CONFRATUTE 2016
A Strategy to Increase Racial, Ethnic Minority Students
Participation in Gifted Programs
Strand B
1:30 - 3:00 Monday - Thursday
Strand Leader
Ken Dickson
“NOTES”
for
COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
for
GIFTED EDUCATION
INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION
IN GIFTED PROGRAMS
Guide/Definitions for Leading Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education
Background/What Courageous Conversations is About
Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education is professional development concept focused on
the task of overcoming the underrepresentation of REM learners in gifted education programs. To
accomplish the task, the concept examines racism - the systematic mistreatment of certain groups of
people on the basis of skin color or other physical characteristics. Why is it critical to examine
underrepresentation through a racism lens? Simply – racism is the root cause of gifted programs
underrepresentation issues. Underrepresentation has little, if anything to do with REM learners’ ability,
potential or giftedness. Underrepresentation has everything to do with racism.
Additionally, Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education examines historical, social, political
economic and educational situations that influence school practices, in turn, that sustain racism.
Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education is primarily a concept developed by Ken
Dickson, consultant/advocate for learners with exceptional needs (see bio at end of this document).
Dickson provide educators opportunities to raise their awareness; to break their silence; to usher in
courageous conversations about race. Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education focuses on all
educators including general, gifted and special educators and the parents of their learners. The concept
will inform professional development components in school systems as well as other components
regarding race and gifted program underrepresentation including:
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Mission/beliefs perspectives,
exceptional needs learners’ advocacy plans,
curriculum,
staffing,
identification/access,
programming,
service delivery,
evaluation/assessment (program and staff) and
resource allocations.
Dickson’s Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education concept mirrors concepts in the 2006
publication “Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Attaining Equity in Schools” by
Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton. Dickson integrates “Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field
Guide for Attaining Equity in Schools” concepts with his thirty years plus engagement in gifted
education. This integration provides a unique perspective regarding the troubling issue of
underrepresentation in gifted education.
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The Singleton/Linton concept focuses on racism and how it plays a primary role in sustaining, if
not widening the achievement gap. It helps participants facilitate emotional and difficult conversations
about race. The concept helps participants think through ways that race affects their lives and
professional practices
In 2004, Dickson participated in his first Singleton led Courageous Conversations professional
development sessions. Dickson recognized expected common parallels related to gifted education,
given that the session was education based. He also recognized unique parallels and inextricable
connections between Singleton’s concepts about race and underachievement and challenges gifted
education has regarding race and underrepresentation. For the last 12 years he has continued to
embrace the sessions’ outcomes and continues to update himself as the concept evolves. In his
educator role, Dickson implements the concept in as many ways as possible.
Parallels with Underrepresentation
Dickson’s participation in Singleton’s Courageous Conversations session raised numerous
concerns he has about gifted education. They included concerns that he has had since the late 70’s,
upon beginning his gifted education graduate program. Disproportionality and underrepresentation
issues were and continue to be central to his concerns. Singleton’s Courageous Conversations brought
his concerns into sharper focus. For decades prior to his Courageous Conversations participation,
Dickson tacitly held that racism, was indeed the cause of underrepresentation in gifted education. His
tacit approach was because of his optimism about change, related to efforts that he and his colleagues
continue to investigate regarding underrepresentation. In numerous formal, informal, private and
public discussions, Dickson and his peers concluded that they have to change the system to reflect their
and others better selves.
A part of the sharper focus emerging from Courageous Conversations focused on institutional
racism. Institutional racism includes actions and behaviors relating to race that actively perpetuate and
enforces a dominant racial perspective or belief. This includes the notion that racism is not a problem
worthy of attention or remedying. Institutional racism leads to feelings of racial inferiority in REM
learners and racial superiority/supremacy in White learners.
Example: There are advanced classes. They include gifted, honors, Advanced Placement,
International Baccalaureate and others. There are few if any REM learners enrolled in these
classes. The classes are by tradition and frequently by intention predominantly White. The
Whiteness of these classes affirm perceptions of White learners’ intellectual
superiority/supremacy when they desire, or are provided access to them. REM learners not seeing
others who look like them in these classes will see themselves as not capable of performing at
equally high levels and unworthy of taking them. Moreover, the institution does nothing to
challenge this superiority/supremacy reality. Additionally, these classes are often led by the most
capable, well-seasoned and respected teachers. This sends a message to REM learners that they
are worth less than White learners.
Given this example, Dickson is comfortable in asserting that gifted education is indeed, a major
component in institutional racism and a major contributor to the achievement gap. The achievement
gap fuels gifted program underrepresentation.
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The above example is only one of many illustrating the critical rationale to overcome
underrepresentation. Three realities support this rationale. Underrepresentation is:
1. persistent,
2. pervasive and
3. contains staggering disproportionate participation data.
 Persistence – Underrepresentation is neither a new problem nor is it unique to
advanced educational programs at the K-12 level (Gagné 2011). Some related research
findings indicate that institutions and K-12 schools have tried to balance equity and
excellence for nearly 100 years (Brown, 2008). For at least 40-70 years gifted education
has provided unobstructed access to White and Asian learners through identification
protocols designed to guarantee their unobstructed access. Such protocols sustain
significant disproportionate representation/underrepresentation issues that continue to
trouble gifted education.
 Pervasiveness – disproportionality/underrepresentation is evidenced in small, average
and large school systems; particularly in large diverse urban school systems.
 Staggering participation data – Disproportionality/underrepresentation ranges from 5070% in diverse school districts (Ford, Richert; et al).
o Black males - underrepresented by 153,000.
o Black females by 101,000; i.e. at least 250,000 (total REM students not
identified).
o Hispanic males/females by at least 42% respectively (Ford, Richert; U.S.
Department of Education, 2008, et. al)
These exclusionary realities are only a REM learner population phenomenon. They do not effect White
or Asian learner populations. This phenomenon in itself confirms race/racism is at issue; not
achievement, underachievement or giftedness. How is this so? The variance of participation exists
among REM learners – not all learners. Exclusion in gifted programs is not about ability or potential. It
is about REMs physical attributes; their complexion. This involves their race and how those who are in
control feel about it, or are effected by it.
Legacy of Historical Race/Racism Events Shaping Contemporary Societal and School Attitudes
Dickson, through his investigations, have found that numerous events shaped America’s legacy
in terms of race/racism. Each of them have included long complex struggles for freedom, justice and
equality for REM groups. The struggles began upon the arrival of European immigrants (colonists) in the
1600’s in what was later to become America. The Europeans, like much of the rest of the world engaged
in slavery (enslavement of a people). Enslavement set the stage for and brought permanence to today’s
racial challenges in America. Enslavement continues to have a deep and long lasting impact and
influence on race/racism issues today; in schools and in our society in general. No other event in REMs
existence has had a greater or longer lasting impact on contemporary race/racism.
The Enslavement Event
Europeans in the new colonies engaged in the practice of slavery (enslavement). Enslavement
was their practice of owning humans. In this case, Africans, as if they were chattels, inanimate objects,
private possessions; like animals or furniture acquired by purchase or inheritance. This ownership was
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for the primary purpose to force them to do work. The work focused mostly on land development, crop
production and harvesting the crops which included tobacco, cotton, sugar, rice, indigo (a plant used for
dye) and related work.
Enslavement was pervasive, long standing (over 200 years) and very deeply embedded in the deepest
culture and fabric of Southern life and its economy. So deep was enslavement in Southerners lives that
they would die for it, rather than lose it. Enslavement was characterized by many codes/treatments
(conditions) to protect and keep it. The codes were constantly altered to adapt to new needs. They
varied from one colony and, later, from one state to another. In some instances, they varied from
plantation/farm to plantation/farm, and region to region; as a reflection of the attitudes of the
owners/masters.
Additional to cheap, free labor, enslavement came with a multitude of “conditions of control.” These
conditions were established and enforced to instill fear in the Africans to encourage them not to revolt.
Owners feared revolt, as their slaves frequently outnumbered them. The conditions also demonstrated
that the Europeans, as owners/masters had complete ownership and control (dominance) over the
Africans. This demonstration of dominance replicated the dominance that a human would have over an
animal.
