Over the years I have responded to numerous questions about identification of the gifted and talented and how the teacher rating scales described in this manual can be used as part of a fail-safe plan for identification. My initial response is always the same: "There is no such thing as a perfect identification system!" Because of situational factors--demographic differences in school populations, various underlying philosophies and beliefs about who is gifted and how best to serve these students, variations in program structures and resources, and differences in state guidelines--each school and district must develop a unique identification system that works best within the contexts and considerations of their school or system. However, I don't want to use this response as a way to dodge the question and fail to deal with the practical need for real people in real schools to develop a plan that is defensible in terms of theory and research and that can be implemented without unusual investments of time, money, or undue paperwork.

The identification system that I have devised and recommended to numerous schools in both the United States and abroad is very specific, and it represents a compromise between the research that led to the development of the Three Ring Conception of Giftedness and the situational factors that vary from school to school. This identification system is included in Appendix F of this manual, and, like most of the work I have done over the years, it can be modified to make it appropriate to local situations. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the rationale and research underlying the system, any and all modifications should respect the basic principles upon which the system is built: that the selection of students for special programs should be based on a relatively equivalent balance of test and non-test based information and that access to enrichment opportunities, resources, and encouragement should not be based on a "one shot" assessment procedure. The concept of "Action Information" (Renzulli, 1986) means that some young people will show their potentials at certain times and under certain circumstances and will therefore need supplementary services at those times. A truly responsive program needs to accommodate such students.

--Joe Renzulli

Renzulli, J. S. (1986). The three-ring conception of giftedness: A developmental model for creative productivity. In Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 53-92). New York: Cambridge University Press.