Aiming for Excellence - Gifted Program Standards

Aiming for Excellence: Annotations to the NAGC Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards offers a comprehensive review of the gifted education program standards developed by the National Association for Gifted Children. The standards, which represent professional consensus on essential practice in gifted education, provide a blueprint to encourage and guide schools in developing and evaluating high-quality programming.

This indispensable handbook is organized into seven key programming areas: program design, program administration management, socioemotional guidance counseling, student identification, curriculum instruction, professional development, and program evaluation.

Each chapter identifies and describes guiding development principles in a programming area. Within each guiding principle are corresponding requisite standards that describe minimum requirements for satisfactory programs, as well as exemplary levels of performance that represent excellence in gifted education programming. Helpful support material is provided in each chapter.

Aiming for Excellence is essential for school professionals responsible for program and curricular decision making, and for other gifted education proponents concerned about the continuous growth and development of gifted learners.

Mary S. Landrum, Ph.D., is a visiting associate professor at Kent State University. She teaches courses in gifted education and teacher education. Mary is the current chair of the Professional Development Division of NAGC, and received the Early Leader Award from the organization this year. Landrum has presented more than 75 inservice sessions in gifted education and currently is consulting with several school districts in staff development efforts. Her current research interests are in resource consultation and collaboration in gifted education and student identification.