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Gifted education today faces a significant challenge in reaching equity as well as excellence. This is reflected in the disproportionate underrepresentation of children from Black, Hispanic, Native, and low-income families. This pattern of underrepresentation within programs for students with gifts and talents is pervasive and pernicious and impacts gifted education programming across all 50 states in the United States of America. This article describes the efforts of Milwaukee Public Schools, a large urban school district in Wisconsin, to address the need for both equity and excellence within their gifted education programming. The U-STRARS-PLUS model formed the foundation for changing the culture of the schools from "at risk" to "at potential". Dedicated leadership and the combination of securing external support, developing internal trust, and building capacity across the district were critical to creating a strength-based focus within the schools. While the journey is not over, the authors hope that others can learn from Milwaukee's experiences.

One of the ways school librarians can become a leader in the school community is to design, organize, and present professional development opportunities for fellow educators. Running professional development is a chance for school librarians to become leaders in the school, as well as an opportunity to collaborate with fellow educators, advance the goals of the school library, and share resources. It also enables the school library to be involved in the curriculum and goals of the school. Designing and implementing professional development opportunities in schools is a way for school librarians to implement many of the Competencies of the Collaborate Shared Foundation from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) "National School Library Standards." This article details how members of a library department worked with each other and other members of the school community to create a workshop that highlighted the school library's resources and the school librarian's role and how they connect to the school's mission.

In this article, we highlight Bronfenbrenner's bioecological approach to explore identity formation and the impact of dynamic interactions between the student and their environment in the development of self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. We examine the complex interactions between student identity and the systems of support that are meant to help students achieve academic success; looking specifically at how the intersections between race, ethnicity, learning exceptionalities, and socioeconomic standing affect students who are identified as gifted and as emotionally/behaviorally challenged. Our call to rethink the services offered to students in special and gifted education leads to a proposed culturally responsive and enhanced multi-tiered system of supports (CR-MTSS). We believe the CR-MTSS approach can better address the strength of students with or a risk for developing emotional and behavioral challenges, supporting each student's success.

This past school year, the author set out to develop lessons that incorporated the design thinking process into her literature exploration curriculum in the school library. Design thinking is a term that the author has heard many times over the past few years in the context of education. Design thinking has been incorporated into the school environment as a way to devise more-effective professional development and class schedules, and student-centered classroom spaces. In this article, this author discusses design thinking, elements of the design thinking process, and steps of the design thinking process. The author presents a lesson on designing a better house for the Three Little Pigs.

The "State of the Special Education Profession" survey was commissioned by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Pioneers Division and supported by CEC. It provides a current snapshot of the state of the special education profession and serves as a foundation for CEC leadership and program development. The goal of the survey is to support initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for individuals with exceptionalities, their families, and the professionals who serve them. This report presents the results of this survey, to which nearly 1,500 special education teachers responded in the Fall of 2018. This new "State of the Special Education Profession" survey explored special education teachers' perceptions of the impact of these changes on the state of their profession. The results of this survey provide a current snapshot of the state of the profession and serve as a data-driven foundation for CEC leadership activities in public policy, professional development, and development of standards. Four thematic areas emerged in the survey results: (1) Use of the Individualized Education Program (IEP); (2) Survey respondents' feelings of competence; (3) Importance of family engagement; and (4) Need for systems-support for delivering special education.

Response to Intervention (RtI) is sweeping the country, changing the way children's educational needs are recognized and met. RtI was introduced through special education legislation as part of IDEA 2004 and offered an alternative approach for identifying students with learning disabilities (Bender & Shores, 2007). RtI is designed to bring together information about the child's strengths and needs with evidence-based instructional approaches that support the child's success. Key components of RtI include: (1) a tiered approach to supports and services; (2) early intervention prior to formal identification; (3) screening, assessments, and progress monitoring (dynamic assessments to determine the child's needs and to plan instruction); (4) the use of standard protocol interventions; and (5) collaborative problem-solving and planning for the child with the parents. This article explores what gifted education might look like within an RtI framework.

