Over the last few weeks, Congress has taken significant steps to eliminate the only federal investment focused on high-ability, disadvantaged students, the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act.

Thankfully, Congressman Courtney (D-CT) and Congressman Gallegly (R-CA) are leading the effort to reinstate Javits funding by asking their fellow members of Congress to sign on to a letter to the powerful Appropriations Committee (the body that makes federal spending decisions).

We need your help! Contact your Representative and urge them to sign on to the Courtney-Gallegly letter TODAY! Congress will only act if their constituents make it a priority!

NAGC suggests you use CEC’s Legislative Action Center. It will to make contacting Congress easy and fast by providing a sample email and contact information.

Our nation is failing high-ability, disadvantaged students; don’t let Congress continue down this path.

Take Action Today!

A refresher about the Javits program:

While the Javits program is small by federal standards, funded at $7.5 million last year, it impacts thousands of students, teachers, and schools across the country.

Studies are showing a growing gap at the highest achievement levels between low income students and their more advantaged peers. Our nation is failing to serve high-ability, low income students. The Javits program directly addresses this issue. It focuses on developing strategies to identify and serve students who traditionally have not had access to gifted education programs. Because of work done through the Javits program, teachers have been trained to better understand how to identify high ability in students and modify curriculum to meet their needs. If the Senate eliminates the Javits program, this work will end.

Additionally, the Javits program solely funds the National Research Center on Gifted Education. The elimination of funding for the Javits program would result in closure of the Center and a tremendous loss to classrooms. The mission of the center is to develop best practices, which have been disseminated and implemented in schools across the nation.

Programs funded through the Javits program include a program that helped to serve as a model during the redesign of QUEST, and one that is being used by the Washington State Highly Capable Technical Working group as it works on its recommendations to the Quality Education Commision and the Washington State Legislature.

• Identifying and Recognizing Giftedness
• Challenges of Parenting Gifted Children
• Underachievement Issues and Twice Exceptionalism
• Gifted Minorities, Gifted Boys, and Gifted Girls
• Misdiagnosis and Depression in Gifted Youth
• Advocacy for Gifted Children, Teaming with Educators and Legislators
• Parenting Supports and Resources

We’ve linked to each of the newsletters on SENG’s site if you missed this fantastic information the first time around.

Representatives from ABC have been working with SENG in advance of their 2011 National Conference which will be held in Seattle.  We’re looking at ways to bring more of the tools that SENG has developed to our parents during the coming year.  Be sure to check out the newsletters and the articles they’ve made available.

Javits Funding in Peril in Senate:  Help Needed with Senate Appropriations Committee

The Senate appropriations subcommittee that handles education funding allotted $0 for the Javits Gifted & Talented Students Education Act yesterday.

We have a chance to recover Senate funding for the Javits program if a few Senators on the committee speak to Chairman Harkin personally when the full appropriations committee meets TOMORROW (Thursday) afternoon.  Because your Senator, Maria Cantwell, is on the Labor/HHS/Education appropriations subcommittee, we’re asking you to CALL her office and ask to speak with the Education staff person in an effort to get Senator Cantwell to take action in support of the Javits program at the Appropriations Committee markup tomorrow.  Please make your as soon as possible, but before Noon on Thursday.  You may have to leave a voicemail message. 

We’re working in coordination with the Council for Exceptional Children in suggesting the following points to make when your call:

My name is _______________. I am a constituent from ____________ (town/city) and I am extremely concerned that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education voted to eliminate funding for the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students program earlier this week. This program is the only federal investment in gifted education. While the Javits program is small by federal standards, funded at $7.5 million last year, it impacts thousands of students, teachers, and schools across the country.

Studies show a growing gap at the highest achievement levels between low-income students and their more advantaged peers, which is partly due to a lack of resources and teacher training to identify and serve these students. The Javits program directly addresses this issue by focusing on developing strategies to identify and serve students who traditionally have not had access to gifted education programs. Because of work done through the Javits program, teachers have been trained to better understand how to identify high ability in students and modify curriculum to meet their needs.  Elimination of funding for the Javits program would also result in closure of the National Research Center on the Gifted & Talented, which would be a tremendous loss to classroom teachers and school leaders who depend on the best practices information produced and disseminated by the Center to improve instruction.