Enslavement conditions of control included a variety of dehumanizing repressive explicit race prejudice
treatments. These conditions of control turned treatments became known as “slave codes.” Governing
bodies throughout the South legislated the codes to protect slave owners' rights and outline acceptable
slave and owner’s behavior; including the consequences of their slaves’ misbehavior. The slave
owner/master could do virtually anything he wanted to do with his Africans – his property. The
owner/master was in power and had total authority over the life and death of slaves. Slave codes
supported:
actions performed by the slave-owner to cause
slave dependency among all slaves. All slaveowners/masters worked to make slaves
submissive and deferential.
intimidation, humiliation including depravation
of small freedoms
physical abuse; shackling; shooting; flogging;
branding; slaves. Attacks by vicious dogs;
dismemberment; mutilation; sadism, death by
lynching; boiling or fire were also methods of
physical abuse supported by the codes. Most
times this display of control was done in front
of the families and/or all the slaves on the
farm/plantation.
rape/sexual abuse of female slaves; Ill-treatment of
female slaves during pregnancy; female slaves were
often consigned to a life of sexual exploitation as
their bodies legally belonged to their owners
breeding of slaves – to ensure that a steady supply
of human capital (slaves) would be available for
profit and as future property. This involved forced
sexual relations between male and female slaves
and owners/masters
avoidance of displaying gratitude; humanity;
affection; feelings toward slaves. No actions by
the slave owner could be perceived as payment for
labor. This included any demonstration of any
expression of humanness or feelings of gratitude
after a task was carried out. Some owners.
however, paid slaves small bonuses at Christmas
and some permitted slaves to keep earnings and
gambling profits – if they were allowed to gamble.
Slaves were often given low-quality goods by their
masters and given clothes made from rough cloth
and shoes from old leather.
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the owner/master authority over where a slave
could move around on the farm. Slaves were
prohibited from leaving their owner's
plantation without permission.
the prohibition of congregation of large
numbers of slaves
practices of disposing slaves as a condition of
real estate or inheritance
practices of selling and buying slaves to meet
debts; or to expand wealth.
recognition of accomplishments by slaves
denied access to, or rights for protection under
White man’s protection laws, as slaves were
private property. They could have no
protections for being overwork of for horrible
working conditions.
using noise making devices like cowbells which
attached to a belt/collar or upper body frame
like device and locked around the heads, necks
or shoulders of a slave to monitor his
whereabouts.
banning slaves from possessing weapons, horses
and mules and in some cases certain kinds of food
the use of Christianity to instill fear, meekness;
submission in slaves
prohibiting teaching a slave to read and write.
Slaves were denied any education whatsoever.
Slave codes ended with the defeat of the South in the Civil War, but were replaced by other
discriminatory laws known as "Black codes" during Reconstruction (1865-77). The Black codes were
attempts to control the newly freed African Americans by barring them from engaging in certain
occupations, performing jury duty, owning firearms, voting, and other pursuits. At first, the U.S.
Congress opposed Black codes by enacting legislation such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 and
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. But by the time of the
so-called Compromise of 1877, civil rights for Blacks had eroded, as Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court,
and northerners lost interest in the issue. The slave codes essentially lived on in Jim Crow laws and other
forms of discrimination until successfully challenged in the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Reflection – Choose One or More of the 3 Bullets
Attempts to “control” Blacks and other REM groups have been ongoing for centuries, as evidenced by
“slave codes,” (17th-19th centuries) that evolved into “Black codes,” (19th century) that evolved into Jim
Crow laws (20th century).
Focusing on gifted education:
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Identify and share a recent social, political, economic or educational issue that exists
today, that has abolished historical race/racism codes and laws (concepts/attitudes) that
positively impacts REM groups in today’s society; in schools’ programs and/or practices.
The issue can be a local, state, or federal high or low profile issue. In what ways does
this issue impact gifted program practices, or components in gifted program practices? *
*Gifted program practices may include: belief (philosophy) mission statement, advocacy practices,
identification practices, curriculum, programming/service delivery model(s), staffing, professional
development, assessment (program and staff), budget/allocation and administration.
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Identify and share a recent social, political, economic or educational issue that exists
today, that reflects or echoes historical and/or contemporary race/racism
concepts/attitudes that negatively impacts REM groups; in today’s society; in schools’
programs and/or practices. The issue can be a local, state, or federal high or low profile
issue. In what ways does this issue impact gifted program practices, or components in
gifted program practices? *
Identify and share a social, political, economic or educational event that needs to exist
today that can address race/racism concepts/attitudes, that can positively impact REM
groups in today’s society; in schools’ programs and/or practices. The event can be a
local, state, or federal high or low profile issue. In what ways would this issue impact
gifted program practices, or components in gifted program practices? *
Early European Justification for Enslavement and Outcomes
Why didn’t Europeans do their own work? How did they justify enslavement?
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They justified enslavement on ways they interpreted certain scriptures in the Bible and
ancient Greek notions that met “their” needs and beliefs.
They did not have the physical stamina to do the work.
Greed.
Early in Europeans’ occupation of the new colony, they attempted to indenture poorer Europeans as
servants, but it was cheaper to use Africans. Some accounts point to the Europeans efforts to enslave
Native Americans. Natives had a great understanding of the land, of which the later arriving Africans
would not. Natives with their understanding of the land, frequently escaped.
Regarding greed - Enslavement was a way to reap huge profits with little overhead costs. Enslavement,
as heinous as it was, worked very well in terms of wealth building for the European slave
owner/masters. Enslavement made America’s economy the greatest in the world. Africans did not get a
cent for it. Neither have their descendants.
America’s Enslavement Story and Why It Must Be Told Over and Over
America’s enslavement story has far reaching implications. It continues to impact contemporary
race/racism attitudes in some of today’s individuals. Enslavement was an ugly event in the American
story. Some would like for it to fade into the dust bins of history and disappear, as if it never occurred.
America’s enslavement story is a that must be told – over and over. Why? We continue to hear
(experience) enslavement “echoes” and see enslavement ghosts that haunt the story and us. On paper,
enslavement ended over 150 years ago. In the hearts and minds (attitudes) of some, it did not. In some
individuals, enslavement era-like concepts live on. These individuals harbor so-called “slave master
mentalities.” In other individuals, enslavement era-like concepts live on as well, but they harbor “slave
mentalities.” Both mentalities, whether conscious or unconscious in both sets of individuals, are
relevant to them and it drives their conscious and/or conscious attitudes and actions. Some of these
individuals are school stakeholders.
*Gifted program practices may include: belief (philosophy) mission statement, advocacy practices,
identification practices, curriculum, programming/service delivery model(s), staffing, professional
development, assessment (program and staff), budget/allocation and administration.
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People with slave master mentalities create and support concepts of separation, segregation,
discrimination and underrepresentation in gifted programs. People with a slave mentalities expect and
allow concepts of separation/segregation and underrepresentation in gifted programs. They see it, but
say nothing about it. They fear speaking out against the slave master because they have been
intimidated and fear public and private humiliation – even at the expense of allowing the continual
exclusion of traditionally underrepresented learners from gifted program services. Both mentalities can
be observed over and over in many endeavors in today’s society.
Reflection – Choose One or More of the 4 Bullets
Focusing on gifted education:
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Identify a social, political, economic or educational situation in which a slave master
mentality and a slave mentality exist.
Identify a social, political, economic or educational situation in which a slave master
mentality and a slave mentality does not exist.
Without naming them, think of professional or personal peers who have slave master
mentalities and things they do, or have done regarding their slave master mentalities.
Without naming them describe things they do or have done regarding their slave master
mentalities.
Without naming them, think of professional or personal peers who have slave
mentalities and things they do, or have done regarding their slave mentalities. Without
naming them describe things they do or have done regarding their slave mentalities.
Other Reasons Why America’s Enslavement Story Must Be Told Over and Over
There are other reasons why America’s enslavement story must be told over and over. As
previously mentioned, one of the conditions of control, (slave codes) was no amounts of money to was
to be paid to Africans. People today do not admit it, nor do not think they are capable of harboring
(echoing) any of the slave codes mentioned above. People today with personal integrity, would never
entertain the codes. Additionally, few people today would escape with not paying for work that others
did for them. Others people, however would welcome an opportunity to get work done for free and
would not think that it was wrong. They would see it as their entitlement or in cases of race/racism and
if they are White – they would see it as White privilege. White privilege refers to the advantages that
White people receive simply by virtue of their appearance. To a lesser degree, the privilege lighter
skinned people of color garner as compared to darker skinned members of the same or different nonWhite groups (Singleton; Linton, 2006).
