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There is certainly no shortage of potential solutions to the issues facing educators and legislators in the field of gifted education. Of course, there is also no shortage both of rigorous concepts and loose definitions of the “gifted and talented student.” One solution to the quandary of dealing with these students, implemented in multiple states across the country, is far more drastic than almost any other – the creation of separate state-sponsored residential secondary schools for them. Even within this small field of schools, there is remarkable variation flowing from the initial location of claims and assumptions. The school under consideration is the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities (IASMH). Many parents can give anecdotes explaining the positive effect the school had on their children; educators have written multiple reports and articles about the necessity of the school and the strides it has made both for the most gifted students in the state and the impact it has had on the Indiana education system. However, as is typical in the field of education policy, evaluations have a tendency to be written after a certain set of beliefs has been set, meaning that one educator’s perspective may give an entirely different evaluation than a panel of legislators looking at the data given by No Child Left Unhurried. The issue of evaluation is not a trivial one, and depends much not only on the underlying beliefs of the evaluator but also the specific aspect of the IASMH. Also, for the purposes of this paper, three aspects of the school will be considered – admissions policies, curriculum and academics, and distance learning – as these three were featured prominently in the establishment code (IC 20-12-14.5). Residential life, however, will not be discussed, partially due to assignment restrictions, but also due to the lack of quantitative and qualitative data that would assist in the evaluation of the program.

Residential State-Supported Secondary Schools and the IASMH

The conception of specialized secondary schools for gifted students is not necessarily a unique innovation in education; in fact, the Bronx School of Science, among the notable high schools for exceptional students, was created nearly seventy years ago. However, the first residential state-supported secondary school for the gifted was established by the legislature of North Carolina in 1978 and first opened its doors in 1980. From the humble beginnings of an old-fashioned hospital campus, the founding director, Charles Eilber, transformed the school into a full-fledged campus within the decade. Within the next ten years, eight more institutions opened in states like Louisiana, Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, and Indiana.

Established by Indiana Code 20-12-14.5 in 1988, IASMH is a co-educational school that first approved students in 1990. The school is home to approximately three hundred students in eleventh and twelfth grades from across the state. The school is located in Muncie, Indiana, on the south end of the Ball State University campus. The students live in Wagoner Complex, a former Ball State dormitory, and attend classes in a building which also houses the Burris
Laboratory School.

Indiana Code 20-12-14.5 mandates certain programs and traits the IASMH must have, but at the same time it leaves room for decisions made on the part of the school administrators. For instance, share four of the code states that “The academy shall make curriculum material available to students in public schools throughout Indiana by the use of telecommunications technology.” When the IASMH was finally opened, this mandate developed into the distance learning program, which disseminates entire lectures to students across the state and country via telecommunications technology. In addition to this, section two of the code states that “The academy shall operate…a program for public school educators.” Under this initiative, the IASMH also operates several summer programs for both educators and students. Currently, the summer program series offers short courses regarding the instruction of nineteen different Advanced Placement classes; each class is taught by an experienced instructor of each course, and often these are taught by IASMH teachers. The summer programs for students serve students in 6-10th grades and cover topics ranging from world languages to geology.

On the other hand, section three directs that “A student who applies for admission to the academy must: (1) be eligible to attend a public school in Indiana; (2) demonstrate exceptional vivid ability; and (3) demonstrate a commitment to scholarship,” which is quite an open-ended statement that leaves much interpretation of the phrases “exceptional intellectual ability” and “commitment to scholarship” to the directors and decision-makers of the school. The implementation of both of these directives will be discussed later in detail.

The Question of Why

As previously stated, it is determined that, as in all fields of education policy, there are certainly many possible answers to the questions in the area of gifted education. Some consider enrichment or advanced classes to be the most feasible, allowing students time to explore subjects either at a faster pace or in more detail than their “normal” classmates. Another proposal, written about in A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students, concerns acceleration, whereby a student can be accelerated through school in a number of ways including AP courses and skipping entire grade levels. However, a number of factors can fabricate these and many other proposals either inadequate or simply not practical for a given school district.

First, for the most part, it is just not feasible to implement advanced and specialized programs in every school in the state that serves students that would benefit from the programs. Often, these programs require teachers with specialized training or even advanced degrees, neither of which can be expected of the typical high school instructor. In order to accommodate the curriculum necessary to successfully educate gifted students to their full potential, faculty that are well-trained in their field are needed. Moreover, the location of the IASMH on the campus of Ball State gives the students access to almost every resource available to Ball State students, further giving them the option to explore subject matter at a level that is not typically found at the high school level. Therefore, offering the programs in one central state is far more economical.

