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for Arlyne

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View of Teacher Perception of Racial Equity in Gifted and Talented Programs

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Return to Article Details Teacher Perception of Racial Equity in Gifted and Talented Programs

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Schools debate: Gifted and talented, or racist and elitist?

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NEW YORK (AP) — Communities across the United States are reconsidering their approach to gifted and talented programs in schools as vocal parents blame such elite programs for worsening racial segregation and inequities in the country’s education system.

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"Low-income and minority students are underrepresented in gifted education programs, according to a 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "

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It is understandable that school administrators and teachers focus their attention on the students who face the greatest academic struggles in the classroom. I did this myself when I was the chancellor of the New York City schools more than a decade ago, with an emphasis on reducing the dropout rate and enabling more students to graduate. But in doing so, educators fail to pay enough attention to the needs of some of the brightest students.

Millions of K-12 students are capable of more challenging coursework than they are currently assigned. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University and Duke University used student-assessment data from multiple states to estimate that 20 percent to 40 percent of elementary and middle school students in the United States are performing at least one level above their current grade on standardized reading tests and between 11 percent and 30 percent above on standardized math tests, but are nonetheless taught their grade-level curricula.

This suggests that many of the nation's estimated 40.1 million pre-K-8 students in public and private schools are denied access to accelerated, challenging learning. While it's encouraging to know that so many students are capable of doing so well in school, it's disturbing that they are not all being given the opportunities they deserve to excel at the proper level.

What's even more troubling? Students are often selected for gifted programs in a discriminatory manner. Low-income and minority students are underrepresented in gifted education programs, according to a 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. After studying the screening process for gifted abilities in Florida's Broward County school district, researchers found that black and Latino students; students who got free or reduced-price lunches; English-language learners; and female students were underreferred to the gifted program.

While the U.S. Department of Education reports that black and Hispanic students account for more than 40 percent of public school enrollment in the United States, they made up just 26 percent of the 3.2 million public school students enrolled nationwide in gifted education programs in 2011-12. This is not, of course, because these students are any less capable than their white and Asian-American classmates.

One cause for the gaps is a lack of student referrals from educators. Black students are 66 percent less likely to be referred to gifted programs in math and reading than their white classmates, according to a 2016 study by researchers from Vanderbilt University. Recommendations for Hispanic students are 47 percent less common. But when black students are taught by a black teacher, they are three times more likely to be assigned to gifted programs.

In fact, when every student is tested for entrance to gifted programs, the number of low-income and minority students greatly increases. In Broward County, the school system saw a 130 percent increase in the gifted rate among Latinos and an 80 percent increase among black students after implementing a universal-screening process. And when Orange County's public schools-a high-poverty district based in Orlando, Fla.-also shifted to universal screening, the number of students who were identified as gifted increased by 7 percent in the first year.

The extent of gifted education's current discrimination has the potential to affect students' futures after high school. Between 2000 and 2010, five states adopted mandates requiring all high school juniors to take a nationally standardized college-entrance exam. In two of the states, nearly half of all students took tests, and 40 percent to 45 percent of them earned scores to qualify for selective colleges. The enrollment of students in those states at selective institutions rose by 20 percent. This shows that students may grow to underestimate what they are capable of when not given the chance to prove themselves.

The path forward for our schools should be clear: Test every single child and then make appropriate placements. When we leave it up to teachers, parents, or even students themselves to determine who should be tested for high-ability classes, programs, and opportunities, many outstanding students-especially those who are black, Hispanic, or low-income-get left out. We must stop underestimating students' abilities and denying them the advanced instruction they deserve.

I recently visited the Davidson Academy of Nevada, in Reno, a public school designed to meet the needs of middle and high school students who score in the 99.9 percentile on their IQ or college-entrance tests, such as the SAT or the ACT. Class assignments are made exclusively on the basis of ability, regardless of a student's age. It is a route more schools should take.

Our goal should be to find the most appropriate academic placement for each child to help him or her succeed. This also means accepting that a child's age doesn't always define his or her capabilities in every subject. For example, an 8-year-old in 3rd grade may be reading at the 5th grade level but doing 2nd grade math. Education should be tailored to meet the needs of every child.

The best way to break the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next is to open the doors to equal educational opportunities for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income. To do so, we must make gifted programs more accessible and affordable to all students and use professional development for educators to help them recognize and abandon stereotypes.

Far too many bright young students are left to fend for themselves in an education system that too often venerates mediocrity. Our nation fails these boys and girls by not giving them the challenging education they need to reach their full potential. And we as a society fall short by not allowing our country to fully benefit from students' brainpower and talents. Let's start enabling all of the nation's students to live up to their potential.

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Discrimination in Gifted Education Must End (Opinion)

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It is understandable that school administrators and teachers focus their attention on the students who face the greatest academic struggles in the classroom. I did this myself when I was the chancellor of the New York City schools more than a decade ago, with an emphasis on reducing the dropout rate and enabling more students to graduate.

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www.researchgate.net needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.

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Even though Black and Hispanic students lack in education something reports African American and Hispanics account for more than 30 percent of public school enrollment.

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Question: Narrowed down research question

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Question: Narrowed down research question

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How does ongoing discrimination in gifted programs affect students?

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The majority of funding for California schools is provided by the state. Since 1990, the state share of school funding typically has hovered between 54% and 61%, with the local share between 32% and 36%. These shares vary across school districts. Most of the money for public education in California comes from two big sources: state income taxes and property taxes. Taxes power the education system, as well as many other functions of government.

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How education is distributed (fairness)

Ability to earn
Career Ready

gifted programs should  have equal oppurtunities

Economic education is very overlooked but it is very crucial in the topic.

Even distribution of gifted opportunities to students.

Economics focuses on interaction and behavior

The demand and financing for education

The economic study for education is very overlooked however for this specific issue it needs to be looked into more through the distribution of fairness in gifted program opportunities.

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1) racial equity within gifted program - social/cultural
2) missed opportunities - future/science
3) teacher discrimination - future/science
4) effects in the long run - economic lense

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future/science -lexi
social - verde
economic -arlyne (fairness)
ethical - ashley

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Research systemic racism and look into the economic lense

minorities don't have the same opportunities in school (how will it affect them not only in high school but outside of it.)

Self-efficacy can be affected because students will feel like they can't achieve stuff because they weren't given support due to them being a part of a minority group.
Education systems have changed their focus to the AVID Program so instead of helping minorities in gifted programs it has shifted to the AVID program. is that good or bad?
How does it affect students?

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https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/FCD-Adair.pdf

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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED539772.pdf

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https://www.proquest.com/docview/2691519614/4B100CA831174090PQ/8?accountid=193810

The underrepresentation of Black students, and Students of Color more generally, in gifted education has been widely acknowledged, resulting in the publication of an equitybased bill of rights for gifted Students of Color This underrepresentation extends to rural schools as well (Davis et al., 2020a, 2020b) due to educational, social, and cultural factors such as geographic remoteness, cultural mismatch between educators and students, low teacher expectations, and low educational attainment of parents

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- Verde

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Psychological Misdiagnosis of Gifted and Talented Children | Winchester Hospital

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What does it means to be a gifted and talented child? What are some of the common mental health problems that are often wrongly diagnosed in these children?

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Gifted programs are special classes or teaching used for students who learn quicker and more efficiently than their peers. Gifted students are divided into 5 groups of giftedness them being, intellectual, academic, creative, artistic, and leadership. These groups determine a gifted student's strengths and weaknesses that educators focus on in improving their learning experience and potential. Said gifted programs are contained with challenges and open windows for gifted students to aim for and use. Many of these said challenges are given to them as "early learning" toward different points of view. Gifted students tend to be more rewarded than their other peers. Such as given excursions, awards, and opportunities to advance their early learning in general to increase their IQ.

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There were a lot of dropouts due to gifted kids failing school, being pregnant, etc. The major cause for this was the lack of equity in the gifted programs.

(i just wrote a little bit of what Ashley and Verde were talking about, mostly what I heard because I wasn't tryna be talking all loud because of Diego and his group, they were literally looking at us the whole time.) - Arlyne

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Idk if this is relevant but I heard something of the AP courses but I wasn't tryna have the other group listen - Arlyne

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Idk if this is relevant but I heard something of the AP courses but I wasn't tryna have the other group listen - Arlyne

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Honors classes are only available to students within the gifted program, whereas AP classes are available to everyone. Honors classes don't necessarily offer college credit, while students in AP classes can take the AP test and earn college credit depending on what they score.