Thinking and acting out (echoing) on the slave codes, for some people is an unconscious act. After they
realize they have done it, they feel uncomfortable. In others, they are very conscious about echoing
slave codes in their behaviors. It is a real part of their behaviors and actions and they would not feel
uncomfortable having them. Whether it happens consciously or unconsciously, such attitudes create
certain thinking and actions that limit opportunities for certain populations in schools and expand
opportunities for certain other populations. An example is when little thought or consideration is given
to the differences of different learners. This is with particular regard to when assessment tools and
practices are used to determine learners’ needs for gifted program opportunities. In what ways are
assessment tools and practices modified to accommodate and adapt to learners’ differences?
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Today, fortunately, enslavement is not the reality it was when the first group of twenty Africans set foot
on soil off a Dutch slave ship in the then British colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. That event
started enslavement in what would become America 157 years later and would last another 87 years.
The issue in this context is not “what” enslavement was. The issue is “who” was enslaved. Africans
were enslaved. Their descendants, Black people in America today, continue to experience certain
conditions (echoes) of enslavement today. This is with particularly regard to their access or denials to
basic freedoms. Can you name a basic freedom of which Black people or other REM groups are denied or
being denied?
Central to such freedoms is equal access and opportunity. For over 150 years, numerous actions by
America’s branches of government have assured (legislated) equal access and opportunity in every
endeavor of American life for all Americans. Can you name one? These assurances did not come easy
for Black Americans or other REM groups. Significant opposition challenged each assurance. Sometimes
efforts to gain access to the assurances have frequently been and continue to be met with push back or
with trepidation, as if Black people and other REM groups do not deserve the assurances. The push back
comes in several forms. Many times among various groups who oppose equality for all, the push back
can be subtle sophisticated and/or camouflaged. Other times these groups will be direct and blatant even with government assurance under penalties of law. Can you name an assurance and describe
associated push back? In some ways government assurances, therefore are “just words on paper” and
not the assurances that they should be. Why?
In this gifted education context, what in gifted programing is “just words on paper” and not the
assurances they should be?
Enslavement Truths - Guilt and Shame?
Various practices in today’s schools are inappropriate and indeed “echoes” of the slave codes.
Telling the truth about enslavement and telling it often will raise understandings and will create the
vision and skills to eliminate such inappropriate practices. In that regard, we need to arm ourselves with
blameless truths. Such truths will exist not to lay guilt or shame.
The enslavement process was complex. It involved European slave traders going to Africa for
the purpose of abducting Africans and transporting them back to the West. The slave traders did not
necessarily do the abduction themselves. Much of it was done by Africans who captured fellow Africans
in the African interior through various forms of invasions and conquests. Today’s descendants of
European slave traders and owners (White people in the U.S.) should not go around dealing with socalled “white guilt” over the enslavement story (nor pride, as enslavement was criminal). Most White
people don’t anyway. The slave trade was not just among their descendants. The descendants of
Africans (Black people in the U.S.) need to know and understand that Africans played a huge role in the
whole story. They were front, middle and frequently end men in some cases in the process. Africans
not only abducted other Africans, but the other Africans sometimes had enslaved their own people or
own kin. They then would sell them if they desired to abductor Africans for mere baubles!
The trading and trafficking of a people was a profitable joint venture. Africans and Europeans stood
together in its commerce and profits. How awful it is to speak of this heinous crime of enslavement, as
if those enslaved, or those to be enslaved were not human, but just objects of commerce and profit.
Guilt free truths are key elements in any dialogue regarding enslavement.
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Regarding shame - If any shame is to be had among today’s Black people regarding enslavement, the
shame should be about the fact that many of their descendants (the African abductors) were key players
in the success of the enslavement story. Those who disagree with this fact argue that if the Europeans
chose not to engage in enslavement, then the African abductors would not have had a role and
enslavement would have diminished. But the fact of the matter is – Europeans did engage. Moreover,
not only did American Europeans engage in it, people of other nations did as well. Enslavement was
international.
If there is more shame to be had after placing it on the Africans involved in it, it should be on the fact
that even after over 150 years after enslavement was outlawed, we continue to allow “echoes” or
vestiges of its conditions to exist – particularly in schools – places of enlightenment and places that
respect human and worth and dignity. In what ways are vestiges of enslavement included in gifted
programs?
The struggle has been filled with significant and innumerable obstacles regarding the denial of
their equality and their full citizenship. The quest for equality, full rights of citizenship and freedom
remain a struggle today.
Sources of Influence Regarding the Above Enslavement Topic:
Lerone Bennett Jr., Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America (1993).
Jeffrey J. Crow, Paul D. Escott, and Flora J. Hatley, A History of African Americans in North Carolina (2002).
John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (6th ed.,
1988).
Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974).
Historical Race/Racism Events Shaping Contemporary Societal and School Attitudes
Examples of today’s struggle also involves numerous complex events. They frequently involve
situations that cause disparate impact in education, hiring and, employment, housing, or other areas.
Disparate impact may be considered discriminatory and illegal if it creates disproportionate adverse
impact on a group.
The events and situations of today include but are not limited to:
 state and federal efforts (including Supreme Courts’ actions) to restrict, limit or suppress
the constitutional right of REM groups to vote,
 opposition to immigration,
 political attacks on diverse non-traditional religions,
 excessive/escalated/state sanctioned police violence in REM communities, including the
use of deadly force by police on unarmed people; adding to disproportionate REM loss
of life with unfair judicial responses
 the prison industrial complex where more than 2 million people are incarcerated and
6.6 million are controlled by some form judicial/law enforcement entity. Most of the
incarcerated or members of a REM group,
 organized responses to address disproportionate virulent physical and judicial attacks
on Blacks by police and vigilantes. Such responses have given rise to a network of
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people emphasizing a Black Lives Matter premise. This premise addresses issues in which
Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state and deprived of basic
human rights and dignity.
the school-to-prison pipeline issue. This issue relates to school and community failures in
terms of access, opportunities to learn and support issues. Such failures fuel achievement
gaps between Black and White learners in schools which lead to eventual disconnections
(zero tolerance policies leading to suspensions, expulsions, arrests) from school and
negative connections with the law.
 gentrification of urban communities,
 devaluation of homes in REM communities,
 high rates of REM unemployment in the face of low rates of unemployment among non
REM groups.
Below is a timeline of America’s race/racism story. It includes selected historical events that
describe racial events that have occurred that shape today’s societal attitudes. Such attitudes influence
school programs and practices.
Purpose for Examining a Historical Race/Racism Timeline
Why is a time line/overview being provided? The events of the past and ongoing events
regarding race/racism have brought permanence; a kind of norm reality to racial challenges in America.
Providing this timeline overview is to assist you in conducting and participating in effective dialogues
about race/racism as it relates to schooling today. Dickson suggests that you take the necessary time to
deepen your understanding of how the history of race/racism is inextricably tied to today’s school
practices. An opportunity to reflect on the events described in the timeline is available at the end of
them.
Note: The Civil Rights Movement. The timeline/overview consists of approximately 70 key historical
events. Readers will note that the Civil Rights Movement event is one that is not listed with a specific
beginning and ending date. The Movement is distinguished into early and modern Civil Rights
Movement events. The modern Civil Rights Movement had its beginnings in the late 1940’s. ’Specific
dates depend on how one chooses to define or describe the Movement. Dickson holds the perspective
that the events of the Movement are ongoing. They describe actions that involve helping or hindering
the quest for justice, equality and freedom of oppressed groups. Given that perspective, one may
consider Thomas Paine’s “African Slavery in America” essay (mentioned elsewhere in this guide). It was
in opposition to enslavement. It was written a little over one hundred fifty years after the first Africans
arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. It, therefore, may be deemed an example of an early Movement
event. An example of a modern Civil Rights Movement event is the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
by President Johnson in 1964.
The Movement is identified by a series of events concerning negative and positive REM discrimination
and injustice events regarding REM groups. In that regard events of the Movement may be
characterized throughout the entire listing. Why? Negative and positive events have been occurring
since European colonization of America efforts began. With that reality, no one specific date can be
identified to characterize the beginning and ending of the Movement.
Civil Rights Movement events include: the efforts of abolitionists/sympathizers; assassinations/murders
beatings by Whites; boycotts; marches; sit-ins; assemblies; riots; protests, unjust arrests; church
bombings. The events also included several Court rulings – some favorable and others unfavorable.
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Additionally, the Movement was and is about Congressional Acts; Presidential Executive Orders;
constitutional rights violations; affirmative action situations; public school and university
segregation/integration issues. The events also included Court’s addressing school busing issues
designed to facilitate integration; along with rulings on coterminous boundaries, racially identifiable
schools; school systems being declared unified when integration efforts did not work.
