State laws for gifted education: An overview of the legislation and regulations

Abstract

To fill a gap in the literature, this article provides a comprehensive, concise, and current overview of the state laws‐specifically, statutes and regulations‐concerning gifted education for K‐12 students. The models for these laws form two broad categories. The first model is premised on a group orientation, whether on a permissive or mandatory basis. The vast majority of state statutes and regulations for gifted education fits in this category. The features are limited to state‐ and local‐level responsibilities for group programming. The second category, analogous to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and only proposed in the literature for the federal level, is mandatory and individually oriented. It includes the additional distinctive features of an individualized program requirement and an impartial dispute‐resolution mechanism. The second model may yield case law to fill in the gaps, but the equally potential tradeoffs include adversarial relationships between, and high transaction costs for, parents and districts. Thus far, only a handful of states have chosen this model, usually with partial differentiation from the framework for students with disabilities. This article identifies the prevailing categorical trends and the remarkable variations. It also points out the policy choices for states.