There is a huge difference between gifted and advanced.

Some of the challenges faced by gifted and talented students are teachers' stigma, negative peer attitudes, difficulty understanding others, problems related to perfectionism, as well as impatience and intolerance.

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www.researchgate.net needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.

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Social & Cultural, Scientific, Futuristic,Economic

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6. One of our peers' argument that made us think differently about our team's solution is Ashley's perspective. She said that her mom's friend asked if there really is an argument about our initial question. Our initial question was how are students affected by the lack of racial diversity. Her friend's mom stated, "Is there really a race problem or how a kid is raised?" As a Latina mother, she really didn't read to her kids meanwhile the white moms whom she is friends with did.

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https://www.teachforamerica.org/one-day/opinion/stop-eliminating-gifted-programs-and-calling-it-equity

This is a good source to counterargument solution number 2

¨school systems are making the decision to contract or eliminate their gifted education and advanced academic offerings...I disagree with these approaches and favor a more expansive solution...This is personal to me, as someone who was a child who struggled with excessive behavior challenges in kindergarten and first grade until I was identified as gifted and learned what too many students like me never have the privilege of learning: My behavior challenges came from a lack of being challenged." - Although this an opinion we do need perspectives and he did expierance this 1st hand

-Ashley

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Stop Eliminating Gifted Programs and Calling It 'Equity' | Teach For America

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How we can reimagine gifted-student programs to include the many talented Black and brown students who've historically been excluded

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1- giving the test
2- throwing away gifted program in general
3- expanding the defintion of "giftedness" or diversify teaching staff
Although some may ask why isn't the gifted program just
how do leading discrimation in gifted programs effcet students?
4- universal screening (all students are tested to join gifted programs)

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- School districts

- Students

- Parents

- Minorities

These stakeholders all take part in a complex issue. All are invested and affected by the issue. Each have a say and should be heard when trying to figure out a resoultion, solution, or conclusion.

-Lexi

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https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/educational-psychological-and-social-impact-discrimination-immigrant-child#:~:text=Experiencing%20discrimination%20can%20provoke%20stress,dropping%20out%20of%20high%20school.

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The Educational, Psychological, and Social Impact of Discrimination on the Immigrant Child

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This report examines the effects of personal discrimination as experienced by the children of immigrants, particularly in school settings. Research clearly and consistently shows that the majority of of children of immigrants perceive discrimination, which can have broad psychological, physical, academic, and social consequences for immigrant children.

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The gifted programs are still in use to this day, and while it evolves so does diversity and many opportunities between different races. If children with potential as such aren't given a fair chance in these programs it will result in missed opportunities and unfairness. These programs are supposed to help challenge and progress students, however, what about those minorities that don't take part in the program?

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conclusion: students in gifted programs are being impacted by the lack of racial equity. Students are experiencing higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression because of the discrimination. Because of the differences, in gifted programs students of color aren't prioritized and won't have the same opportunities/attention a white person would.

- Ashley

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-Verde
Schools lack racial diversity causing many students to have an unfair/unbalanced opportunity

Quote "This is a Band-Aid approach that does nothing to set diverse students up for success or create viable long-term, equity-driven gifted education. It is not enough to get underrepresented students into the pipeline; gifted programs must strive to retain them, so they don’t struggle or drop out."

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Gifted and talented education has long come under scrutiny for perpetuating inequities, particularly between wealthy white children and other underrepresented groups. Recently, calls for changes range from eliminating the programs altogether to implementing various proposals to increase diversity. Yet many proposed strategies focus solely on increasing the numbers of racially, ethnically, linguistically or economically diverse students being referred for evaluation and identification as gifted and talented.

This is a Band-Aid approach that does nothing to set diverse students up for success or create viable long-term, equity-driven gifted education. It is not enough to get underrepresented students into the pipeline; gifted programs must strive to retain them, so they don't struggle or drop out. The ultimate goal must be an increase in the number of diverse learners who thrive in a rigorous, accelerated learning environment.

The causes of underrepresentation of marginalized students in accessing gifted education are generally understood. But they manifest differently once students enroll and are confronted with, among other factors, cultural and identity disconnects and a lack of cultural representation within the gifted curriculum.

These are all problems that can and should be addressed as part of comprehensive reform that starts with modifying the curriculum and approach to teaching in ways that are culturally relevant. This capitalizes on the strengths each child brings to the classroom. There are lesson plans and gifted program standards that can help educators develop rigorous lessons for diverse gifted learners, specifically Black and Hispanic students, and create culturally responsive curricula that are equity-focused and provide student outcomes and evidence-based practices.

Secondly, diverse gifted learners need social-emotional support. Successful gifted learners who are developing their personal and cultural identities often attribute their academic success to their relationships with a mentor - especially one who has a cultural connection with them, someone who is like them to get advice from and lean on. A mentor provides needed support and encouragement, enabling these students to develop resiliency and a belief in their abilities - key factors in their long-term success.

Joy Davis and Deb Douglas focus on the importance of fostering these relationships in their new book, Empowering Underrepresented Gifted Students. Successful partnerships with a mentor enable students to develop the skills needed to advocate for their own learning. "Rather than waiting for systemic change to occur, these students can use self-advocacy to adapt the system from within, creating their own paths to individualized educational programs that match their unique strengths and propel them forward," the authors write.

Finally, districts need to support the gifted educators, as teachers are the key to the solution. Providing targeted professional learning for classroom and gifted teachers on what giftedness looks like across cultures, effective instructional strategies and ways to foster gifted learners social-emotional growth are all essential. Currently, in many states, teachers receive limited professional learning focused on working with gifted students, a topic that is missing from many teacher preparation programs. A practical and cost-effective way to increase equity in gifted programs is to focus on providing teachers with professional learning that teaches about how giftedness presents across cultures, best practices for fostering gifted learners and how to meaningfully engage with families and community partners. This type of professional support for teachers can produce a positive change in the numbers of marginalized students succeeding in gifted education.

This is a tremendous undertaking, and some districts, like New York City, have suggested that the best way to end the inequities in gifted education is to eliminate it altogether. But that does a disservice to the best and brightest students. It is possible to create equity-driven gifted education that sets all students up for success and has initiatives in place that keep them in the program. In Richardson, Texas, for example, the district revamped its gifted program with focus on retention.

Students are introduced to critical-thinking strategies and challenged to explore concepts with depth and complexity both before and after they are identified for participation. Developing these skills not only enables more children from underserved populations to score well on program entry tests, but it provides opportunities for the district's advanced learning specialists to work with these students beforehand. This is a key piece of the puzzle, as the specialists are trained to recognize characteristics of giftedness across cultures and to foster those strengths. Richardson also increased the number of advanced learning specialists in its schools and changed the structure of its gifted program to provide services matched to students' individual academic needs rather than a one-size-fits-all pull-out approach. In addition, the district has a stated goal of addressing attrition as students enter secondary school.

It's clear that gifted education programs need to change to better serve students from historically underrepresented groups. This includes amending retention strategies to meet students' social-emotional needs and providing teachers with the support and resources to effectively accelerate diverse learners.
Katie D. Lewis is an associate professor of education at York College of Pennsylvania. She is co-author, with Angela M. Novak, of Empowering Gifted Educators as Change Agents: A Playbook Equity-Driven Professional Learning (forthcoming, April 2022)
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An Educator's View: Getting More Diverse Kids into Gifted-&-Talented Programs Is Only Half the Story. Schools Must Help Them Stay - and Succeed

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Gifted and talented education has long come under scrutiny for perpetuating inequities, particularly between wealthy white children and other underrepresented groups. Recently, calls for changes range from eliminating the programs altogether to implementing various proposals to increase diversity. Yet many proposed strategies focus solely on increasing the numbers of racially, ethnically, linguistically or economically diverse [...]

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The lack of racial diversity is a huge issue and it causes debate everywhere. It is such a big debate it even impacted gifted programs and the opportunities minorities get in these gifted programs. If children aren't given fair chances in these programs it will result in missed opportunities and unfairness. These programs are made for the sole purpose of helping students progress and reach their full potential which can't happen if minorities don't get equal opportunities.