I understand that the full Appropriations Committee will review the bill on Thursday afternoon.  I urge the Senator to do everything possible to reverse the earlier decision made by the education subcommittee and fund the Javits program at at least the $7.5 million funding level it received this year.

If you have any examples of how how your state or school district has benefitted from the Javits program (e.g., that you use curriculum or assessments developed under a Javits grant, or if your districts have relied on information about gifted students and classroom strategies from the National Research Center), be sure to tell the staff person.  It’s important that Senators understand who has benefitted from this federal investment.

All Senate offices can be reached through the Capitol operator at 202-224-3121.  Senator Cantwell’s office is 202-224-3441.  You may also use the Council for Exceptional Children’s online action center, which will link you to your Senator’s office, at http://capwiz.com/cek/callalert/index.tt?alertid=15422516

I just called and left my message.  My phone call lasted three minutes.  Please pick up the phone right now and make the call.  Thank you for your support!

Gifted Education Day is an excellent opportunity for families to experience our state government at work. Please plan on attending!

* Tour our beautiful state capitol!

* Meet and talk to your legislators!

* Observe the legislative process!

* Hear speakers (representatives, state director, others)!

This is a VERY important day for gifted education in the state of Washington. Legislators will be determining funding for gifted this legislative session!

For more information please contact Christine Holland at christine-holland@hotmail.com or 253-376-5909. To attend events in the Columbia Room, you must preregister.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to write the Governor and to write their legislators to urge them to support our highly capable students.  This would be a great time to send a follow up message, letting them know that their work has not gone unnoticed.  Please see our previous message, “Have you written the Governor yet?, for instructions.

Even with good news from Olympia, there is still work to be done at home in Puyallup.  If you have not yet completed the District survey on budget priorities, please take a few minutes to do so now.  This is also a great time to talk to your friends and neighbors about the coming Levy election.  If the levy fails, what happens in Olympia will not matter.  Our program will be gone.

What would happen if the levy failed? $42 million will need to be cut from the District budget.  What would that look like?

Athletics & Activities –  Cut  $2.2 m  –  Cuts All Athletics Except PE Classes  –  GONE
Special Education  –  Cut  $6.0 m  –  Cuts Staff for Kids with Special Needs  –  REDUCED
Optional Programs  –  Cut  $5.3 m  –  Cuts Transportation, QUEST, PAGE, AP  –  GONE
Campus Security  –  Cut  $0.5 m  –  Cuts Campus Security and Supervision  –  REDUCED
Classroom Teachers  –  Cut  $17.2 m  –  Cuts 119 Teachers/Classroom Staff  –  REDUCED
School Consolidation  –  Cut  $2.0 m  –  Closes One or More Schools  –  GONE 
Other Services  –  Cut  $8.8 m  –  Cuts Admin, Maintenance, Custodial  –  REDUCED

We’ve attached a one page note about the levy that you can download and share with your neighbors – Levy Impact.  It is essential that this levy passes.

The proposed tax rate under the new levy is $3.40 per $1,000 of assesed value, three cents less than the rate approved by voters in 2006.  The District has put together a very nice slideshow highlighting how much this levy matters and made it available through their website.  You can view the slideshow by going to:  http://www.puyallup.k12.wa.us/ourdistrict/financials/10Levy/flash/index.html. 

If you are not yet registered to vote, you can register on-line through the Secretary of State’s website:  http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/voterinformation/Pages/RegistertoVote.aspx.  This will be an all mail election, so if you have moved and need to update your address, you can do that through the same page.

Your children need your yes vote.  Don’t miss out on the chance to show your support for our schools.

  This message contains three parts.

1. Supplemental Budget

In her initial Supplemental Budget for 2010-2011, Governor Gregoire proposes to suspend  $7.4 million of 2010-11 highly capable funding.*

The Legislature will also propose a version of the Supplemental Budget after January 11. Gifted education has strong supporters in the Legislature and we will work closely with them on the issue of highly capable funding.

To make known your support of highly capable funding send the Governor a message through her web site http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/default.asp  or the hot line 1.800.562.6000. 