The movement further included amendments to the constitution; REM voter registration efforts, and
efforts to gain equal access to political, economic and social justice that had long been denied to REM
populations.
Timeline/Overview of Historical Events Shaping Contemporary Societal and School Attitudes
1600’s - Colonization and Enslavement of Africans - Two events established a racial hierarchy of
Whites over REM groups and initiated a racial caste system:
1. The colonization (invasion, domination; subjugation) of a territory now called America in
the 1600’s by Northern and Western Europeans. This event involved the invasion of an
indigenous population, i.e., the people living in the territory before the Europeans’
invasion. This act involved subjugating the indigenous culture and establishing political
control over it by its extermination of the indigenous culture. Colonization in America
began when a group (Pilgrims) left England in search of religious freedom and said to
have landed at present-day Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. They however, first landed
in Holland and enjoyed religious freedom, but found it difficult to maintain their English
identity and to make a living. They then headed to America. There, they hoped to live
by themselves, enjoy the same degree of religious freedom and earn a better and easier
living. Their voyage ended somewhere in the area of Plymouth Rock, but that story is
largely a myth, as is the first Thanksgiving story among them and the indigenous people
(Algonquian and Wampanoag nations) of the area. Indigenous people celebrated
bountiful harvest seasons long before the arrival of the Pilgrims.
2. Enslavement or the Atlantic slave trade was responsible for the kidnap and forced
trafficking of between 12 - 15 million people from Africa to the Western Hemisphere,
including America, from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century.
America engaged in 246-years (1619-1865) of enslaving these kidnapped people.
1775 - Thomas Paine’s Essay on Enslavement - Abolitionist Thomas Paine’s “African Slavery in
America” was published in the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser. Paine’s essay may
be categorized as an early Civil Rights Movement event. The Movement can be characterized by a
series of negative and positive events concerning discrimination and injustices inequality regarding
REM groups. The Movement can be distinguished into early and modern Civil Rights Movement
events. such as Paine’s essay, a little over one hundred fifty years after the first Africans arrived in
Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.
1781 - Thomas Jefferson - Jefferson in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” states his beliefs in White
superiority and Black inferiority. He believed that Whites and Blacks could not live together in a free
society. Jefferson’s Notes also included his thoughts on miscegenation and a related topic now
known as Eugenics - preserving and improving dominant groups in a population. Eugenics is now
generally associated with racism.
1831 - Nat Turner (1831) leads a revolt of other enslaved people in Virginia.
1838 - Trail of Tears - Approximately 18,000 Cherokees forcibly removed from their land and forced
to resettle west of the Mississippi in a journey that becomes known as the “Trail of Tears.”
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1857 - Dred Scott Case Dred Scott was enslaved. His owner, an Army doctor, had spent time in
Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory at the time of Scott’s enslavement. The Court
was stacked in favor of the slave states. The Court held that Scott was not free based on his
residence in either Illinois or Wisconsin because he was not considered a person under the U.S.
Constitution–in the opinion of the Justices. This ruling legally established the Black race as
"subordinate, inferior beings - whether slave or free." The Court ruled to deny citizenship and
constitutional rights to all Black people. Black people were not considered citizens when the
Constitution was drafted in 1787. Scott was the property of his owner, and property could not be
taken from a person without due process of law according to the Justices.
1861 - The Civil War between America’s Northern states (the Union) and Southern states that
seceded from the Union forming the Confederacy began. The Confederacy desired to maintain
enslavement of African people, among other things, in order to have free labor primarily for its
tobacco and cotton industry. The South was defeated by Northern forces, but feelings about the
war, its purpose and outcomes among some southerner’s, then and now, are difficult to let go.
1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln which freed enslaved people in
the Confederacy and in the whole country.
1865 - The Civil War ended.
1865 - The 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery. Southern states, however, managed to
revive slavery era conditions by creating so-called Black Codes. Black codes were used to regain
control over freed Blacks after losing it by their defeat in the Civil War. Black Codes created
unattainable prerequisites for freed Blacks to live, work or participate in equally in society. Black
codes were intended to assure a continued supply of cheap labor. The Codes supported White
supremacy attitudes, but in 1866, the First Civil Rights Act abolished Black Codes, conferring
citizenship rights for all Black people.
1865 - Lincoln is assassinated. Freedman's Bureau, to help freed Blacks established. The Ku Klux
Klan organized.
1866 - Reconstruction begins. Reconstruction was post-Civil War Congressional actions to bring the
Civil War ravaged South and North back to normal as quickly as possible. Reconstruction
provided 4 million freed Blacks a modicum of political, economic and social equality. Reconstruction
also brought angry reactions among many White southerners who feared they would lose their hold
on political, economic and social power to freed Blacks. Such fears
fostered White supremacy attitudes and gave rise to such groups such as the Ku Klux Klan terrorists.
1868 - The 14th Amendment granted due process and equal protection under the law to African
Americans.
1870 - The 15th Amendment (1870) granted African-Americans the right to vote, including former
slaves.
1875 - Third Congressional Civil Rights Act (1875) - Many white business owners and merchants
refused to make their facilities and establishments equally available to Blacks. The Civil Rights Act of
1875 prohibited such cases of racial discrimination and guaranteed equal access to public
accommodations regardless of race or color. White supremacist groups, however, embarked upon a
campaign against Blacks and their White supporters.
1877 – Reconstruction ends.
1880 - Jim Crow - While the Black Codes were short-lived, and soon abolished, Southern states
established Jim Crow laws as Blacks emerged from enslavement after the Civil War. The laws
remained in force for at least 70 years (1880’s-to the mid 1950’s). Jim Crow laws established various
forms of segregation in almost every area of human life and set up different rules for Blacks and
Whites. The early years of Jim Crow were turbulent. They were characterized by terrorism,
including physical abuse, public humiliation, and death (lynching in the early years; gun deaths in
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later years). Jim Crow laws were somewhat eliminated when the Supreme Court ordered the
desegregation of public schools in 1954. They were more effectively eliminated with the passage of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964
1896 - Separate but Equal/ Plessy v Ferguson - This event involved the Supreme Courts’ decision to
uphold segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The decision originated from an 1892
incident in which Black train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a
Louisiana law. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Court
ruled that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between Whites and Blacks did not
conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments. Restrictive legislation based on race continued
following the Plessy decision. Its reasoning was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka in 1954.
1900 - Lynching has become virtually a fact of life as a means for intimidating African Americans.
Between 1886 and 1900, there are more than 2,500 lynchings; the vast majority in the Deep South.
In the first year of the new century, more than 100 African Americans are lynched, and by World
War I, more than 1100.
1909 - the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
The Military and Equal Treatment - President Truman signs an Executive Order establishing equality
of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color,
religion, or national origin."
1941 - President Roosevelt issues an Executive Order banning discrimination against minorities in
defense contracts.
1954 - The Supreme Court's unanimously ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education
(1954) of Topeka, Kansas that public school segregation was unconstitutional and paved the way for
desegregation. The decision overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that said "separate
educational facilities were inherently unequal.” Southern states, however, were not quick to accept
the Court’s ruling.
1955 - 14-year-old Emmett Till is beaten, shot and lynched by Whites. Some accounts indicate that
he whistled at a White woman. Other accounts alleged that he said after allegedly saying "bye,
baby" to a White woman in a store in Mississippi.
1955 - Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks. while sitting at the front of the colored
section of a crowded Montgomery, Alabama city bus refused to give up her seat to a White man.
This event sparked “the Montgomery bus line boycott” led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
that received wide attention and a legacy that remains central today regarding struggles for
equality.
1956 - Dr. Martin Luther King's Jr’s home was bombed.
1956 - Montgomery bus boycott ends in victory, after the city announces it will comply with a
November Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation on buses illegal.
1956 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. home was bombed.
1957 - The efforts to integrate the all-White Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine Black
students, were blocked from entering the school on the orders of the Arkansas Governor. President
Eisenhower sent federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students.
1960 – A Lunch counter sit-in by four college students in Greensboro, N.C. begins and spreads
through the South.
1960 – The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee is founded.
1960 - John F. Kennedy elected president.
1961 – The Congress of Racial Equality organizes “Freedom Rides” into the South to test the new
Interstate Commerce Commission regulations and court orders barring segregation in interstate
transportation. Riders are beaten by mobs in several places, including Birmingham and
Montgomery, Ala.