- Arlyne

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Answering this question on education and racial diversity will lead to a thorough investigation. We will begin our research by brain storming, doing preliminary research and discussing our thoughts as a group. In order to be organized, we will take many notes and create lists of sources. Like our research question, our plan could change. However if it evolves i'm sure it'll be for the better. All of this planning and organizing will help us come up with a logical conclussion or judgement.
- Ashley

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https://apnews.com/article/new-york-education-new-york-city-united-states-race-and-ethnicity-f8cbdb50edba9802fe9ad503cfe7d467

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Schools debate: Gifted and talented, or racist and elitist?

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NEW YORK (AP) — Communities across the United States are reconsidering their approach to gifted and talented programs in schools as vocal parents blame such elite programs for worsening racial segregation and inequities in the country’s education system.

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"Ensuring the availability of rigorous coursework and gifted education programs and services at every grade level for all students who would benefit from the challenge, combined with equitable identification procedures, would reduce the under-representation of diverse learners in gifted education programs and put more learners from every population in a position to increase their achievement and maximize their potential. "

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Too many students do not receive appropriately challenging curriculum and services and as a result, fail to reach their potential. This is a loss, not only for the students, but for the nation. The gaps in support of and services for our most advanced students are even more pronounced for children from minority, ELL, and low-income backgrounds. As our education policy focuses nearly exclusively on grade-level achievement in an effort to close the achievement gap for struggling learners, another achievement gap has been widening.

Research on student performance on state and national tests shows that there is a growing gap at the top of the achievement scale between white students and students of color and between advanced students from low-income backgrounds and those from more advantaged circumstances. This achievement gap, dubbed the "excellence gap," for high-ability students is especially problematic in light of the demand for a high-performing and highly skilled workforce to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness in the new global economy.

Ensuring the availability of rigorous coursework and gifted education programs and services at every grade level for all students who would benefit from the challenge, combined with equitable identification procedures, would reduce the underrepresentation of diverse learners in gifted education programs and put more learners from every population in a position to increase their achievement and maximize their potential.

Read Expanding the View of Giftedness, an article by NAGC in AASA's School Administrator magazine.

Read about identifying children from diverse populations for gifted education programs.

Read about how classroom instruction and teacher training supports high-ability students from diverse backgrounds.
Download a factsheet on high ability low-income and minority students
Explore the reports on diverse learners
Download Unlocking Emergent Talent Download Overlooked Gems: A National Perspective on Low Income Promising Learners : Supporting High Achievement of Low-Income, High-Ability Students

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Increasing Equity in Gifted Education Programs and Services

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Too many students do not receive appropriately challenging curriculum and services and as a result, fail to reach their potential. This is a loss, not only for the students, but for the nation. The gaps in support of and services for our most advanced students are even more pronounced for children from minority, ELL, and low-income backgrounds.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMXqNmV51nA

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Interview with elementary school teacher in gifted education

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https://researchoutreach.org/articles/highlighting-need-greater-equity-gifted-education/

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Whether ability is determined by nature or nurture has preoccupied thinkers since classical times. Most now agree that ability is derived from a combination of inherited and acquired characteristics: more precisely, a combination of genetic and environmental components. Austrian gifted-education expert Dr Gundula Wagner is currently researching how class composition in schools affects gifted students' academic outcomes. She argues that, while targeted measures may be set for children identified as gifted, children may in addition be exposed to unplanned environmental influences which also affect talent development. She identifies two proposals to bring about greater equity in gifted education.
There is no internationally recognised definition of a 'gifted' child. Different cultures vary in what they understand by the term - for example, whether a child is gifted by having a higher-than-average intellect, or in a wider manner that goes beyond cognitive ability and includes such things as diligence and application. However, gifted children are usually understood to have an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score of 130 or above, placing them in the top 2.5% of the population.

Austrian gifted education expert Dr Gundula Wagner researches and publishes on giftedness and talent in children and adults. In a recent paper, she focuses her attention on how class composition in schools affects gifted students' academic outcomes. Reviewing the international research literature, she finds that too little attention has been paid to gifted students in disadvantaged schools and in talent development for students from low-income backgrounds.

Group composition
Research studies into the effectiveness of schools identify the importance of group composition effects - the group characteristics that stem from the characteristics of individual members - as an important environmental influence. In addition to context effects, such as the local neighbourhood or (social) media, it is generally accepted that group composition affects student outcomes.

Wagner identifies three common categories of group composition mechanisms in the literature: resource-related mechanisms, peer-related mechanisms, and teacher-related mechanisms. Resource-related mechanisms include material resources which depend on a school's social composition and students' socio-economic backgrounds. They also include cultural and social capital related to students' family backgrounds, for example the kind of language used at home, the number of books in students' homes, and parents' reading habits and attitudes towards education.
The goal is that more gifted low-income students end up in gifted education programmes.
Peer-related mechanisms include students' daily interactions in class and the peer-group influences that normalise students' behaviour. Usually set by a majority, these mechanisms can have both positive and negative effects - students may strive to achieve the success they observe in their peers or may fail to realise their potential because they are unwilling to risk violating the rules of an under-achieving dominant group. Indeed, there is evidence that gifted students report peer pressure to perform below their abilities. This is partly due to the fact that students' knowledge about their gifted classmates is shaped by prejudice.

However, sensitivity is needed with the terms 'acting white' (as a synonym for positive academic behaviour by a white majority) and 'oppositional learning culture' (as a synonym for less-engaged behaviour attributed to a minority of colour). Wagner finds that studies on gifted African American or Hispanic students who are ridiculed for their 'acting white' by their ethnic peers are to be seen critical. They blame a minority for being complicit in the failure of their own gifted representatives. It seems more favourable to think about the different challenges posed by different identities. As an example, consider gifted African American girls who experience disadvantage because they are black, because they are girls, and because they are also gifted.

Teacher-related mechanisms include teachers' behaviour, for example teachers who adapt their expectations and teaching according to the abilities of students in their class. In this way, if teachers perceive the majority of students to be of lower ability, they may teach in a less cognitively demanding way. Gifted children within such classes may not be challenged and risk finding classes boring.

School effectivness
At class level, Wagner identifies three categories of composition effects in the literature: socio-economic, ethnic, and ability. She finds that socio-economic effects are the most common characteristics studied. Indicator measures include such things as parents' education level, job status, and family income. Of particular interest to Wagner is research from the UK, which suggests there can be a compensatory effect, such that gifted students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds who attend socially advantaged schools can achieve greater success. However, research also suggests that low-income students are less likely to apply for elite educational institutions, as parents lack networks of mutual support to fall back on (besides financial disadvantages). These networks are woven at elite colleges and are the advantage over those who are not graduates of such institutions.

The ethnic composition of schools is generally measured according to the proportion of students in a class with an immigrant background or the proportion of students who come from an ethnic minority. An important link between ethnicity and educational attainment is language use and frequency - for example, whether students speak a different language with their parents or peers from the language in which they are taught. Wagner's study finds that, overall, the literature reports that ethnic composition has only small effects on school performance, and that the composition effects that are found are more likely to be due to socio-economic disadvantage.

Research literature on ability effects is more consistent and suggests that all students perform better in classes with a high-performing median ability level. Still, as Wagner explains, 'the mean value does not reveal anything about the distribution of abilities within a class, which is also of educational interest'. The literature is also consistent in finding that grouping students in classes according to ability is advantageous for gifted students. Due to selection mechanisms, however, low-income students tend to drop out of support programmes early in their school career for the socio-economic reasons noted above.

Greater equality in gifted education
Wagner's research identifies socio-economic effects as the most significant composition effects in regard to inequality in talent development. She explains: 'Gifted education is an offer aimed primarily at middle- and upper-class students. Lower-class students, who often also belong to ethnic minorities, are still given little consideration.'

Wagner has two proposals for how to achieve greater equality in gifted education. The first proposal is that there should be more standardised testing at the beginning of students' school careers to identify those students who would benefit from advanced schooling. Wagner explains: 'The idea behind this is to protect students from the subjective judgement of teachers, whose ideas of giftedness mainly reflect general ideas of the bright and white middle-class child. The goal is that more gifted low-income students end up in gifted education programmes.'

The second proposal is aimed at schools with a low socio-economic composition which research suggests does not favour gifted students. To help gifted students in disadvantaged schools, Dr Wagner proposes that attention should be focused on conceiving schools as community centres where teachers, parents, local entrepreneurs, and cultural institutions work together.