The partnership between the government and American research universities lies at the heart of the U.S. scientific and higher educational enterprise. This unique and historic partnership has advanced human health, enhanced national security, and produced human capital that has fueled technological innovation and economic growth, created entire new industries, and fundamentally changed the way we live. Yet the government-university partnership has grown increasingly strained and is at risk. The tremendous value and critical role played by the states and the federal government in support of higher education is not well understood by the public and has been taken for granted by elected officials. This has been particularly acute at the state level where continued budgetary pressures have resulted in steadily declining support for higher education. To ensure the continued success and advancement of American higher education, science, and innovation, it is critical that each of the partners--the federal government, the states, and research universities--reaffirm and strengthen this partnership. In this article, Mary Sue Coleman outlines specific actions that she believes should be taken by each of the partners to enhance that partnership.

ObjectiveTo ascertain the current status of global health training and humanitarian relief opportunities in US and Canadian postgraduate neurology programs.BackgroundThere is a growing interest among North American trainees to pursue medical electives in low- and middle-income countries. Such training opportunities provide many educational and humanitarian benefits but also pose several challenges related to organization, human resources, funding, and trainee and patient safety. The current support and engagement of neurology postgraduate training programs for trainees to pursue international rotations is unknown.MethodsA survey was distributed to all program directors in the United States and Canada (December 2012-February 2013) through the American Academy of Neurology to assess the training opportunities, institutional partnerships, and support available for international neurology electives.ResultsApproximately half of responding programs (53%) allow residents to pursue global health-related electives, and 11% reported that at least 1 trainee participated in humanitarian relief during training (survey response rate 61%, 143/234 program directors). Canadian programs were more likely to allow residents to pursue international electives than US programs (10/11, 91% vs 65/129, 50%, p = 0.023). The number of trainees participating in international electives was low: 0%-9% of residents (55% of programs) and 10%-19% of residents (21% of programs). Lack of funding was the most commonly cited reason for residents not participating in global health electives. If funding was available, 93% of program directors stated there would be time for residents to participate. Most program directors (75%) were interested in further information on global health electives.ConclusionsIn spite of high perceived interest, only half of US neurology training programs include international electives, mostly due to a reported lack of funding. By contrast, the majority of Canadian programs that responded allow international electives, likely due to clearer guidelines from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada compared to the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education. However, the number of both Canadian and US neurology trainees venturing abroad remains a minority. Most program directors are interested in learning more information related to global health electives for neurology residents.

ObjectiveThis study explores the provision of spiritual care by healthcare professionals working at the end of life.DesignQualitative-ethnographic inquiry.SettingPhase 1: five Canadian sites; phase 2: a residential hospice in Alberta, Canada.ParticipantsPhase 1: six palliative care leaders; phase 2: 24 frontline palliative care clinicians.ResultsData were collected over a 12-month period with analysis of findings occurring concurrently. Using semistructured interviews and participant observation, 11 themes, organised under five overarching categories, emerged from the data. Five bedside skills were identified as essential to spiritual care: hearing, sight, speech, touch and presence. The integration of these bedside skills with the intrinsic qualities of healthcare professionals, including their values and spiritual beliefs, appeared to be essential to their application in spiritual care. Spiritual care primarily involved the tacit qualities of healthcare professionals and their effect on patient's spiritual well-being, rather than their explicit technical skill set or expert knowledge base.ConclusionParticipants identified spiritual care as both a specialised care domain and as a philosophy of care that informs and is embedded within physical and psychosocial care. Hearing, sight, speech, touch and presence were identified as the means by which healthcare professionals impacted patients' spiritual well-being regardless of clinician's awareness or intent. An empirical framework is presented providing clinicians with a pragmatic way of incorporating spiritual care into clinical practice.