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1962 - The United Farm Workers Union under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, organizes to win
bargaining power for Mexican-Americans.
1963 - James Meredith becomes first African American student admitted to the University of
Mississippi.
1963 - President John F. Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders at the White House in an attempt to
call off the Washington scheduled for August.
1963 - Over 250,000 people participated in a “March on Washington” to draw attention to the
continuing issues of inequality. The Lincoln Memorial, served as the backdrop for the participants
who heard impassioned speeches on racial injustice, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. "I Have a
Dream" speech.
1963 - Medgar Evers, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People field secretary in
Jackson, Mississippi, murdered.
1963 - Four young girls, attending Sunday school were killed when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Alabama, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots
erupted leading to the deaths of two more Black youth.
1963 - President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Two days later, his alleged assailant, Lee
Harvey Oswald, is also shot and killed. Vice President Lyndon Johnson becomes president.
1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
1963 - The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ending the poll tax, is ratified and becomes part of the
Constitution.
1964 - The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax, which had originally been instituted in 11
southern states. The poll tax made it difficult for Blacks to vote.
1964 - President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. This Act was the most sweeping civil rights
legislation since Reconstruction. It prohibited discrimination of all kinds based on race, color,
religion or national origin and transformed American society. The law allowed the federal
government to enforce desegregation and prohibits discrimination in public facilities, in
government and in employment. "Jim Crow" laws in the South were totally abolished, and it
became illegal to compel segregation of the races in schools, housing or hiring.
1964 - The bodies of three civil-rights workers - two white, one Black - were found in an earthen
dam. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to
register Black voters in Mississippi, went to investigate the burning of a Black church. They were
arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and released after dark
into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them.
1965 - Selma, Ala. voting rights campaign. Jimmie Lee Jackson, participating in a march led by the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is killed by Alabama state troopers as he attempts to
prevent the troopers from beating his mother and grandfather.
1965 - Selma to Montgomery Marches - which included Bloody Sunday, were actually three marches
that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement.
1965 - Bloody Sunday - Blacks began a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights, but were
stopped at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by a police blockade in Selma, Ala. State troopers and the
Sheriff's Department, awaited them. In the presence of the news media, the lawmen attacked the
peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas and bull whips, driving them back into Selma. The
march was considered the catalyst for pushing through the Voting Rights Act five months later.
1965 - The Voting Rights Act passes and is signed into law on effectively ending literacy tests and a
host of other obstacles used to disenfranchise REM citizens.
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1965 - Malcolm X, the fiery orator and Muslim leader, is assassinated. For some, Malcolm X's militant
rhetoric is a rival and alternative to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message of Christian non-violence.
1966 - Stokely Carmichael, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, first uses the
phrase "black power" during a voter registration drive in Mississippi. The phrase - and its many different
interpretations by African Americans and whites - divides the civil rights movement.
1967 - Sparked by a police raid on a black power hangout, Detroit erupts into the worst race riots ever in
the nation, with 43 people dead, including 33 African Americans and 10 Whites. During the nine months
of the year, 164 other racial disturbances are reported across the country, including major riots in
Tampa, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Newark, Plainfield and Brunswick, New Jersey, which kill at least 83 people.
1967 - Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American justice of the Supreme Court.
1967 - Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for resisting
military draft as a Muslim minister in the Nation of Islam.
1967 - Jose Angel Gutierrez founds the Mexican American Youth Organization in San Antonio, Texas. The
group would become over time La Rasa Unida Party, the first Chicano political party.
1967 -Articles of incorporation are filed in San Antonio for the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the first national Chicano civil rights legal organization.
1971 - The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a
legitimate and sometimes necessary tool to achieve desegregation and integration. But the Court does
not rule on segregation in public schools in northern states where it is not imposed by statute.
1968 - Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at age 39, was shot as he was standing on the balcony
outside his hotel room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. Escaped convict and committed racist
James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime. The networks then broadcast President Johnson's statement
in which he called for Americans to "reject the blind violence," yet cities were ignited from coast to
coast.
1968 - President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental
and financing of housing.
1968 - Overriding President Ronald Reagan's veto, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act,
which expanded the reach of nondiscrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.
1978 - The Supreme Court, in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case, upholds the
principle of affirmative action but rejects fixed racial quotas as unconstitutional. The case involves Alan
Bakke, denied a slot at the University of California medical school at Davis. Bakke
claims he is a victim of reverse discrimination because a minority student, with lower test scores, is
admitted instead on affirmative action grounds.
1983 - In Bob Jones University v. The United States, the Supreme Court, over the Reagan administration's
objections, upholds the Internal Revenue Service rule denying tax exemption to private schools that
practice racial discrimination.
1988 - President Reagan vetoes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, passed by Congress to overturn the
1984 Supreme Court ruling, Grove City College v. Bell. The act sharply limits the remedies available to
the federal government in applying anti-bias rules to private organizations receiving federal subsidies.
Congress enacts the measure by overriding the President Reagan's veto.
1992 - In the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court
(5-4) upheld the University of Michigan Law School's policy, which ruled race could be one of factors
colleges consider when selecting students because it furthered "a compelling interest in obtaining the
educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
1994 - In Adarand, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote for the first time that all federal laws creating
racial classifications, regardless of an intention to burden or benefit minorities, when challenged, must
be tested by the same stringent standard. Federal set-aside and affirmative action programs benefitting
minorities then are subject to strict scrutiny and must be narrowly tailored.
1994 - The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life The book was controversial,
especially where the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence and discussed the
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implications of those differences. The authors were misreported throughout the popular press as
arguing that these IQ differences are genetic. In fact, they wrote in chapter 13: "It seems highly likely to
us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." The
introduction to the chapter more cautiously states, “The debate about whether and how much genes
and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved."
Reflection
Statement: The quest for equality, full rights of citizenship and freedom remain a struggle today for
most REM groups. Over 400 years of deplorable events integrated with fragmented, inconsistent efforts
to offset them have been experienced directly by many, indirectly by most. The historical race/racism
events that have determined our legacy include a complex tapestry of human attitudes. The tapestry is
made up of an array of attitudes and behaviors. They include pride, privilege, prejudice, dehumanizing
brutal events; greed, fears, inferior, superior attitudes, hapless, ill-fated circumstances; guilt, innocence
and apathy. They have comingled and become the threads which are woven in today’s societal fabric.
These events fuel the legacy of race/racism which remains in present day America’s DNA. That DNA
legacy of race/racism continues to carry the genetic code and instructions that influence America’s
present day societies – including its school societies. Nowhere is the legacy of race/racism more evident
than in schools gifted education practices and programs.
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What impact has the events in the historical struggle had on schooling and its programs
such as gifted education?
In what ways does the historical struggle relate to or impact gifted education of today?
Do you think these events have a lingering influence, or play a role in our attitudes,
assumptions, expectations, or perceptions regarding people different from you?
In your own school or school system, what evidences suggests that the event in the
historical struggle impacts institutional philosophy, policies, program, and/or practices?
Does your school system still experience academic tracking, course and activities
enrollment, intelligence/aptitude testing, and remedial education, which stratify?
learners unintentionally perhaps by race? How are these unintended racial outcomes
being addressed?
In what ways can these events serve as “mental conceptual and/or concrete real
models,” or frameworks for the underrepresentation concerns to persist in gifted
programs?
In what ways are these race/racial events embedded in the attitudes and practices of
today’s educators – particularly educators with responsibilities for gifted education?
In what ways can we overcome the ugly parts of our history; the parts that linger and
continue to hinder progress for all?
Choose one event that reflects or is similar to a contemporary current school practice
that hinders or helps REM groups – particularly with regard to access and retention in
gifted programs.
Intent - To Determine Why Underrepresentation Gaps Exist in Gifted Programs
Commendable strides about race and educational relationships have been made. Some
conclude that educators are talking about race and student achievement more than ever. Singleton
(2006) asserts that the challenge, however, is to transition from a basic awareness of the racial patterns
and trends found in student achievement data. We must transition to the point of asking and
determining why the data shows gaps. Dickson concurs with Singleton in terms of his why as related to
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achievement gaps regarding race and student achievement. Dickson’s focus, however, is on why
underrepresentation gaps exist in gifted education and how to overcome them. Dickson indicates that
we must use genuine, open, transparent discussion methods transition methods to asking and
determining why we have and sustain underrepresentation gaps.