Wagner argues that, not only would such schools attract the best teachers, but they would also encourage parents to become more involved. However, she finds that there are significant barriers that prevent low-income parents from engaging with their children's school: 'For some parents, the exhibition or theatre performance at school is still a hurdle that keeps them from participating. For these parents, low-threshold services at school are needed [for them] to come into contact, such as a laundry or babysitting service, or other services for their daily needs.'
Gifted education leads to greater educational equity for all.
In addition to her two proposals, Wagner recommends that gender should become a fourth group composition effect studied alongside resource-, peer-, and teacher-related mechanisms in research into environmental effects on talent development. She finds: 'Girls in a class can be expected to influence peer norms as well. Indeed, there is evidence that a high percentage of girls in a classroom positively affects scholastic achievement.'

Ethnicity and the hidden talents among students of minority groups is another issue that Wagner argues is ripe for further research. She acknowledges the work that is currently underway in the US to address this against the backdrop of the 'Black Lives Matter' movement and urges that similar attention should now be paid to this in Europe in the context of the refugee movement.

Recommendations
According to Wagner, educators should pay greater attention to gifted students from a low-income background. She comments: 'Taken together, studies on school effectiveness have given us a large body of evidence on the inequalities in students' educational trajectories with no significant improvement in equity for low-income students and students of colour achieved this far.'

To close the achievement gap, Wagner proposes standardised testing at the beginning of students' school careers, and schools doing more to understand and meet the needs of students' and parents in their school neighbourhoods. In this way, Wagner concludes, 'gifted education leads to greater educational equity for all'.

Personal Response

You propose that schools should be communities which bring teachers, parents, local entrepreneurs, and cultural institutions together. Have you experienced any examples of schools where this is already happening and if so, to what effect?

The example of the Rütli School from Berlin Neukölln is very well known in the German-speaking world. It used to be a high-risk public school in a disadvantaged district that made a complete turn-around within a few years. Eventually, it became so successful that financially better-off families also wanted to enrol their children there. However, I am not aware of any special focus on gifted students. In this respect, there are better examples in the Anglo-American area such as the Hartford Public School in Connecticut, USA, better known as the 'Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy'.

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Highlighting the need for greater equity in gifted education

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Whether ability is determined by nature or nurture has preoccupied thinkers since classical times. Most now agree that ability is derived from a combination of inherited and acquired characteristics: more precisely, a combination of genetic and environmental components. Austrian gifted-education expert Dr Gundula Wagner is currently researching how class composition in schools affects gifted students' academic outcomes.

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https://www.edweek.org/leadership/place-based-lessons-help-rural-schools-engage-gifted-students/2016/10

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Place-Based Lessons Help Rural Schools Engage Gifted Students

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Researchers and educators are collaborating in 13 rural Virginia districts to develop lessons that speak to academically promising students through their surroundings.

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https://jmgr-ojs-shsu.tdl.org/jmgr/article/view/37/30

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View of Teacher Perception of Racial Equity in Gifted and Talented Programs

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Return to Article Details Teacher Perception of Racial Equity in Gifted and Talented Programs

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https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/lack-of-diversity-in-gifted-education

important quote: "Gifted students who do not receive learning opportunities as a result of bias experience a form of discrimination, which can have untold negative effects. For example, discrimination is linked to higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, and it can have a negative impact on a student’s relationships and overall health"
-ashley

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US schools continue to grow in diversity, yet gifted education programs fail to fully reflect that multiplicity. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are significantly underrepresented in gifted programs. English language learners and students with disabilities also participate in gifted programs at a rate well below the percentage of gifted students in those cohorts.

Lack of Diversity in Gifted Education

Approximately 6 percent of public school students are enrolled in gifted and talented programs, but many student populations are underrepresented, according to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). Based on data from the US Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, the NAGC estimates:

Students from African American families are underrepresented by 43 percent.

Students from Latinx families are underrepresented by 30 percent.

Students from Native American families are underrepresented by 13 percent.

Students with disabilities and those who are still learning English are underrepresented by 75 percent.

Examining how schools typically operate gifted education programs brings the lack of diversity in gifted education into focus.

Gifted Programs: The Basics

Before a school can begin identifying gifted students, it has to establish its definition of "gifted." Such definitions vary from one school district to the next. Although states and school districts are not obligated to adopt the US Department of Education's definition, it is the basis for many local standards for gifted students:

Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.

Identifying Gifted Students

In the United States, district administrators generally determine the policies and procedures for identifying gifted students. A typical process involves a nomination or identification phase, a screening or selection phase, and a placement phase, for example.

There is no standardized method for identifying gifted students, but experts stress the importance of utilizing both objective and subjective assessments. Objective identification instruments include intelligence and achievement tests, as well as cumulative academic performance; examples of subjective assessments include teacher observations and student portfolios. Collecting information about students using multiple types of assessments provides a more nuanced portrait of students' performance and potential.

Types of Gifted Programs

Schools and districts can serve gifted students through multiple types of programs and practices:

Accommodation in a regular classroom. Students who have been identified as gifted can receive differentiated curriculum and instruction.

Full-time grouping with students of advanced abilities. This could include instruction at a magnet school or a school for performing arts.

Part-time assignment to special classes. This might include advanced classes or pullout programs that take gifted students out of class for a designated period each week so that they can receive enriched instruction with other gifted students.

Accelerated instruction. Options in this category include early entrance to a grade level, grade skipping, and dual-credit courses. An example of a dual credit course is one that allows high school students to enroll in a college-level course and receive credit for both college and high school.

The Problem of Underrepresentation

A report from the Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute at Purdue University estimates that as many as half of gifted students, some 3.6 million children, may be missing out on gifted education. Some gifted students go unidentified because they attend a school that doesn't have gifted education processes in place. Many others, however, are simply overlooked. Gifted students who are Black or Hispanic/Latinx are among the student populations most significantly underidentified.

The Effects of Underrepresentation

Gifted programs foster higher-level thinking, allow for greater expression, and provide a variety of learning experiences to challenge students. When gifted students from marginalized groups are not identified as gifted, they miss out on those opportunities.

Early identification of giftedness improves the likelihood that a student will fully develop their talent. When individuals are denied equal opportunity to receive an education that maximizes their potential, they lose opportunities for development that could open educational and professional doors and ultimately make them more successful as adults.

Gifted students who do not receive learning opportunities as a result of bias experience a form of discrimination, which can have untold negative effects. For example, discrimination is linked to higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, and it can have a negative impact on a student's relationships and overall health.

Educators who want to promote equity in gifted education can focus on several approaches:

Using multiple assessment tools. Giftedness can be specific to certain interests or learning categories, and diverse students have different aptitudes and learning styles. Educators are more likely to recognize different types of exceptional aptitudes if they utilize a combination of objective and subjective assessments.

Providing teacher training. Studies have shown that educators are far more likely to identify the exceptional gifts and talents of children who are white or Asian. Staff education in the areas of cultural competency and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can help teachers recognize their own biases.

Diversifying teaching staff. Teachers who come from different backgrounds contribute to a broader recognition and understanding of the abilities of diverse student populations.

Students from marginalized groups face challenges that other students do not. If education leaders do not take steps to mitigate differences in opportunity, schools will continue to overlook gifted students from marginalized groups.

Educators interested in shaping education policy and creating more inclusive learning environments should explore the opportunities made available through American University's Online EdD in Education Policy and Leadership.

With a focus on building equitable learning environments, the curriculum emphasizes systems change, personal leadership, social justice and anti-racism, and policy and research. The doctoral degree program provides current and future teachers and education leaders with the tools they need to transform the education system to benefit all learners.

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Identifying Gifted Students: Addressing the Lack of Diversity in Gifted Education

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US schools continue to grow in diversity, yet gifted education programs fail to fully reflect that multiplicity. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are significantly underrepresented in gifted programs. English language learners and students with disabilities also participate in gifted programs at a rate well below the percentage of gifted students in those cohorts.

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https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-discrimination-in-gifted-education-must-end/2017/01

important quote: "What’s even more troubling? Students are often selected for gifted programs in a discriminatory manner. Low-income and minority students are underrepresented in gifted education programs"

"black and Latino students; students who got free or reduced-price lunches; English-language learners; and female students were underreferred to the gifted program."
-Ashley

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It is understandable that school administrators and teachers focus their attention on the students who face the greatest academic struggles in the classroom. I did this myself when I was the chancellor of the New York City schools more than a decade ago, with an emphasis on reducing the dropout rate and enabling more students to graduate. But in doing so, educators fail to pay enough attention to the needs of some of the brightest students.