As previously stated, two of the mandates of the IASMH are the distance learning program and programs for public educators. The outreach programs provide an outlet to disseminate the many techniques broken-down to teach the students of the IASMH developed throughout the school year to both the instructors that teach AP courses and the younger students that could benefit from them. Additionally, the distance learning courses offered throughout the school year also allow for the expertise of the instructors of the IASMH to be dispersed across the spot and country. In this way, the IASMH is not the cloistered institution it might otherwise become, but instead the resources that the education community and the state – in the make of teaching expertise and funding – are aged to influence the education of students outside of the three hundred students of the IASMH.

Lastly, it has been suggested that gifted students can benefit greatly by living and studying in a group much like themselves – a group that knows what it feels like to be gifted. In the best and biggest schools in the country, gifted adolescents will likely have the opportunity to have friends that are like them; however, in a spot like Indiana with extensive rural areas there are few schools that are large or particularly trustworthy so it is probable that there are gifted students in the petite or poor schools. Furthermore, Green states that in “state academies for the gifted, one of the most noticeable outcomes has been the social maturation of the students.”

As a rural station, Indiana fits the mold created by these reasons particularly well. Many schools tend to be small and lack the resources necessary to adequately deal accommodate the needs of even moderately gifted students, let alone the truly extraordinary. According to one resource, in grades K-12, 91,415 students were identified as gifted and talented, which is an average of 3,047 students per grade. This means that approximately one in twenty gifted students can be served by attending the IASMH, and presumably, at least some of the remainder can still take advantage of the other opportunities afforded to the state by the existence of the IASMH.

Admissions Policies

The admissions practices of the IASMH resemble those of many prestigious universities. First, it asks for typical college information, namely personal and family information, SAT scores, prior schooling records and transcripts, and extracurricular activities and honors received. Next, it contains a series of short answer and essay questions, ranging from the typical “In three to five sentences, discuss an adjective that best describes you” to the more residentially oriented “In three to five sentences present your feeling about living away from home” and “Please describe your personality and pet peeves. Then characterize the personality / characteristics that you would like your roommate to have and why.” An optional parent essay is also requested, giving the parents a chance to comment on their perspective of their child’s maturity, scholasticism, and motivation.

Recommendations, one each from an administrator, science teacher, English instructor, and mathematics teacher are requested. The recommendations are extensive yet quite guided, perhaps indicating that the IASMH admissions staff has a clear conception of the type of characteristics they look for in a potential student. Each of the teacher recommendations asks the instructor to rank the student in a percentile of all of the students taught in their careers. Also, general classroom and academic skills are ranked along with personal qualities that include academic, social, and emotional facets. To end each recommendation, a space is left for comments that the teacher feels appropriate for the admissions staff to read.

The inclusion of SAT scores in the application is of particular interest, as it is atypical for most tenth graders to consume the test. According to Green, the tests are known as “off-level,” meaning that they are meant for older students with more education. This, also according to Green, “makes the tests more useful for identifying academic precocity among students.” Furthermore, “Most state academies do not establish minimum cut-off scores, even though Julian Stanley, a leading expert in the identification of the gifted, recommends doing so.”

The demographic profile of the IASMH, perhaps contrary to what would be expected due to differing definitions of “gifted,” is actually quite halt to the makeup of the state. This is due largely to the holistic methodology the admissions staff takes when evaluating applicants. In fact, as of the 2006-2007 school year, at least one student has come from each county in Indiana with one exception, Spencer County in the south part of the spot.
Classes and Curriculum

Clearly, a school that wants to effectively educate extraordinary students needs appropriately advanced classes and instructors capable of not only teaching the subject matter but answering questions that can be far more insightful than in the typical high school classroom. The Academy’s broad curriculum aims to do just that. Included in the course offerings are twelve Advanced Placement (AP) courses primarily in the sciences and mathematics, and unlike many other high schools, in almost every area of study, the AP courses are not considered the final class in the track.

