BROCKTON -- Plouffe Elementary student Miranda Figueiredo reported the day's top stories in the television news program produced last year by the school's sixth-graders, while her twin brother did the video. Miranda was a natural in front of the camera, but her shy brother was not. Still, his role behind the camera proved valuable.

''It really pulled him out of his shell," said their mother, Tanya Figueiredo, recalling the project offered as part of the school's ''talented and gifted" program. But the Figueiredo children, along with 73 other sixth-graders in the city's talented and gifted -- or TAG -- classes, left the program behind when school ended last spring, because it served only students in grades 4 through 6 for decades. Parents like Figueiredo had long pushed Brockton to expand it.

''We were so excited with this program in elementary school, very concerned about what to do after that, and private school is a lot of money," Figueiredo said.

The opening this month of Gilmore Academy, Brockton's first middle school, is a testimonial to their success -- and the superintendent's support for students showing potential for higher achievement. Gilmore Academy joins Quincy's Central Middle School as the state's only two public middle schools targeted at talented and gifted students, according to the Massachusetts Association for Gifted Education, or MAGE.

Brockton's move has advocates of TAG programs hoping it's a sign of things to come in Massachusetts, where, they say, gifted students traditionally have been woefully underserved. Tight budgets, and a misconception that gifted children will perform well on their own, they say, secured Massachusetts' last place in a nationwide ranking of state spending on gifted education two years ago.

''What Brockton is doing is phenomenal," said Diana Reeves, past president of MAGE and a parent board member of the National Association for Gifted Children. ''And what's good about it happening in Brockton is that it's a diverse city and not a Weston. We can say, 'If Brockton can do it, why aren't we able to do that?' "

''We have very little going on here in Massachusetts for gifted education," said Judy Pratt, another past MAGE president and a six-year member of the state Department of Education's gifted and talented education advisory council.

The advisory council faces plenty of challenges. There is no statewide definition of a gifted student and no training or professional development programs for teachers on how to recognize and educate them, she said. Budget constraints in the late 1980s forced local school districts to eliminate many existing programs, gifted education advocates say. Also, ''tracking" -- grouping students by ability -- fell out of favor as an educational philosophy, as inclusive and heterogeneous groupings of students took priority, according to Pratt and Reeves.

With no state guidance for gifted education programs, local school districts are left on their own, said Pratt. Some districts try to challenge gifted students by tweaking their curriculum and workload. Other districts offer ''pull-out" programs that give gifted students weekly sessions of enriched study. But many make no formal accommodations, leaving it up to parents to negotiate with individual teachers if the standard curriculum is falling short for their children.

Quincy begins identifying gifted students when they are in the fourth grade and offers them a weekly pull-out program during the fifth grade. Students continuing in the gifted program then are assigned to classrooms at Central Middle School in grades 6 through 8, according to Jennifer Fay-Beers, the school's principal.

''We're very lucky to be able to have them in a homogeneous setting for middle school," she said. After several years with no state funding available for gifted programs, this year there is more than $500,000 available to establish teacher training and professional development programs.

Another boost is taking place in Brockton, where Superintendent Basan Nembirkow made the expansion of the city's TAG program a major part of his school reconfiguration plan. The city ultimately will have six or seven middle schools for grades 6 to 8 and as many as 15 elementary schools covering kindergarten through Grade 5, ending the city's existing junior high system.

Since before World War II, Brockton educators identified talented and gifted students in third grade, according to John Jerome, Brockton's curriculum director. Each year, approximately 75 students enrolled in TAG classes with an enriched and expanded curriculum at the Arnone, Angelo, and Plouffe elementary schools.

This fall, rather than rejoining the regular curriculum at one of the city's four junior highs or shifting to a private school, they are attending one of three seventh-grade TAG sections at Gilmore Academy. The school also houses general education fifth- and sixth-graders, including a bilingual class of fifth-graders, and the TAG program will expand next fall to cover eighth-graders.

The refurbished Gilmore boasts several technological advances, including three Internet-connected computers for students in each classroom, new furniture, and computer-linked projectors for teachers. Next year, the classrooms will be outfitted with so-called smart boards that are similar to dry-erase white boards but linked to a teacher's computer.

Students begin their day at Gilmore with traditional academic subjects from 7:30 to 11 a.m. The middle of their day is filled with lunch and physical education or art. The end of the day is for elective classes. ''They may be taking theater, band, chorus, science fiction, whatever they're interested in," said Tom Vendetti, a TAG language arts teacher. General education students will be included. Vendetti is particularly enthusiastic about his science fiction elective, in which he plans to have students create an old-time radio show similar to the original ''War of the Worlds" broadcast by Orson Welles.

Parents like Figueiredo and Jane Daly, who has sons in TAG classes in the fourth and sixth grades, no longer are concerned about junior high school. ''For me, TAG in middle school took care of any concerns I had about junior high. We're very fortunate," Daly said.

For Figueiredo, not only does the program benefit her children, but it gives her bragging rights when talking with friends from out of town.

''I usually leave out Brockton until the end, when I'm talking about my children's education," she said, ''and they can't believe it."

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