Millions of K-12 students are capable of more challenging coursework than they are currently assigned. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University and Duke University used student-assessment data from multiple states to estimate that 20 percent to 40 percent of elementary and middle school students in the United States are performing at least one level above their current grade on standardized reading tests and between 11 percent and 30 percent above on standardized math tests, but are nonetheless taught their grade-level curricula.

This suggests that many of the nation's estimated 40.1 million pre-K-8 students in public and private schools are denied access to accelerated, challenging learning. While it's encouraging to know that so many students are capable of doing so well in school, it's disturbing that they are not all being given the opportunities they deserve to excel at the proper level.

What's even more troubling? Students are often selected for gifted programs in a discriminatory manner. Low-income and minority students are underrepresented in gifted education programs, according to a 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. After studying the screening process for gifted abilities in Florida's Broward County school district, researchers found that black and Latino students; students who got free or reduced-price lunches; English-language learners; and female students were underreferred to the gifted program.

While the U.S. Department of Education reports that black and Hispanic students account for more than 40 percent of public school enrollment in the United States, they made up just 26 percent of the 3.2 million public school students enrolled nationwide in gifted education programs in 2011-12. This is not, of course, because these students are any less capable than their white and Asian-American classmates.

One cause for the gaps is a lack of student referrals from educators. Black students are 66 percent less likely to be referred to gifted programs in math and reading than their white classmates, according to a 2016 study by researchers from Vanderbilt University. Recommendations for Hispanic students are 47 percent less common. But when black students are taught by a black teacher, they are three times more likely to be assigned to gifted programs.

In fact, when every student is tested for entrance to gifted programs, the number of low-income and minority students greatly increases. In Broward County, the school system saw a 130 percent increase in the gifted rate among Latinos and an 80 percent increase among black students after implementing a universal-screening process. And when Orange County's public schools-a high-poverty district based in Orlando, Fla.-also shifted to universal screening, the number of students who were identified as gifted increased by 7 percent in the first year.

The extent of gifted education's current discrimination has the potential to affect students' futures after high school. Between 2000 and 2010, five states adopted mandates requiring all high school juniors to take a nationally standardized college-entrance exam. In two of the states, nearly half of all students took tests, and 40 percent to 45 percent of them earned scores to qualify for selective colleges. The enrollment of students in those states at selective institutions rose by 20 percent. This shows that students may grow to underestimate what they are capable of when not given the chance to prove themselves.

The path forward for our schools should be clear: Test every single child and then make appropriate placements. When we leave it up to teachers, parents, or even students themselves to determine who should be tested for high-ability classes, programs, and opportunities, many outstanding students-especially those who are black, Hispanic, or low-income-get left out. We must stop underestimating students' abilities and denying them the advanced instruction they deserve.

I recently visited the Davidson Academy of Nevada, in Reno, a public school designed to meet the needs of middle and high school students who score in the 99.9 percentile on their IQ or college-entrance tests, such as the SAT or the ACT. Class assignments are made exclusively on the basis of ability, regardless of a student's age. It is a route more schools should take.

Our goal should be to find the most appropriate academic placement for each child to help him or her succeed. This also means accepting that a child's age doesn't always define his or her capabilities in every subject. For example, an 8-year-old in 3rd grade may be reading at the 5th grade level but doing 2nd grade math. Education should be tailored to meet the needs of every child.

The best way to break the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next is to open the doors to equal educational opportunities for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income. To do so, we must make gifted programs more accessible and affordable to all students and use professional development for educators to help them recognize and abandon stereotypes.

Far too many bright young students are left to fend for themselves in an education system that too often venerates mediocrity. Our nation fails these boys and girls by not giving them the challenging education they need to reach their full potential. And we as a society fall short by not allowing our country to fully benefit from students' brainpower and talents. Let's start enabling all of the nation's students to live up to their potential.

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Discrimination in Gifted Education Must End (Opinion)

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It is understandable that school administrators and teachers focus their attention on the students who face the greatest academic struggles in the classroom. I did this myself when I was the chancellor of the New York City schools more than a decade ago, with an emphasis on reducing the dropout rate and enabling more students to graduate.

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https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/2578652665?searchid=1666368266&accountid=193810

"Children are usually enrolled in gifted programs based on tests they take in second or third grade. In many states, only the students thought by their teachers or their parents to be gifted are given the exams. After Imberman gathered his data, Ohio extended testing to all third-graders, an unusual move. But the state does not require schools to offer gifted services.

"Imberman said that among students who had been in the top 20 percent on third-grade tests in Ohio, only 34 percent of economically disadvantaged students and 30 percent of Black students were formally identified as gifted by eighth grade. More than half of the other students in the top 20 percent on third-grade tests were identified as gifted by eighth grade."

Lexi

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https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/underrepresentation-high-achieving-students-color-gifted-programs
-Arlyne

Important Quotes:

"It’s well known that students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs compared to white and Asian students."

"Overall, the odds of black and Hispanic children being referred to gifted programs are 66 percent and 47 percent lower than white students, respectively."

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It's well known that students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs compared to white and Asian students. Attempting to understand why, a new study from Vanderbilt University investigates how student, teacher, and school characteristics affect pupil assignment to gifted programs in reading and math.

Researchers derived a data sample of approximately 10,640 pupils from the NCES Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). The ECLS-K data tracks pupils from kindergarten through the eighth grade nationwide, collecting descriptive information on student, family, school, and community factors with questionnaires administered to parents, teachers, and school administrators. The authors used this study to extract information on student demographics and achievement, as well as school environment, classroom environment, and teacher qualifications and demographics during the first, third, and fifth grades-times when most gifted students are identified in elementary school. Finally, researchers measured the probability of gifted assignment based on each characteristic.

Overall, the odds of black and Hispanic children being referred to gifted programs are 66 percent and 47 percent lower than white students, respectively. Moreover, when student, teacher, and school characteristics were averaged, white students had a predicted probability of 6.2 percent of gifted-whereas black students had only a 2.8 percent probability. Although student socioeconomic status, test scores, teachers, and school setting are associated with gifted assignment in reading and math, none of these characteristics could fully account for racial disparities. Tellingly, teacher race was the factor most correlated with gifted assignment for black students only-so much so that black students were three times more likely to be assigned to gifted reading programs when previously taught by black teachers than when taught by non-black teachers. (There was no evidence of significant correlation between teacher/pupil race congruence and gifted reading assignment for white, Hispanic, or Asian students, or gifted math assignment for all subgroups.)

Yet again we are reminded of the deepening disparities pervading public education. But these findings offer a new perspective that warrants further investigation. Perhaps a lack of black teachers causes a greater underrepresentation in gifted programs than previously thought. The authors suggest that their findings allude to the " bureaucratic representation theory ": Citizens are more likely to receive public services and positive treatment when their government officials share the same racial or ethic background.

My own experience as a former teacher and student at predominately black and Hispanic schools supports this explanation. As an educator, my advocacy for high-performing minority students was often met with reluctance-and sometimes flat-out disapproval-from my white and Asian colleagues. When I was a first grader, I vividly remember how students of color were denied acceptance into our school's gifted program, while a select group of classmates-mostly white and Asian pupils-were pulled out of class for enrichment. We wondered what they did during their time away and questioned our own competence. Perhaps policies that better identified talented students of color might have spared us these thoughts.

A century ago, W.E.B. DuBois birthed the "Talented Tenth" concept and expressed the need to invest in the best and brightest from the black community to better promote upward mobility. This is just as necessary today. As much as we tend to focus on pushing our "bubble kids" and those at the bottom toward proficiency, we must also challenge and develop our highest-achieving students, especially those of color. More and better gifted programs for minority students can help narrow the excellence gap, so we should heed the study's recommendations and look further into how screening processes may be racially exclusive and unfair to those kids who possess diverse forms of intelligence. As DuBois argued, our talented tenth ought not be forgotten.

SOURCE: Jason A. Grissom and Christopher Redding, " Discretion and Disproportionality: Explaining the Underrepresentation of High-Achieving Students of Color in Gifted Programs," AERA (January 2016).

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Underrepresentation of high-achieving students of color in gifted programs

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It's well known that students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs compared to white and Asian students. Attempting to understand why, a new study from Vanderbilt University investigates how student, teacher, and school characteristics affect pupil assignment to gifted programs in reading and math.