Dickson knows that the use of such discussion methods may raise tensions and reveal a lack of
awareness that may make some participants uncomfortable. Such tension and discomfort is part of the
process and progress. Because it is important that progress is not obstructed, options are available such
as “passing” to help those who are not yet ready to engage. The use of “pass” is an effective indicator to
measure and determine (assess) directions. Tensions and discomfort are necessary if users are
passionate regarding establishing equitable opportunities to learn, that lead to equitable gifted program
participation.
He wants them to see past the increased levels of talk about disproportionality regarding race and
student achievement. Dickson, similar to Singleton regarding achievement disparities, believes there is a
need to transition from a basic awareness levels of underrepresentation and doing nothing about it.
Mirrors and Windows
Dickson’s participation in Singleton’s Courageous Conversations led him to develop a “mirrors
and windows” concept for his peer gifted educators. Using this concept, Dickson invites gifted to take a
critical look in their mirrors. As previously implied underrepresentation is not a new problem to gifted
education. Neither are numerous perspectives that facilitate equity to address underrepresentation.
Many of them are effective and pragmatic. Why then, are they not used even when there are is
overwhelming evidence that they are needed?
Looking in your mirrors you may see various things. One is that we are in a post-racial era. This is far
from the truth. One does not have to look very far to verify that fact. Look at the first non-White
President of the United States and a pre-dominantly White Congress refusal to work with him.
Post-racial is a not even a distant reality. No one in a right mind should ever welcome a post-racial era
or society. If an era as such ever seems to be materializing, it should be vigorously defeated.
For whatever reasons, humans have different skin color and other physical characteristics. These
characteristics are our racial identities. Racial identity is to be respected and moreover, always
recognized. Never should we not see racial identity (color)! No racial group should ever have to
acculturate or assimilate or abandon their racial identity at the expectation, pleasure or demand of
another race to celebrate a so-called “post-racial” era. To do is immoral and disrespectful. Post-racial
attitudes are a denial; a trap; a cop out.
Relatedly, Dickson offers gifted stakeholders opportunities to open new windows, to allow a new light of
reality to enter. The new light debunks post-racial notions. It illuminates the fact that our society
continues its racial legacy. The new windows its Engagement in Dickson’s concept should allow that
new light to illuminate the shadows that have for far too long kept gifted education in the dark
regarding REM participation in gifted programs.
Dickson’s Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education work, like Singleton’s and Linton’s work
includes strategies to facilitate conversations about race and gifted education relationships. Dickson’s
concept aims to deepen understandings about how race directly contributes to the persistent, pervasive
and enormous disproportionate representation (40-70%) of REM learners in gifted programs.
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Dickson integrates paradigms that have influenced gifted education discourse for decades with concepts
in the Singleton/Linton work. This integration creates a rich template designed to help overcome REM
underrepresentation by examining it through a race/racism lens.
Below are four perspectives to foster equity in identification that have been in the lexicon of
gifted education for decades.
1. An Equity Framework - Principles of Identification
These principles for assessing identification procedures emerged through the deliberations of
the national panel of experts that met as part of the National Report on Identification (Richert et al.,
1982). They include:
1. Defensibility - Procedures should be based on the best available research and
recommendations, not the preferences of a local group.
2. Advocacy - Identification should be designed in the best interests of all students. Students
should not be harmed by procedures.
3. Equity - Procedures should guarantee that no one is overlooked. The civil rights of students
should be protected. Strategies should be specified for identifying the disadvantaged gifted.
Cut off scores should be avoided since they are the most common way that disadvantaged
students are discriminated against. (High scores should be used to include students, but if
students meet other criteria, through self or parent nominations, for example, then a lower
test score should also be used to include them).
4. Pluralism - The broadest defensible definition of giftedness should be used.
5. Comprehensiveness - As many students with gifted potential as possible should be identified
and served.
6. Pragmatism - Whenever possible, procedures should allow for the modification and use of
instruments and resources on hand, including program designs that allow serving up to 25% of
the student body.
2. Identification Assumptions
Baldwin (2002) suggests that before proper identification methods can be addressed, some
important assumptions must be embraced. They are:
1. Giftedness can be expressed through a variety of behaviors and the expression of giftedness
in one dimension is just as important as giftedness expressed in another.
2. Intelligence is a broad concept that goes beyond language and logic to encompass a wide
range of human abilities.
3. Carefully planned subjective assessment techniques can be used effectively along
with objective measures.
4. Giftedness in any area can be a clue to the presence of potential giftedness in
another area, or a catalyst for the development of giftedness in another area.
5. All cultures have individuals who exhibit behaviors that are indicative of giftedness.
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3. Use Different Tests
Naglieri and Ford (2003, 2005, 2015) suggests using “culture free” or “bias free” tests. These
tests often include stand-alone none verbal ability tests or broader academic ability tests that include
nonverbal subscales. Caution – no matter what tests are used, They must align well with what is
being presented in the gifted program. The strategies range from simple to sophisticated
approaches. A simple approach occurs when an administrator does not allow identification teams’
outcomes to be implemented until the administrator approves it for equity. That means the
administrator has the will, commitment and passion to check if the outcomes reflect the
demographics of the school. If they do, the outcomes are implemented. If they don’t, the
administrator directs the identification team to go back and diversify the outcomes. Diversification
should be by race/ethnicity, gender and class/economic status that exists in the school by grade level.
4. Use Group Specific Norms
A Group Specific Equitable Participation Process to Monitor Your Identification Process for Diversity
and Equity
No identification system is perfect. They are all flawed – particularly those that are typical and
without a failsafe for equity and diversity. Even students who are not members of marginalized
groups are sometimes excluded during typical identification processes. Typical identification
processes are competitive and comparative. They cause competition and comparisons that negatively
effect the diversity in schools’ populations. Such comparisons and competition violate the ideal
purpose of identification which is - to find, in order to serve as many learners as possible who need
differentiated learning opportunities. Given gifted programs’ enormous underrepresentation data,
gifted programs fail at this ideal purpose. How? They fail by operationalizing typical identification
processes – those lacking fail safes for equity and diversity. Typical identification processes:
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compare and cause competition between learners with disabilities and learners
without disabilities,
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compare and cause competition between different racial groups/ethnicities,
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compare and cause competition between learners from different social class and
economic groups (learners from poverty and affluent learners),
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in some cases, such as identification for gifted math and science services,
compares females against males with access leaning toward males.
Given these comparisons and competition issues, typical identification processes are incredibly
unfair and unjust. All learners have not had the same or similar life opportunities to influence
their giftedness or gifted potential. Typical identification processes are unfair and unjust because
of access, support and equal, and equitable opportunities to learn. Moreover, all learners have
not had access to life combined with academic experiences that engender, promote or motivate
them to demonstrate advanced behaviors. How can these issues be leveraged to ensure that
each population is assessed fairly?
A group specific equitable participation process is the answer and is critical to operationalize.
A group specific equitable participation tool focuses on a regrouping process. It is a path to
participation. All learners deserve an equitable path to participate in any school program.
The tool modifies a schools’ demographics to ensure equity and diversity in gifted programs’
identification processes. A group specific equitable participation tool specifically accounts for
populations that are traditionally excluded from gifted program participation. The tool is used to
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follow-up a typical identification process. It identifies and fixes exclusionary problems that
typical identification procedures cause. It assists those responsible for assuring diversity and
equity (principals in particular). It allows them to look critically at those populations of learners
such as 2e learners who are overlooked, misunderstood and invisible. The goal for using a group
specific equitable participation tool is to ensure equity and fidelity in gifted programs
identification procedures.
A Tool for Managing Group-Specific Norms
Under separate cover is a tool for managing a group specific-norms process. It is entitled
“Dissaggregation Matrix.” It helps users disaggregate populations of learners by ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, (SES) and gender to increase fairness in referral and placement practices
(access/identification). Identification practices are competitive and comparison processes. They may be
unfair to learners who have not had access, support and opportunities for various experiences that
influence advanced behaviors. Disaggregation addresses the inequities in referral and placement
practices by examining learners’ needs within their separate and disaggregated populations. This
increases their opportunities for placement in advanced environments, as they do not have to compete
with populations who have had dissimilar access, support and opportunities.
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COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
For Gifted Education
FOCUS: INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION IN
GIFTED PROGRAMS
The Concept
The Concept for Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education
The concept informs gifted as well as general education stakeholders. It emphasizes a
philosophical and pragmatic context focusing on race, racism and their impact on gifted education. The
concept is primarily intended as a resource for stakeholders responsible for professional development
aimed at gifted programs with problems with equity and diversity.