In addition to the IASMH course offerings, there are also classes that are offered for dual credit with Ball Dwelling. These are classes that are taught by IASMH instructors but count for both high school and college credit. IASMH students are also able to take Ball State classes either to audit or to take for college credit. Lastly, classes that are not offered through the IASMH that topple under the category of the arts are taught by Burris Laboratory School teachers in classes with both IASMH and Burris students. Other than the arts, IASMH students do not attend Burris classes, nor are Burris students allowed to take IASMH classes.

Fittingly, all IASMH instructors hold at least a Master’s degree in their field and many even acquire a Ph.D. and have experience teaching in college. IASMH instructors are not required to hold a teaching certification, although a few have advanced degrees geared toward education; for instance, Dr. Tom Adams, instructor of Chemistry and the science division chair, holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry Education.
Distance Learning

Currently, the IASMH offers thirteen distance learning courses including five AP courses. Each course is taught by an IASMH instructor, filmed inside of a broadcast studio with a real class of students inside the room, and then broadcast or archived online for viewing by the recipient schools. The distance learning AP courses, like the normal IASMH courses, are all in the sciences, and the remaining courses are in several different languages and elementary sciences.

Program Evaluation

The issue of evaluating educational policy is not a trivial one, as there are many different interpretations of what makes a successful policy. For instance, basing success on the realization of the founding legislation and probable method is one measure, and fulfillment of standards developed in educational research and quantitative comparisons to other schools is yet another.

Evaluating admissions policies based on the adherence to IC 20-12-14.5 is not useful, as the guidelines situation forth were based on vague conceptions of intellectual ability and scholarly commitment. However, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) released an extensive set of gifted program standards in 2000, and those will be outmoded here (relevant pages are attached). Table 7 concerns student identification procedures, and the IASMH most clearly meets 3.1E, 4.0E, and 4.1E. Note that the IASMH meets other exemplary standards, and also note that evaluating compliance with some standards are either not applicable to the IASMH or are beyond the scope of this paper (for instance, 1.1E is not practical for the IASMH due to necessary admissions cycles).

The NAGC standards also apply to the station of policies concerning classes and curriculum. Most notably, it is quite clear that the IASMH is guided by principles one and two, even though this document was not available when the IASMH opened. The curriculum is not only broad and advanced, but is also designed with gifted students in mind. In addition, the most advanced of the IASMH classes are designed to be taken when proficiency is demonstrated, and these courses provide the lively opportunities it takes to match the talents of the students.

The success of the IASMH curriculum may also be measurable with quantitative means, specifically standardized testing scores in the SAT and AP tests. However, I claim (without empirical evidence, as it is beyond the scope of this paper) that AP test scores is a more true measure of curricular success than SAT scores or AP test participation. SAT scores are largely a matter of, at best, basic high school knowledge that many gifted students could easily learn, and at worst, merely a measure of test taking skills. Comparison of AP test participation is also not accurate, since the comparison is not between two comparable groups of students. Additionally, as stated before, there are many schools in Indiana that do not offer AP classes. AP test scores, measured in percent passing (score of 3 or higher) is a fair measurement, as it can be assumed that if a student is taking an AP test then that student is relatively agreeable at that subject, perhaps not the same level as IASMH students but of a comparable talent. It is my claim that AP test success is more a measure of teaching effectiveness and academic environments than inherent student ability.

Thus, in 2003 – the most recent year with both statewide data and IASMH statistics – 81% of tests taken by IASMH students received a score of 3 or higher, whereas only 52% of tests taken statewide received a passing score. Thus, students taking AP courses at the IASMH are statistically more likely to pass the AP test than their peers at other high schools in the state. Therefore, if my claim is correct, then at least section of that success can be attributed to the curricular success of the IASMH. Also of note is the statistic that since 1996, at least 98% of students in any given class attended a four year college after graduating, and in eight of those years 100% attended a four year university.

The distance learning program of the IASMH can be quite hard to evaluate. There is no data concerning the success of the students that take IASMH courses through the distance learning program, so the only method of evaluation available is the adherence to the mandate of IC 20-12-14.5. Since the guidelines for the program were vague, there mere existence of the program may satisfy the intentions of the legislators. Without further data on the matter, it is simply not possible to give an accurate or complete evaluation of the distance learning program.