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- Verde

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This article about SEM schools was produced in partnership with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. This is part 2 of the series "Gifted Education's Race Problem."
ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. - It was 7:58 a.m., and Bruce Hecker's 12th grade English class at South Side High School had the focused attention of a college seminar, with little chitchat or sluggishness despite the early hour. Students discussed the relevance of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" to the McCarthy hearings and to current competing fears of terrorism and technological surveillance.

The conversation that morning in December 2019 followed the lead of the seven or eight most vocal students. Occasionally, Hecker interrupted to encourage participation from a handful of students who receive support services to keep up with the class's rigorous curriculum.

The students Hecker called on hesitated, cleared their throats and said "um." But when they did speak, their comments were clear and cogent.

"If you're a kid and you break a vase," one student reflected on the theme of scapegoating in Miller's play, "you don't get these concepts. But your first thought is still to blame the dog." His peers laughed in appreciation.

More than 30 years ago, Rockville Centre began a gradual but determined effort to do away with gifted classes in its elementary schools as well as many of the tracked classes at the middle and high schools. The goal wasn't to eliminate all tracking, South Side Principal John Murphy said. Upperclassmen can still choose to take more challenging math, science and foreign language classes. It was, instead, to avoid creating a caste system by assigning students to remedial, average or advanced classes before they'd had a chance to develop their academic potential.

Those assignments often became self-fulfilling prophecies even though they didn't always accurately reflect students' abilities. This can have a long-term impact; the rigor of high school courses has been found to be the No. 1 predictor of college success. In Rockville Centre, tracked classes also led to racial and economic segregation in a high school where a fifth of the nearly 1,100 students are Black or Latino and the rest of the student body is nearly entirely white.

Early on, administrators found that many Black and Latino students and students from low-income families avoided the most challenging classes even after being given the option to enroll in them. So now, some of South Side's college-level classes, like Hecker's 12th grade English, are not only open to all, but also required.

Around the country, gifted and talented programs have come under fire for exacerbating school systems' already stark racial and economic segregation. In 2019 in New York City, a group commissioned by Mayor Bill de Blasio, The School Diversity Advisory Group, recommended doing away with all gifted and talented programs, while that same year Seattle attempted unsuccessfully to eliminate its programs as a way to alleviate school segregation.

Screens used to select students for high performing schools and advanced classes based on grades and test scores also face mounting criticism for exacerbating segregation. Last winter, a district near Philadelphia agreed to reduce its number of tracked classes at the middle and high school levels and increase access to Advanced Placement courses in response to a discrimination lawsuit brought by parents.

But some educators, parents and students worry about what might replace screened classes and accelerated programs. Is it possible, they wonder, to teach all students at all levels together in one class? And, if it is, will teachers receive the support they need to succeed?
Related: Gifted classes may not help talented students move ahead faster
Even when school systems do have a plan for how to bring students at different academic levels together while supporting and challenging each student, those plans don't necessarily succeed at undoing long-standing racial and economic segregation.

In Washington, D.C., new magnet schools based on the University of Connecticut's Schoolwide Enrichment Model, which aims to provide special programming for students at all performance levels, have been met with enthusiasm, but so far have produced uneven outcomes in terms of improved school test scores, and have had little impact on school diversity. And while educators at South Side have good reason to point to their school's academic success, students and parents say that pushing students so hard to excel takes an emotional toll, and have demanded less rigor. Some have even asked for a return to more tracking.

As school systems around the country work to address entrenched educational inequities, these experiments provide insights into the benefits and challenges of doing away with tracked classes and gifted programs.

Removing tracked classes in Rockville

It was 1989, and as a new Spanish teacher in Lawrence, New York, Carol Burris was assigned an eighth grade class called Language for Travelers. Its students weren't fooled by the elegant name. All had taken a foreign language the previous year and failed, and they knew that ending up in Burris' class meant expectations had been lowered. "There was a real culture that 'We hate school and we hate language,'" Burris said. Out of 29 students, 27 were boys. Most were Black and Latino kids living in poverty.

The experience stayed with Burris, and when she became South Side's principal in 2000, she found like-minded educators worried about the damage tracking could cause and who, over the past decade, had started to dismantle it.

Rockville's administrators knew that removing academic tracks would be fraught. So, the district started by replacing separate gifted classes in elementary school with individualized, project-based "talent" classes for all students.

Those classes proved popular. Once parents bought into the idea that there didn't have to be winners and losers, it was easier to move academic integration into higher grade levels.

The district also planned how to help students with weaker skills manage accelerated classes. Before Rockville Centre detracked math in the ninth and 10th grades, for example, it added support math classes in middle school so that all students graduated eighth grade having completed algebra.

At each step, the district used outcome data to guide its reforms and convince the community that the efforts were working and, in particular, that the strongest students weren't being shortchanged.
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Today, the school requires subject teachers in each grade to teach the same content at the same time. Such coordination facilitates support classes that meet every other day during the school day, with one teacher for every six or seven students. Students in these classes are pre-taught material, making them better prepared to understand material in their mainstream classes.

Taking such a systematic approach to shrinking the achievement gap may sound obvious. But around the country, efforts to broaden access to accelerated classes and, in some districts, to mandate Advanced Placement classes for all students have been implemented without ensuring that students have the background material necessary to succeed.
Related: Up to 3.6 million students should be labeled gifted, but aren't
South Side also turned to the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma, a Swiss-based program that offers a demanding high school degree. (Forty-three percent of South Side students earn a full IB diploma, according to the principal.) The model was chosen as South Side's main honors program in the mid-1990s not only for its rigor, but also for its flexibility. Compared to Advanced Placement classes, which require students to master a large and specific body of factual knowledge, the IB program focuses on depth of analysis.

So, for example, South Side replaced Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" with James Joyce's "Dubliners," both of which provide students the opportunity to analyze a complex and canonical work of English literature. Russ Reid, who taught English at South Side for more than 40 years, explained: "If you take 'A Tale of Two Cities' out of the curriculum, there are those that go, 'Oh, my God, you're not teaching Dickens.' But a reluctant learner sees that 450-page novel and says, 'The hell with it.'"

"It's hard to argue that 'Dubliners' is an easy read," Reid added. But each story is relatively short. "If students read 12 stories and blow off the other three, they're not going to be lost. I don't think we're teaching to the middle when we're talking about 'The Dead.' But we have made it more manageable."

As academic integration advanced, students' test scores improved - not just for weaker students, but also for students already achieving at a high level.

The Schoolwide Enrichment Model comes to D.C.

Nothing was simple about the experiment undertaken at Rockville Centre, but having only one high school with a relatively low-needs population did make it easier. Just 15 percent of the roughly 1,000 students at the school receive free or reduced lunch, a federal marker of poverty.

By contrast, in Washington, D.C., 77 percent of public school students are economically disadvantaged. Many students from higher-income families go to private schools or move to the suburbs to avoid attending schools where a large proportion of students perform below grade level.

This trend intensified when, in 2005, D.C. Public Schools closed its gifted and talented programs. So, in 2012, the district created an office of advanced and enriched instruction to keep more middle-class families in the system and simultaneously serve the learning needs of its high-performing, low-income students. Like Rockville Centre, the goal was to provide enrichment without exacerbating racial and economic inequity or further segregating an already segregated school system.

To achieve that tricky balance, D.C. turned to the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), used in more than 4,000 schools nationwide, and internationally. Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis, professors at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, created their model to help diversify accelerated classes and gifted programs by encouraging school systems to broaden their concept of giftedness and ferret out student potential beyond what's measured by standardized tests. The method assesses qualities such as motivation, curiosity, empathy, creativity and self-regulation, and exposes young students to a wide range of enriching experiences to discover what excites them.

Renzulli and Reis are proponents of diversifying gifted programs, not eliminating them. In fact, they believe it's unreasonable to expect one teacher to teach students at all levels effectively together. "A lot of lower-achieving kids feel even worse about themselves when they're forced to be in classrooms where the content is consistently above their level," while the learning needs of higher performing students are regularly ignored, Reis said.

Despite this, Renzulli and Reis do encourage the use of their model in systems like D.C.'s that don't offer gifted programs because they believe that discovering and deepening students' individual passions - a mainstay of gifted education - is useful for all students.

To accomplish this in mainstream schools, their model calls for flexible small group instruction within classes - based at times on ability, at times on interest - as well as a focus on project-based learning so students can pursue their passions. They also encourage all SEM schools to have a full-time talent specialist so that the burden of differentiating instruction doesn't fall entirely on the classroom teacher.