The concept uses agreements, conditions, scenarios, reflections, journaling and related
activities, directly focused on race issues evident in the greater general society. Dickson’s belief is that
these issues unconsciously and consciously influence practices in schools. They serve as covert and many
times overt obstacles regarding REM learners’ academic success. Academic success is central to gifted
programs identification (ID) processes. Many stakeholders place extremely high priorities on academic
success as the primary criteria to qualify learners for their gifted programs. Those are unfortunate,
inconvenient and inappropriate priorities.
Equity
Such high ID priorities are problematic if the processes are not equity-based. In that regard, all
ID processes must include a strong framework predicated on fairness and justice for each demographic
group. A priority is policy. The framework should be protected by policy at every level – including at
federal, state and local levels. Adequate federal support is not available for gifted education at this
time, but many states and local education agencies include various levels and degrees of equity-based
perspectives in their guidelines and regulations.
An equity framework requires a strong foundation on which to stand. A primary source offering
that foundation for Dickson’s Courageous Conversations for Gifted Education are the equity principles
identified on page 18 of this document - An Equity Framework - Principles of Identification.
A closer examination of an equity-based framework is necessary to help guide efforts to
overcome equity flaws such as underrepresentation. As aforementioned, an equity-based framework
must be supported by an equity-based policy that embraces the concepts mentioned in the framework
above. A policy is an official statement developed to provide guidelines to implement a law or provide
best practices (Roberts, 2014). A policy is an approved assurance by groups charged to govern practice,
such as state and local Boards of Education. Policy drives all practices including: the
belief/attitude/philosophy statement about gifted programming; advocacy/outreach/community
engagement; student access (ID) practices, programming/services; service delivery/implementation;
curriculum; staffing (trained people); professional development; resources (beyond people...time and
money); /assessment/evaluation protocols (staff and services), and administration supports.
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COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
For Gifted Education
FOCUS: INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION IN
GIFTED PROGRAMS
The idea is not to de-limit equality or egalitarian notions that serve as foundations to existing
frame works. The idea includes raising awareness, support for equity-based identification processes and
equity based philosophies in general including REM learners require such equity-based philosophies.
Why? Their daily existence is exposed realities that have dramatic and significant negative impacts on
their academic success. These realities include, of course systemic racism and discrimination on a daily
basis in and out of schools. The realities include low family income; exposure to frequent experiences
with neighborhood violence; unusual levels and degrees of loss of resources which are already scarce.
They further include family disruptions ranging from various kinds of family instability to deportation
threats. The realities further include family members that are controlled by the justice system, including
long-term incarceration of a primary caregiver. Add to this unusual levels of and degrees of foster care
system connections, homeless shelter existences; and the absence of basic necessities, such as a next
meal, or where the learner will sleep. These learners are apt to encounter situations that cause
disproportionate rates of suspensions and expulsions. They are also apt to having to engage in
situations and circumstances that are out of their control. These situations and circumstances can be
frequent, and can cause high rates of absences that lead to poor grades that lead to underachievement.
Additionally, REM students have to endure culturally irrelevant assessments on which their gifted
potential is determined. These realities certainly require every resource that is directly focused on these
realities.
Additionally, they must include multiple access opportunities across a school-wide spectrum, supported
by ongoing systematic multicultural professional development policies and appropriate resources. A
reduction in underrepresentation has the best chance for success when such frameworks are supported
with integrity.
It would be ideal that underrepresentation would transcend reduction, and be completely eliminated by
these frameworks. Such an ideal is illusive, as prejudice, fear of differences and racial hatred are
realities that are deeply seated and ingrained in our society. These realities will continue to contribute
to educator’s failures to identify REM learners for gifted services in proportion to their enrollment in
school systems.
Some of the strategies and activities including carefully planned questions are deliberately
provocative and forthright. This is for a reason. Previous and/or existing non-race/non-racism based
efforts to address REM learners’ underrepresentation in gifted programs have been indirect, implied and
soft approaches for a very hard problem. A difference was needed and continues to be needed – thus
the creation of this concept. The activities in the content are designed to engage, sustain and deepen
interracial dialogue about race in order to critically examine schooling and improve student achievement
as it applies to schooling in general, and schooling in particular in terms of gifted education and its
ongoing exclusionary practices of REM learners.
23
COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
For Gifted Education
FOCUS: INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION IN
GIFTED PROGRAMS
Terms and Definitions
•
Underrepresentation – Underrepresentation occurs when a student population in a gifted
program continuously and systematically remains smaller than the percentage of that
population in the school system, a school, grade level; or within a given gifted category of
giftedness. Such continued population variances are rarely justifiable and is always a cause for
concern and corrective action.
•
•
Gifted – National Association for Gifted Children Definition - Gifted individuals are those who
demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional ability to reason and
learn) or competence (documented performance or achievement in top 10% or rarer) in one or
more domains. Domains include any structured area of activity with its own symbol system (e.g.,
mathematics, music, language) and/or set of sensorimotor skills (e.g., painting, dance, sports) –
From National Association for Gifted Children Position Statement; Redefining Giftedness for a
New Century: Shifting the Paradigm, March 2010.
http://www.nagc.org/sites/default/files/Position%20Statement/Redefining%20Giftedness%20fo
r%20a%20New%20Century.pdf
Gifted – Federal Definition - "The term ‘gifted and talented,” when used with respect to
students, children, or youth, means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high
achievement capability in such areas as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or
in specific academic fields, and who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the
school in order to fully develop those capabilities.
(No Child Left Behind Act, P.L. 107-110 (Title IX, Part A, Definition 22) (2002); 20 USC 7801(22)
(2004)) - See more at: http://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/definitionsgiftedness#sthash.x4F16Qr1.dpuf

Multicultural Education –
Adopts cultural responsiveness in all educational institutions, regardless of racial and cultural
composition.
Encompasses theories and practices that strive to promote equitable access and rigorous
academic achievement for students from all diverse groups.
The focus is social change.
Challenges oppression and bias of all forms, and acknowledges and affirms the multiple
identities that students bring to their learning.
Supports culturally responsive curriculum and instruction in all subject areas.
•
Multicultural Gifted Education –
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A process existing to maximize justice and fairness in social behavior consistent with
pluralistic ideals. This process promotes and supports:
24
COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
For Gifted Education
FOCUS: INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION IN
GIFTED PROGRAMS

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cultural awareness, respect, responsiveness and competence;
equitable access, opportunities, support and rigorous academic achievement for
all diverse groups;
actions to challenge oppression and bias;
acknowledges and affirms the diversity in individual learners and all
groups.
•
This process seeks to bridge concepts, philosophy and goals consistent with processes that exist
to meet the needs of learners who evidence high achievement capability or potential for high
achievement in various areas of intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership, or specific academic
endeavors.
•
Race – A social construct that characterizes a variety of human physical attributes including but
not limited to skin and eye color, hair texture, and bone structures of people.
•
Racism – Beliefs and the enactment of beliefs that one set of racial characteristics is superior to
another set of characteristics.
•
Racist – Any person who subscribes to beliefs that one set of racial characteristics is superior to
another and perpetuates them intentionally or unconsciously.
•
Institutionalized Racism – When schools, school systems and their programs remain unconscious
of issues related to race, or more actively perpetuate and enforce the dominant racial
perspective or belief; the message sent is racism is not a problem worthy of attention or
redress.
•
Equity – That that is right and fair for a particular group in order for them to overcome overt and
covert obstacles in the way of their success and well-being. Equity and equality or not to be
confused. Equality focuses on fairness and justice for all. Equity focuses fairness and justice for a
particular group - particularly a group that has encountered various levels of unfairness and
injustice.
•
Whiteism/Whiteness – (1) Not recognizing White as a dominating color nor the unearned power
and privileges associated with having white skin and (2) having a sense of (White) entitlement
but lacking awareness of the experiences and perspectives of non-White-skinned people.
What is a Courageous Conversation (CC) for Gifted Education?
A Professional Development Strategy to Enrich Efforts to Increase Racial, Ethnic Minority (REM)
Learners Participation in Gifted Education Programs and Services
A Courageous Conversation Professional Development (CCPD) Session focuses on addressing various
impacts of race on student achievement. In this context we focus on the impacts of race on REM
underrepresentation in gifted programs.
