Fiscal Year 2013:  Senate Subcommittee Meets June 12

The Senate subcommittee that handles education funding will be meeting on June 12 to recommend federal education program and research funding levels for fiscal year 2013.

As you know, the Javits Gifted & Talented Students Education Act (Javits) was de-funded in fiscal year 2011. This means that there is no funding for the National Research Center on the Gifted & Talented, and there are no 5-year grants to fund projects that yield best practices in identifying and serving underserved gifted students.

It’s a difficult funding environment – the impulse in Congress is to reduce, not increase spending for education. That’s why your messages to your Senators are so important. It’s critical that policymakers hear from the gifted education community about the need to support advanced students in federal education programs and research so that ALL students can make learning gains each year.

Please contact your Senators before noon on Tuesday, June 12, and urge him or her to make excellence a federal priority by supporting gifted and talented students, and the research needed to develop best classroom practices for this population of learners, in the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill.

Also, please be sure to share any example of how the prior federal investment in gifted education has helped your school or district.  For example, your district may have relied on research from the the National Research Center on the Gifted & Talented to make program improvements.  Or, perhaps your school or districts uses curriculum that was developed under a Javits program grant (e.g., the William & Mary curriculum units, U-STARS~PLUS or Projects M3 or M2 ).  The earlier investment has paid off in so many ways.  Urge your Senators to reinvest in gifted kids!

Every Senate office has an email or online form for constituents, please send your messages by June 12.

ALSO NOTE: If your Senator is a member of the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee, especially if you’re from Iowa (Chairman Tom Harkin) or Alabama (Ranking Member Shelby), please include a reference in your email that you know that as a Labor-HHS subcommittee member, he/she has a leadership role on education priorities and that you urge him/her to support advanced students.
Click here to read more about the Javits program and how it has supported gifted students from disadvantaged background.

Thank you!

*This message comes originally from NAGC. One of the goals of the Coalition is to lend support to national efforts on behalf of gifted students. Our senators are Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Murray is a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education which is meeting on the 12th. Both have previously supported Javits funding.