Ida B. Wells Middle School, D.C.'s newest SEM school, opened just last year. Although roughly two-thirds of its students entered the school performing below grade level in math and three-quarters below grade level in English, according to the city, the school said it was able to recruit a small group of high-achieving Black and Latino students, including a handful from private schools and gifted programs in neighboring states. They came for the enrichment, as well as for the school's low teacher-student ratio, made possible by having all classes inclusive of students in special education, a quarter of the school's population, and English language learners. The model means that there's funding for every class to have two teachers, and for English and math classes to have three, with abundant opportunity for small group instruction.
Related: Twice exceptional, doubly disadvantaged? How schools struggle to serve gifted students with disabilities
In addition, Ida B. Wells' talent specialist Nila Austin provides pullout classes for both struggling and accelerated students, as well as enrichment classes that all students can choose to attend.

A speech elective that Austin offers called Soap Box is open to all. In class last December, each student performed a speech on a topic of personal importance. One sixth grader decried colorism, explaining how darker-skinned slaves worked in the fields while lighter-skinned slaves worked indoors, and described "bizarre tests" later used to determine "how Black" a person was, like the pencil test in South Africa, which judged the kinkiness of people's hair.

Students in need of extra academic support also receive this kind of personally meaningful enrichment. Before Ida B. Wells' sixth grade English class began reading Mildred Taylor's "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," Austin assigned her small group of struggling readers Kondwani Fidel's "Hummingbirds in the Trenches," which explores similar themes of race, class and trauma, but is more accessible in language and setting. They also studied the psychology of trauma, wrote their own trauma narratives and had the opportunity to meet Fidel. When asked if students in her support class feel stigmatized, Austin said, "Students ask me all the time how they can get into that class."

And yet, eight years in, it's not clear how much impact D.C.'s SEM program has had on the kinds of outcomes most commonly used to measure academic success.

Students at most SEM schools in D.C. are more likely to perform below grade level than at or above it. A couple of SEM schools have seen striking improvement in their standardized test scores in just a few years, even though most students haven't reached grade level, but other SEM schools have seen minimal or no improvement. (Ida B. Wells is too new to provide such data.)

The model has also failed to create greater racial or economic diversity in D.C.'s schools. At more than half of D.C.'s 11 SEM schools, nearly all of the students are economically disadvantaged.

Ida B. Wells' Principal Megan Vroman acknowledges that there are benefits to racial and economic integration, but she said she also sees advantages when students attend schools like hers that aren't integrated and instead "reaffirm their identity."

But the schools' overall low academic performance concerns some in the field. "All education should be enriching. But in some cases, all students getting enrichment may mean that no students are really getting opportunities to take on more advanced work," said Adam Tyner, associate director of research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who co-authored a report on ways to increase the representation of Black and Latino students in gifted programs.

Renzulli and Reis themselves have noted that teachers don't always implement SEM in ways that serve the learning needs of their highest-performing students. Much of the research done on SEM, which has been in schools for decades, has shown positive results, including increased math and literacy skills, increased creative output from students and even long-term impact on college and career choices. But Renzulli and Reis conducted many of the studies, while others were written by administrators who'd had success with the program.

Still, Renzulli and Reis are impatient with the idea that all progress can be measured in a few years by standardized tests. "Creative productivity, which is the ultimate goal of the model, isn't always something you can measure in achievement scores one or two years in. Students first have to develop interests. They have to develop habits of mind over time," Reis said.

Matthew Reif, director of extended learning and academic recovery for D.C. Public Schools, believes SEM has helped D.C. create a more engaging and challenging learning experience, even if that's not yet captured in test scores. The most important SEM outcome to date, he said, is an ever-growing number of D.C. educators who want to bring SEM to their schools.

'It's better for struggling students to be in my classroom'

The results in Rockville Centre are more concrete. In 2019, 98 percent of South Side students graduated with a New York State Regents diploma, while 89 percent of all students and 67 percent of economically disadvantaged students earned a New York State Regents with Advanced Designation. Statewide, a third of the students received an advanced designation diploma.

But 10 students interviewed in a group last year at South Side High School also said that the school is a competitive pressure cooker and that they feel pushed to take advanced classes. A white student whose parents both have advanced degrees said she feels stressed, as did a Black student who is on track to be one of the first in his family to attend college.

When the experiment at Rockville Centre started in the late 1980s, Principal Murphy said, it was families of the highest-performing students who were skeptical. Today, resistance comes from parents who believe the academic pressure is not good for their children. In 2018, parents demanded that the school lower its graduation requirements. In response, though every student must still take the IB English and history classes in 11th and 12th grades, this year the school removed the requirement that they sit for the IB exams. Students can also exempt themselves from some of the longer writing assignments that the IB requires.

Hecker, the English teacher, said he sees that requiring high-level classes does have its costs. But he believes the cost of segregating students based on academic performance is far greater. "I think it's better for struggling students to be in my classroom and not in some other room wondering what's going on in those classes where the real learning is happening," he said. "I think that is completely demoralizing."
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Gifted classes drive inequality. But what happens when schools get rid of them?

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Districts are eliminating gifted and talented classes to try serving students of various academic abilities in integrated classrooms. In some places, it's working - but schools also face unanticipated challenges

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America's gifted education programs have a race problem

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White children and those from wealthy families are more likely to be identified as "gifted" - despite decades of effort to make these programs more equal.

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Important Quote: "...dominated by white and Asian children. Though gifted programs touch only 3.3 million school children, about 7 percent of the U.S. student population, it’s disturbing that Black and Hispanic children are rarely chosen for them. "

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Gifted education is often a flash point in school desegregation debates; in large cities, these programs often operate as an essentially separate school system, dominated by white and Asian children. Though gifted programs touch only 3.3 million school children, about 7 percent of the U.S. student population, it's disturbing that Black and Hispanic children are rarely chosen for them.

Some progressives have proposed eliminating gifted programs altogether. Others are seeking ways to increase the number of Black and Hispanic students. Only 4 percent of Black children and 5 percent of Hispanic children are in gifted programs compared with 8 percent of white and 13 percent of Asian children, according to the most recent federal figures.

Against this political backdrop, a new study raises big questions about whether gifted education benefits the kids who are lucky enough to be in it. Researchers analyzed the records of about 1,300 students, drawn from a nationally representative sample of children across the country, who started kindergarten in 2010 and participated in a gifted program for at least one year during their elementary school years through fifth grade.

In school systems that offer gifted programs, children generally begin their schooling in a regular kindergarten classroom with children of mixed abilities. Some are labeled as gifted during that first kindergarten year. Others get assigned as late as fifth grade. Researchers compared student performance before and after participating in a gifted program.

Students' reading scores were only slightly higher after receiving gifted instruction, moving from 78th to 80th percentile in reading on a national yardstick. The boost to math achievement from gifted instruction was much smaller, about a third of that size. No improvements were detected in how engaged or motivated students were in school after joining a gifted program. For example, teachers reported no difference in how hard students worked, how much they participated in discussions or how much they paid attention and listened in class.

Black students didn't experience even the small reading gains that their white peers did in gifted programs, showing zero difference after receiving gifted services, on average. Similarly, low-income students of all races tended not to reap the academic gains that their wealthier peers did. Asian children, by contrast, posted larger gains in math after joining a gifted program.

"What was most concerning to me was that even this small benefit wasn't equally distributed across all students subgroups," said Christopher Redding, an assistant professor at the University of Florida and one of the study's co-authors. "It seems like Black students benefit less than white students and that high income students benefit the most."
Related: Gifted classes may not help talented students move ahead faster
The study, "Do Students in Gifted Programs Perform Better? Linking Gifted Program Participants to Achievement and Nonachievement Outcomes," is slated to be published in May 2021 in the journal of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Redding and his co-author, Jason A. Grissom at Vanderbilt University, presented their study in April 2021 at a session of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

This federal data was only recently made available to researchers and it's the first time that we're getting a comprehensive national picture of how well kids are doing in gifted programs from kindergarten through fifth grade. Previous research, most of it limited to specific states and school districts, has been mixed. Some studies have shown sluggish learning growth for gifted students. However, high achieving students tend to improve less than average or below average students whether they're in gifted or regular classrooms.