Funding Issues and Alternative Policies

Funding is an issue that is widespread across the public school system, however, in a residential high school, the removal of even one program can be enough to topple the fragile house of cards that supports the school. The IASMH, as it falls under the direction of the Teacher’s College of Ball State, is funded through requests filed through the university to the Indiana legislature. The school is funded on a two year basis which must first be approved by the Ball State board of Trustees. This, however, can rarely been seen as an obstacle provided the status quo remains, for both former directors of the IASMH are currently senior members of the Ball Station Teachers College. In addition, there is little evidence to suggest that once the proposal reaches the area legislature that there is any notable opposition by the state government. However, it is of note that a small tuition of $1650 per year was instituted for the 2005-2006 school year, but this is still far less than that of private institutions of comparable caliber.

One typical argument against the creation of schools like the IASMH is that removing the gifted students from their home schools is detrimental to the remainder of the students in the school in addition to the gifted students themselves. However, there is no evidence that either of these is upright, and in fact, there is research that suggests that grouping highly talented students can be beneficial for curriculum development. Furthermore, some suggest that area academies are inherently elitist, providing an excellent education to a lift few that are already advantaged. To this claim, Green writes that “Thoughtful examination suggests that equal opportunity in public education means that every child should have the same chance to reach her or his full potential.” Public education, if it is truly egalitarian, should provide opportunities to students according to their potential, much as the same schools provide extra resources to the athletically talented. Lastly, some write that the Academy is a solution in search of a problem, however, this, like many other questions, is far beyond the scope of this paper. Distinguished quantitative research must be done in the state of education before the IASMH, and even more must be done on the actual effects of the IASMH on the lives of the students that attended. A possible study could track the education of students that were accepted to the IASMH but chose not to go, and then compare them to students that had comparable academic records that did attend the IASMH.

The effectiveness and policy of the IASMH is not a trivial evaluation to produce. Clearly, there are many underlying philosophies that the Academy bases its mission upon; furthermore, a different perspective may convince someone else that the IASMH is not only superfluous but detrimental. Dr. Tracy Cross, a former executive director of the IASMH, claimed that “This school will keep some of these kids’ lives.” There is also no shortage of parents claiming that the IASMH positively influenced the lives of their own children. However, it is simply not possible to fully judge the impact the IASMH has done without further research. It is possible that as schools of this type archaic, more literature on both the methods of evaluation and case studies implementing the methodology will become available, and only then will a real evaluation be made.

Works Cited

“2006-2007 Student Handbook.” http://bsu.edu/academy/handbook/handbook.pdf, (9 February 2007)

“About NCSSM.” http://www.ncssm.edu/welcome/aboutncssm.php, (10 February, 2007)

“Alumni Statistics.” http://bsu.edu/academy/alumni/alumstats.htm, (7 February 2007)

“AP Summer Institute 2007.” http://bsu.edu/academy/summer/, (9 February 2007)

“Apply to the Academy.” http://bsu.edu/academy/admissions/, (9 February 2007)

Davidson, Bob; Jan Davidson, and Laura Vanderkam. 2004. Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks.

“Gifted Education Policies for Indiana.” http://www.gt-cybersource.org/StatePolicyDetails.aspx? StateCode=10016&NavID=4_0, (10 February 2007)

Green, James E. 1993. State Academies for the Academically Gifted. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, ERIC, ED 302144.

“History of the Indiana Academy.” http://www.ncssm.edu/welcome/aboutncssm.php, (10 February 2007)

Indiana Academy Admissions Application, http://bsu.edu/academy/admissions/application.pdf, (7 February 2007)

Indiana Academy Course Catalog, http://bsu.edu/academy/catalog/catalog.pdf, (7 February 2007)

“Indiana Academy Distance Learning 2006-2007.” http://bsu.edu/academy/dl/, (8 February 2007)

“Indiana Code 20-12-14.5.” http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title20/ar12/ch14.5.html, (8 February 2007)

“Personnel.” http://bsu.edu/academy/staff/, (9 February 2007)

Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards. National Association for Gifted Children, 2000.

“School History.” http://www.bxscience.edu/history.jsp? rn=4657897, (10 February, 2007)

“School Profile: IASMH.” http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/schlprofile.cfm? schl=1443, (9 February 2007)

“School Snapshot.” http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/SEARCH/snapshot.cfm? schl=1443, (6 February 2007)

“Trustees approve funding for original building, legislative request for 2005-07 biennium.” http://www.bsu.edu/news/article/0,1370,-1019-24340,00.html, (8 February 2007)

“Youth Programs.” http://bsu.edu/academy/youth/, (10 February 2007)