middle school and
high school), and school principals; (4) in providing
parent and community support to AR and GT families;
and (5) to design, implement, and evaluate a scaled up
model of consultation and collaboration.
College of Charleston
This project will create talent development academies
in economically disadvantaged schools built on lessons
learned from previous Javits projects. (1) Create
academies with all students in six Title I elementary
schools. (2) Educate, train and develop a pool of K-5
teachers to serve as talent scouts and developers in
project Title I schools. (3) Use a talent development
approach in school, before/after school, summer
enrichment, and extracurricular activities. (4) Scale up
to add district schools.
University of Southern California
Project CHANGE extends and implements two scale-up
models (a) the development and implementation of a
piloted non-traditional identification system via
Curriculum Tasks to recognize talent among K-2 urban
students from diverse backgrounds, and (b) the design
and implementation of field tested curriculum lessons
aligned to the academic and creative features of the
Curriculum Tasks, the Depth/Complexity Model of
differentiation, and the Common Core.
Duke University
The project scales up prior Project Bright IDEA (Interest
Development Early Abilities). Bright IDEA 3 will work
with Wake Cnty Public Schools to increase (1) the
number of students from underrepresented groups
ID’d as academically & intellectually gifted, (2)
achievement outcomes (scores on state assessments &
grades) for these students, and (3) the quality of
students’ metacognitive/cognitive skills and use of
gifted behaviors.
University of Virginia
Promoting PLACE (Place, Literacy, Achievement,
Community, and Engagement) in Rural Schools, scales
up ID processes, curriculum and non-cognitive
interventions to identify an underserved population of
rural students of poverty, develop and adapt
curriculum and non-cognitive interventions for gifted
students, and deliver both the curriculum and noncognitive interventions to a new setting (rural schools)
and to a new population (high poverty rural gifted
students).