A well-designed 2011 study of one city found no evidence that students in the gifted program outperformed those just below the cutoff for giftedness by the time they reached seventh grade. It also found that high achieving students who won a seat in a lottery to attend a popular magnet school did better in science but not in math or English compared to similar students who lost the lottery.

A 2016 study of a school district in Florida found no benefit for white students but large benefits for Black and Hispanic students who were assigned to separate gifted classrooms. This national study found the opposite, that white students reaped benefits from gifted programs that children of color did not. The Florida study wasn't wrong but this national study shows that different schools administer gifted services differently and can get different results.

What to make of these small-to-nil benefits across the nation depends on your perspective. Advocates of gifted education might see promise in the fact that high achieving students saw any gains at all from gifted programs. In many schools children might receive only a few hours a week of extra instruction. Students are pulled out of their regular classroom or a teacher is sent into their classroom to work with advanced students in small groups. One might rightly wonder if "gifted" students would see a larger boost if they received more hours of advanced instruction.
Related: Brainy black and Hispanic students might benefit most from 'honors' classrooms
Unfortunately, the federal data that the researchers relied upon didn't document the type of gifted instruction or how many hours each student received. So the researchers weren't able to see if higher dosage - or separate full-day classrooms for gifted students - generated better learning outcomes for high achievers.

Virginia Roach, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, which operates programs for high achieving students, commended the study in an email. She said the disappointing results are a sign that teachers need better training to teach gifted students differently. She added that pressures to increase the number of students who pass annual state tests discourage teachers from focusing on advanced students and giving them an "optimal" challenge.

A startling finding from the study is that most students in gifted programs are only slightly above average in achievement, far from anyone's idea of a genius. The average "gifted" student across the nation ranked between the 75th and 80th percentiles in math and reading, according to the national yardstick tests used by the researchers. The process for deciding which students get assigned to gifted programs varies a lot by state and school district but clearly the identification process is broken if it's not targeting students who are several grade levels ahead of their peers and in need of more challenging material.

Perhaps it should be no surprise that students aren't achieving more in gifted classrooms when most educators admit they don't even try to teach advanced material in them. A 2019 survey of teachers in gifted programs found they primarily focused on "enrichment activities," such as creative, fun projects and critical thinking exercises and discussions, keeping children on grade-level material, rather than moving them ahead to advanced academic content.

The research consensus, by contrast, argues for propelling high achieving children ahead. "This acceleration question is a really important one," said Redding, arguing that researchers need to re-examine ideas for exceptionally advanced kids, from starting kindergarten early and skipping a grade to giving advanced instruction in a particular subject. "We need to learn whether other approaches would be more beneficial for supporting gifted students versus some sort of a pullout or enrichment model," said Redding.

It's possible that standardized achievement tests and teacher surveys on student engagement are unable to measure the benefits of a gifted education. Perhaps placement in a gifted program raises a child's self-esteem and confidence and the results don't emerge until decades later in the form of PhDs, poems and patents.

But based on the measures we have now and the current state of affairs of these programs, it appears that gifted education isn't much of a gift to students.

This story about gifted programs was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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PROOF POINTS: Gifted programs provide little to no academic boost, new study says

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A new study raises big questions about whether gifted education benefits the kids who are lucky enough to be in it.

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https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/2705986373?searchid=1666368636&accountid=193810

The resolution addresses the racial disparities of the gifted program in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Last year, Black and Hispanic students made up 71% of the district's high school population, but only 47% of its AP students.

Throughout the district's gifted program, these numbers continue to be disproportionate in the middle and elementary schools, with white students being four times more likely to be enrolled in the gifted and talented programs.

Lexi

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Important Quotes/Evidence

Students from African American families are underrepresented by 43 percent.

Students from Latinx families are underrepresented by 30 percent.

Students from Native American families are underrepresented by 13 percent.

Students with disabilities and those who are still learning English are underrepresented by 75 percent.

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US schools continue to grow in diversity, yet gifted education programs fail to fully reflect that multiplicity. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are significantly underrepresented in gifted programs. English language learners and students with disabilities also participate in gifted programs at a rate well below the percentage of gifted students in those cohorts.

Lack of Diversity in Gifted Education

Approximately 6 percent of public school students are enrolled in gifted and talented programs, but many student populations are underrepresented, according to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). Based on data from the US Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, the NAGC estimates:

Students from African American families are underrepresented by 43 percent.

Students from Latinx families are underrepresented by 30 percent.

Students from Native American families are underrepresented by 13 percent.

Students with disabilities and those who are still learning English are underrepresented by 75 percent.

Examining how schools typically operate gifted education programs brings the lack of diversity in gifted education into focus.

Gifted Programs: The Basics

Before a school can begin identifying gifted students, it has to establish its definition of "gifted." Such definitions vary from one school district to the next. Although states and school districts are not obligated to adopt the US Department of Education's definition, it is the basis for many local standards for gifted students:

Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.

Identifying Gifted Students

In the United States, district administrators generally determine the policies and procedures for identifying gifted students. A typical process involves a nomination or identification phase, a screening or selection phase, and a placement phase, for example.

There is no standardized method for identifying gifted students, but experts stress the importance of utilizing both objective and subjective assessments. Objective identification instruments include intelligence and achievement tests, as well as cumulative academic performance; examples of subjective assessments include teacher observations and student portfolios. Collecting information about students using multiple types of assessments provides a more nuanced portrait of students' performance and potential.

Types of Gifted Programs

Schools and districts can serve gifted students through multiple types of programs and practices:

Accommodation in a regular classroom. Students who have been identified as gifted can receive differentiated curriculum and instruction.

Full-time grouping with students of advanced abilities. This could include instruction at a magnet school or a school for performing arts.

Part-time assignment to special classes. This might include advanced classes or pullout programs that take gifted students out of class for a designated period each week so that they can receive enriched instruction with other gifted students.

Accelerated instruction. Options in this category include early entrance to a grade level, grade skipping, and dual-credit courses. An example of a dual credit course is one that allows high school students to enroll in a college-level course and receive credit for both college and high school.

The Problem of Underrepresentation

A report from the Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute at Purdue University estimates that as many as half of gifted students, some 3.6 million children, may be missing out on gifted education. Some gifted students go unidentified because they attend a school that doesn't have gifted education processes in place. Many others, however, are simply overlooked. Gifted students who are Black or Hispanic/Latinx are among the student populations most significantly underidentified.

The Effects of Underrepresentation

Gifted programs foster higher-level thinking, allow for greater expression, and provide a variety of learning experiences to challenge students. When gifted students from marginalized groups are not identified as gifted, they miss out on those opportunities.

Early identification of giftedness improves the likelihood that a student will fully develop their talent. When individuals are denied equal opportunity to receive an education that maximizes their potential, they lose opportunities for development that could open educational and professional doors and ultimately make them more successful as adults.

Gifted students who do not receive learning opportunities as a result of bias experience a form of discrimination, which can have untold negative effects. For example, discrimination is linked to higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, and it can have a negative impact on a student's relationships and overall health.

Educators who want to promote equity in gifted education can focus on several approaches:

Using multiple assessment tools. Giftedness can be specific to certain interests or learning categories, and diverse students have different aptitudes and learning styles. Educators are more likely to recognize different types of exceptional aptitudes if they utilize a combination of objective and subjective assessments.

Providing teacher training. Studies have shown that educators are far more likely to identify the exceptional gifts and talents of children who are white or Asian. Staff education in the areas of cultural competency and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can help teachers recognize their own biases.

Diversifying teaching staff. Teachers who come from different backgrounds contribute to a broader recognition and understanding of the abilities of diverse student populations.

Students from marginalized groups face challenges that other students do not. If education leaders do not take steps to mitigate differences in opportunity, schools will continue to overlook gifted students from marginalized groups.

Educators interested in shaping education policy and creating more inclusive learning environments should explore the opportunities made available through American University's Online EdD in Education Policy and Leadership.

With a focus on building equitable learning environments, the curriculum emphasizes systems change, personal leadership, social justice and anti-racism, and policy and research. The doctoral degree program provides current and future teachers and education leaders with the tools they need to transform the education system to benefit all learners.

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Identifying Gifted Students: Addressing the Lack of Diversity in Gifted Education

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US schools continue to grow in diversity, yet gifted education programs fail to fully reflect that multiplicity. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are significantly underrepresented in gifted programs. English language learners and students with disabilities also participate in gifted programs at a rate well below the percentage of gifted students in those cohorts.