NRC/GT's Suggestions: Evaluating Your Programs and Services.

This paper provides a list of questions to help teachers and administrators determine whether initial plans for gifted and talented services are actually aligned with the program implementation. Questions focus on students, curriculum, program implementation, and service delivery and relate to: (1) identification and services provided to gifted and talented students; (2) available data indicating effectiveness of the screening and identification system; (3) additional screening and identification criteria used to ensure that special populations are not being overlooked; (4) curricular options available to meet students' academic needs; (5) available data indicating the effectiveness of the curriculum; (6) the use of acceleration; (7) effectiveness of acceleration options; (8) implementation of program goals and objectives; (9) connection of program goals and objectives to the district's mission and philosophy statements; (10) impact of the programs and services on the regular education program; (11) available advanced training opportunities for all teachers; (12) the use of formal and informal feedback to improve program quality; (13) educational outcomes of students involved in the program; (14) implementation of curriculum approaches at various grade levels; and (15) available evidence illustrating the merit of present service delivery models. The paper also suggests strategies for data collection. (CR)