Concordance of Gifted Education Policy and Practices at the State, District, and Local Levels

Abstract

Gifted education policies vary across the United States. Previous studies have demonstrated a disconnect between these policies at state and district levels, but alignment of school-level practices with state and/or district policies is unknown. To further examine these relationships, we examined via qualitative document analysis state and district-level gifted policies and district and school-level reported practices in two states’ gifted services. Although state and district policies reflected fairly close alignment with recommended practices, district and school reported practices reflected only partial alignment. We discuss implications of these findings for gifted programs and policy at the state and local levels.