ABSTRACT
Faced with increased pressure for students to perform on state-mandated tests, many educators have shifted their focus to students who are achieving at or below academic standards (Brighton, Hertberg, Moon, Tomlinson, & Callahan, 2005; Moon, Brighton, Jarvis, & Hall, 2007; Richardson, 2009). At the same time, budget cuts have caused many schools to eliminate programs for gifted students, opting instead to move these students into general education classrooms (Hertberg-Davis, 2009; Teno, 2000). As a result, most gifted students spend the majority of their time in classrooms led by teachers with little or no training in how to meet their academic needs (Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted [CSDPG] & National Association for Gifted Children [NAGC], 2009), and with little motivation to attend to the learning of those already performing at high levels. If gifted students are placed in heterogeneous classrooms in which the focus is on test performance rather than meeting their academic needs, achievement and motivation can rapidly decrease (Delcourt, Loyd, Cornell, & Goldberg, 1994; Moon et al., 2007).
