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The effort to leave no child behind is a major threat to high-ability students, whose cognitive and affective needs are increasingly falling by the wayside from default, according to gifted education advocates. They argue that the No Child Left Behind Act, with its unprecedented, high-stakes focus on students performing below grade level, leaves no incentive for going to bat for the child already years beyond grade level in one subject or more. Some school districts around the country are refusing to lose their grip, even in the most trying of times for gifted education. This article profiles four districts that have continued to support the needs of gifted children. These programs in: Cherry Creek, Colorado; Madison County, Kentucky; Rockwood, Missouri; and Kerrville, Texas offer strategies for getting kids to do what they're able to do and reach for more.

It's 10 a.m. in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver, and the Grandview High School library is bursting with life. Its two classrooms, each equipped with state-of-the-art technology, are overflowing with kids. In one, Patricia Holloway, the library coordinator, is introducing a group of entering freshman to the library. In the other, media specialist Marcia Wolfe is working with a 10th-grade English class on a research project. Nearby, in the center of this vibrant 15,000-squarefoot space--the site of 600 library classes a year--a third class is huddled around their teacher, discussing a novel. It's even buzzing in the librarians' office, where Evelyn Scott, the third librarian-teacher--yes, the third in this 2,600-student school--is conferring with English teacher Vernal Pope about a project they created last summer for an 11th-grade AP class. By any measure--from circulation of the 44,000-item collection to impact on learning to the teen-friendly look and feel of the place--the library is tremendously successful. This is certainly due to the talented library staff members, who have teamed up with classroom teachers to create a culture of critical inquiry and who approach students with respect, high expectations, and plenty of warmth and humor. For all of this to happen, of course, someone had to decide it was worth doing. That person needed to understand the power of a comprehensive library program, the value of hiring terrific teacher-librarians, and the importance of providing the full-time, six-person library staff with adequate funds--more than $45,000 annually. At Grandview High, that someone is Principal Harry Bull.

Much like the cycles and rhythms of the seasons, implementation of the national geography standards in Colorado has, over the course of a decade, grown, developed, and changed. As with the exciting beginning of spring, our time of planting was set in motion in 1993 by the passage of Colorado House Bill 1313, which set a deadline for school districts to establish standards of what students should know and be able to do in major subject areas, including geography. Working almost simultaneously with the publication of Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994 (GESP 1994), Colorado drew heavily on the ideas, concepts, and strategies reflected in that national standards document. Geography for Life was published in 1994, and Colorado's State Board of Education approved the state's geography standards in 1995. Geographic education in Colorado had not previously overemphasized the original five themes of geography that were published in 1984 (JCGE 1984), and consequently, Colorado teachers easily embraced the new standards that were organized into Six Essential Elements.

The Colorado River and the elaborate body of laws governing its flows (Law of the River) are at a critical juncture, with a formidable imbalance between water supplies and demands prompting diverse efforts to evaluate and to think anew about Colorado River governance. One such effort is the Colorado River Governance Initiative (CRGI) at the University of Colorado Law School. Incorporating CRGI research undertaken over the past two-and-a-half years, this Article focuses on the interstate compact constituting the foundation of the Law of the River-the Colorado River Compact (Compact)-and approaches the water apportionment scheme established by this Compact as a subject of central importance in current efforts to navigate the future of the river. Lying at the base of the Compact is a commitment to equity-"equitable division and apportionment of the use of the waters of the Colorado River. System"-which poses the fundamental question explored in this Article: To what extent does the Compact's apportionment scheme fulfill this commitment to equity in its existing form? After providing an initial overview of the Compact, this Article considers the meaning of "equity" as a norm, setting the stage for a subsequent examination of water supplies and demands in the basin and of longstanding interpretive disputes involving the Compact's key terms. This examination reveals several equity-related concerns associated with the composition of the Compact's apportionment scheme and the . governance structure devised for it. A discussion of these concerns occupies the final Part of this Article. Framing this discussion is our perspective that the Compact's commitment to equity is a venerable one and that the concerns raised in this final Part need to be addressed in ongoing dialogue about Colorado River governance in order to fulfill this commitment in contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential water demand is a function of several factors, some of which are within the control of water utilities (e.g., price, water restrictions, rebate programs) and some of which are not (e.g., climate and weather, demographic characteristics). In this study of Aurora, Colorado, factors influencing residential water demand are reviewed during a turbulent drought period (2000-2005). Findings expand the understanding of residential demand in at least three salient ways: first, by documenting that pricing and outdoor water restriction policies interact with each other ensuring that total water savings are not additive of each program operating independently; second, by showing that the effectiveness of pricing and restrictions policies varies among different classes of customers (i.e., low, middle, and high volume water users) and between predrought and drought periods; and third, in demonstrating that real-time information about consumptive use (via the Water Smart Reader) helps customers reach water-use targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought conditions in the summer of 2002 prompted several cities along Colorado's Front Range to enact restrictions on outdoor water use, focusing primarily on limiting the frequency of lawn watering. The different approaches utilized by eight water providers were tracked to determine the level of water savings achieved, measured as a comparison of 2002 usage to 2000 to 2001 average usage, and also based on a statistical estimate of 2002 "expected use" that accounts for the impact of drought conditions on demand. Mandatory restrictions were shown to be an effective tool for drought coping. During periods of mandatory restrictions, savings measured in expected use per capita ranged from 18 to 56 percent, compared to just 4 to 12 percent savings during periods of voluntary restrictions. As anticipated, providers with the most stringent restrictions achieved the greatest savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenney, Terry A. and Susan G. Buto, 2012. Evaluation of the Temporal Transferability of a Model Describing Dissolved Solids in Streams of the Upper Colorado River Basin. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(5): 1041-1053. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2012.00667.x Abstract: The application of a nonlinear least-squares regression model describing the sources and transport of dissolved solids in streams of the Upper Colorado River Basin, and that was calibrated using data from water year 1991, was evaluated for use in predicting annual dissolved-solids loads for the years 1974 through 1998. Simulations for each water year were run using annual climate data. To evaluate how well the model captures the observed annual variability across the basin, differences in predicted annual dissolved-solids loads for each simulated year and 1991 were compared with differences in monitored annual loads. The temporal trend of the differences between predicted annual loads for the simulated years and the load for 1991 generally followed the trend of the monitored loads. The model appears to underpredict the largest annual loads and overpredict some of the smaller annual loads. An underprediction bias for wetter years was evident in the residuals as was an overprediction bias, to a lesser degree, for drier years. A regression analysis on the residuals suggests that the underprediction bias is associated with precipitation differences from 1991 and with previously defined downward trends in dissolved-solids concentrations in the basin. In general, given the representative climatic conditions, the model adequately performs throughout the period examined. However, the model is most transferable to years with climatic conditions similar to 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]