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Gifted Education In Arkansas: A Longitudinal Study Of Gifted Status And Academic Growth, Bich Tran, Jonathan Wai, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Arkansas Education Reports

This study assesses the effectiveness of gifted programs in Arkansas by leveraging student-level achievement and demographic data of students who scored at or above the 95th percentile on state assessments in third grade. We follow five independent cohorts of these high-achieving students through eighth grade and examine the difference between the longer-term academic performance of the students that were exposed to gifted and talented services compared to similarly high achieving peers that were not identified as gifted. Using regression analyses controlling for student and district characteristics, we find that students who received gifted services demonstrated statistically significantly greater academic growth …