In a situation like this, it is the sheer number of messages, not the weight of your arguments, that will count. Make your message simple: “I want you to fully fund highly capable programs in the Supplemental Budget,” or “Do not suspend highly capable program funding in the Supplemental Budget.”

After the Legislature convenes we will be requesting you to contact legislators about both the budget and the implementation of the provisions of ESHB 2261.

 2.  Gifted Education Day, February 5, 2010

We need as many people in Olympia on Feb. 5 as is humanly possible, prepared to talk to legislators about the needs of gifted students. Organizing has begun and more information will be sent out soon. Please prepare to join us in Olympia!

3.  Coalition Meeting

The Coalition will meet on January 7 at the Kohlwes Administration Center, Renton School District. to work out the details of Gifted Education Day and other items. Mark your calendar and please plan to join us. A reminder and agenda will be sent out closer to the date.

*To see the actual budget proposal, go to http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget10/bills/default.asp and select operating 2010 supplemental. Highly capable is on page 168.

I’m thankful for the QUEST and PAGE programs, and for the teachers and administrators who worked so hard to not only save the program in the face of last year’s tremendous budget challenges, but who found a way to expand the program so that more students are being served this year than ever before.  I’m thankful those same people are watching out for our program this year as those financial challenges remain.  I’m thankful for the teachers who accepted the challenge of educating our gifted students, and who not only encourage our students to go beyond what is expected of them, but who live that lesson themselves.  I’m thankful those teachers have invited me into their classrooms, and have partnered with my family to develop the best educational plan for my children.

I’m thankful for the ABC Board and our volunteers, whose hard work makes all the things that ABC does possible.  I’m thankful for other gifted advocates across the state and across the country who have offered their experience and leadership freely and without condition.  Many of these advocates have been actively working for the cause of highly capable education since I was the age my sons are now.  Their persistence is one of the reasons that programs like QUEST and PAGE exist at all.   I’m thankful for the legislators who last session agreed with those advocates at long last and passed a bill that included highly capable in the definition of basic education.

I’m thankful for my two QUEST students, and for their younger brother who sees his big brothers go off to school in the morning and thinks that he’s ready to go to the brothers’ school now, too.  I’m thankful for all the questions they ask, sometimes one after another, as they work through ideas or concepts that are new to them.  I’m thankful for all the times they emptied their bookshelves, asking me to read just one more story.  I’m even thankful for those times when they stopped me to remind me that I’d skipped a page, or to tell me that wasn’t how the story goes.  I’m thankful for the look of pride on their faces when they exceed their own expectations and complete a task they didn’t know they were capable of completing.  I’m thankful for your QUEST students, and for the relationships they’ve built with my sons.

I’m thankful for my wife, who understands when I tell her that I have a stack of work to do for ABC, or a list of legislators to contact, or that I have to go to State Capitol the next day to talk to anyone who will listen about the cause of gifted education.  I’m thankful for the encouragement she provides me, and for allowing me the freedom to be an active part of this community. 

I’m thankful to be able to be an advocate for your children, and for the immeasurable rewards I receive when I see that the work that I’ve been some small part of has touched their lives and given them opportunities that they might otherwise not have had.

The Washington Coalition for Gifted Education will be encouraging highly capable students from all across the state to write about the impact that gifted programs have had on their lives.  Take a few minutes to let our policy makers know that you value their support of our students.  Encourage your highly capable student to write about what they are thankful for, and share their message with your legislators in Olympia, and with the members of the school board here in Puyallup.  Our representatives hear from adults all the time.  A hand written message from a student has a powerful effect.

From the Puyallup School District’s information page:

• School programs and operations levies provide money to help pay for day-to-day school programs and operations such as teachers and support staff, smaller class sizes, school safety and security, programs for students with special needs, instructional materials including textbooks, music and the arts, transportation, and athletics and other extracurricular activities.
• The state Legislature’s funding formula for basic education falls short of providing all that is required to educate students at the current levels of staffing and services. To make up the difference, this district, like most others in the state, submits levies to voters to support acceptable levels of staffing and essential educational programs.

On Tuesday, November 24th, members of the Puyallup community will gather at the South Hill Best Western at 5:00 to beginning planning for how best to support the campaign.  We hope you can be there.  Our students need your support.