5 Components of A CCPD Including Brief Descriptions/Abbreviated Version
25
COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
For Gifted Education
FOCUS: INCREASING RACIAL ETHNIC MINORITY (REM) LEARNERS’ PARTICIPATION IN
GIFTED PROGRAMS
1. 3 Factors - components necessary to facilitate the conversation 1. Agreements, 2. Conditions,
Reflections and Journaling 3. The Compass
2. 4 Agreements - use them to facilitate engaging, sustaining and deepening the conversations
about race and underrepresentation.
3. 6 Conditions - use them to make sure that underrepresentation continues to be the focus of
the conversation.
4. Reflections, Group Discussions, Activities - use the CC Compass as a tool to guide participants
through the conversation.
5. Guided Journaling – use it as way to capture individual and group responses, realizations,
questions, comments, concerns, feelings.
3 Factors - While keeping overcoming REM underrepresentation as the goal, participants discuss
their:
1. Passion – the level of connectedness to anti-racism concepts that they possess. What do they
bring to the table that can benefit the goal?
2. Practice – actions they have taken, or can take; or the school or school system has taken, or
can take to address underrepresentation.
3. Persistence –the willingness to “stick with it” (individual or school).
- 4 Agreements – The “rules” of the conversation. Encourage participants to:
1. stay engaged
2. speak their truths
3. expect to experience discomfort
4. expect and accept non-closure
- Six Conditions – Use the six conditions to guide participants as they converse about race as a cause of
underrepresentation in gifted programs. Have participants:
1. Talk about a racial event that is personal, local and immediate regarding gifted education
and REM underrepresentation.
2. Talk about the broader scope of diversity and a variety of factors and conditions that
contribute to gifted education’s Whiteness.
3. Talk about race as a social/political construction. Engage in various racial perspectives as
catalyst for critical understanding of your peers’ views and your own views about overcoming
REM underrepresentation in gifted programs.
GOT PASSION?
1. My Passion
2. Looks and Feels Like
Ken Dickson
Biographical Information
Educational Support and Consulting Network
Founder & Lead Consultant
Telephone: 301 442 0273
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: 301 218 1784
Investigate, Differentiate, Create, Evaluate, Celebrate!
Ken has been an educator for over 40 years, with 30 of those years serving in K-12 administrative roles
for exceptional needs learners – including gifted learners with learning disabilities and advocacy for their
families.
Ken’s career began as a visual arts instructor in public schools, and art institutions’ galleries. Working
with gifted and talented visual arts students influenced his decision to pursue advanced credentials in
the area of gifted and talented education (M.Ed.) and educational administration. His primary interest
in gifted and talented education focuses on maximizing the potential of children with exceptional needs.
Particular interests focus on relationships between cultural and academic diversity, educational equity
and parent advocacy. This focus includes:
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Overcoming underrepresentation in advanced academic environments and overrepresentation
in special education programs;
K-12 special and general educational public policy and practice;
Administrator and teacher professional development regarding learners with unique learning
needs and
Parent/community engagement.
Ken contributes to the area of exceptional needs learners by presenting training sessions and writing on
topics focused on advanced education services and cultural and academic diversity relationships. He
continues his support for exceptional needs learners through service on numerous local, state and
national committees, projects and Boards of various educational advocacy groups, including:

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The Association for Gifted of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) where he serves as Child
Youth Advocacy Network Coordinator;
CEC’s Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners Division
The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Twice-Exceptional Community of Practice;
NAGC’s Special Populations Network (Past Chair) and current member
Past Member of the CEC Board of Directors;
Past Member of the NAGC Board of Directors;
NAGC’S Javits/Frasier Scholars Mentor
Ken currently serves as a consultant/advocate for children with gifts, talents and learning challenges. He
is also developing Educational Support & Consulting Network (EDSCN). EDSCN will focus on advocacy for
parents of learners with exceptional needs; including diversity and educational equity services.
KDBioSummer2016
Using Group-Specific Norms
A Group Specific Equitable Participation Process to Monitor Your Identification Process for
Diversity and Equity
No identification system is perfect. They are all flawed – particularly those that are
typical and without a failsafe for equity and diversity. Even students who are not
members of marginalized groups are sometimes excluded during typical identification
processes. Typical identification processes are competitive and comparative. They cause
competition and comparisons that negatively effect the diversity in schools’ populations.
Such comparisons and competition violate the ideal purpose of identification which is - to
find, in order to serve as many learners as possible who need differentiated learning
opportunities. Given gifted programs’ enormous underrepresentation data, gifted
programs fail at this ideal purpose. How? They fail by operationalizing typical
identification processes – those lacking fail safes for equity and diversity. Typical
identification processes:

compare and cause competition between learners with disabilities and learners
without disabilities,

compare and cause competition between different racial groups/ethnicities,

compare and cause competition between learners from different social class and
economic groups (learners from poverty and affluent learners),

in some cases, such as identification for gifted math and science services,
compares females against males with access leaning toward males.
Given these comparisons and competition issues, typical identification processes are
incredibly unfair and unjust. All learners have not had the same or similar life
opportunities to influence their giftedness or gifted potential. Typical identification
processes are unfair and unjust because of access, support and equal, and equitable
opportunities to learn. Moreover, all learners have not had access to life combined with
academic experiences that engender, promote or motivate them to demonstrate advanced
behaviors. How can these issues be leveraged to ensure that each population is assessed
fairly?
2
A group specific equitable participation process is the answer and is critical to
operationalize.
A group specific equitable participation tool focuses on a regrouping process. It is a path
to participation. All learners deserve an equitable path to participate in any school
program.
The tool modifies a schools’ demographics to ensure equity and diversity in gifted
programs’ identification processes. A group specific equitable participation tool
specifically accounts for populations that are traditionally excluded from gifted program
participation. The tool is used to follow-up a typical identification process. It identifies
and fixes exclusionary problems that typical identification procedures cause. It assists
those responsible for assuring diversity and equity (principals in particular). It allows
them to look critically at those populations of learners such as 2e learners who are
overlooked, misunderstood and invisible. The goal for using a group specific equitable
participation tool is to ensure equity and fidelity in gifted programs identification
procedures.
Dissaggregation Matrix
This matrix helps users disaggregate populations of learners by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, (SES) and gender to increase fairness in referral
and placement practices (access/identification). Identification practices are competitive and comparison processes. They may be unfair to
learners who have not had access, support and opportunities for various experiences that influence advanced behaviors. Disaggregation addresses
the inequities in referral and placement practices by examining learners’ needs within their separate and disaggregated populations. This
increases their opportunities for placement in advanced environments, as they do not have to compete with populations who have had dissimilar
access, support and opportunities.
Ethnicity
W W W W B
B
B
B
H H H
H
N N
N
N
A A
A
A M M M M
SES
A
D
A
D
A D
A
D
A D
A
D
A D
A
D
A D
A
D
A D
A
D
Gender
F
F
M M F
F M M F
F M M F
F M M F
F M M F
F M M
Enrollment
Capacity ↓
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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An Assessment Activity
ROAD SIGNS
Focusing on disproportionality and the under representation of racial ethnic minority groups’ participation in gifted
programs, choose a road sign as a metaphor that describes your experiences, thoughts, feelings regarding how
race/racism impacts gifted education.
Why did you choose the sign that you did?
Humor and creativity is welcomed.
1. Proceed With Caution
12. No Exit
23. No Littering
34. Falling Rocks
2. Under Construction
13. Children Crossing
24. Slower Traffic Keep Right
35. One Way
3. No Parking
14. Reduced Speed Ahead
25. Low Clearance
36. Slow Ahead
4. Slippery When Wet
15. Tunnel
26. Detour
37. Use Lower Gears
5. No Passing
16. Sharp Turns
27. Pedestrian Crossing
38. Right Turn Only
6. Narrow Bridge
17. Visitor Center Ahead
28. Scenic View Ahead
39. Divided Highway Ahead
7. Yield
18. Steep Grade Ahead
29. Historical Marker Ahead
40. Circle
8. Divided Highway Ends
19. Slow - Children Playing
30. Deer Crossing
41. Welcome Center Ahead
9. Speed Bumps Ahead
20. Merging Traffic
31. No U-Turn
42. Rest Area
10. Buckle Up
21. Drive Safely
32. Stop
43. Radar in Use
11. Dead End
22. Dip Ahead
33. Bridge Freezes Before
Road
44. Stay Alert
(Adapted) Kathleen Moloney-Tarr: Leadership Dynamics, Charlotte, North Carolina