How to Make "Gifted" Programs More Equitable

Targeting bright but unmotivated kids from low-income families can have dramatic effects

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Gifted and talented, or “G&T,” programs are both highly contested and highly sought-after. Among the criticisms are that the label implies a fixed and general trait, when in fact measures like IQ fluctuate—especially before age 12—and individuals may be “advanced” in one area and not others. Individuals who get the label when young sometimes feel under pressure to succeed in everything they try their hand at. Beyond that, there’s little or no evidence that participation in a G&T program has any effect on cognitive ability.

The most common criticism, however, is that the programs, which disproportionately serve white and Asian students, exacerbate societal inequality. G&T programs that begin in elementary school, or even middle school, often serve as pathways to selective “exam” high schools, which in turn serve as pathways to highly selective colleges. Similar or worse demographic disproportions obtain at those higher levels. A case in point: New York City’s most selective high school, Stuyvesant, recently admitted 777 students, and only three of them were Black.

And yet, G&T programs—and their close cousins, the selective high schools—have proven difficult to modify or abolish. The families whose students win admission, or hope to win admission, defend the programs fiercely. They often see them as a legitimate reward for academic merit or at least, as one New York school counselor put it, their “only chance to give students an education slightly better than what’s otherwise offered in a city where almost half of students fail to meet an already low bar for grade-level performance.”

Bias in admissions criteria

A fundamental problem is that the criteria used for admission to G&T programs inherently privilege students who are already privileged. The programs generally begin in third grade, although in New York City G&T begins in kindergarten, and students are usually admitted through a combination of cognitive testing and teacher recommendations, both of which can incorporate biases.¹

The cognitive tests, which are basically IQ tests, are largely dependent on knowledge and vocabulary that children of highly educated, affluent families are more likely to have acquired. One test for preschoolers shows children images of four animals: a duck, a cow, a cat, and a pig. They’re asked to point to the one that says “oink.” It’s not hard to imagine that many children who live in urban environments will be stumped, even if they can eliminate one or two of the possibilities. If they come from a non-English-speaking family, they may have learned that pigs make a different sound.²

Schools can provide all students with the kind of knowledge and vocabulary that some are able to acquire at home—in fact, that’s arguably their mission. Unfortunately, many aren’t even striving to do that, at least in the elementary grades. They often focus on supposedly abstract reading comprehension skills rather than the content in history, science, and literature that actually boosts not only reading comprehension but also IQ scores. Even when schools do adopt a knowledge-building approach, it’s likely to take years before students from less-advantaged families acquire enough knowledge and vocabulary to be competitive against their more-advantaged peers.

All of that suggests that if we want to see G&T programs that equitably reflect the true distribution of academic talent, we need to adopt knowledge-building curricula beginning in the early grades, along with the explicit teaching methods that are aligned with scientific evidence—and wait until at least middle school before trying to identify the kids who could benefit from advanced classes.

A G&T study in Florida

But a study of G&T programs in a large urban district in Florida suggests that at least for some bright economically disadvantaged students, early identification can make a huge difference. The district, which appears to be Broward County, doesn’t rely on teachers or parents to nominate children they see as promising. Rather, the district tests all second graders, in class, using a nonverbal “ability test.” Kids who test above a certain score are then automatically referred for IQ testing, which is used to determine their eligibility for G&T.

Generally, the qualifying score is 130 points. But under what the district calls “Plan B,” students whose family incomes are low enough to get them free or reduced-price school meals or who are English language learners can qualify for G&T with a score of 116. After the district introduced “Plan B,” the share of children in those groups who were identified as “gifted” tripled, jumping from 1.4 to 4.3 percent.

Students who enter the G&T program in third grade can remain in it through high school, and along the way they get special counseling and an individualized education plan. They’re placed in separate classrooms during elementary school and get priority for advanced math and some other classes in middle school, along with counseling on advanced classes when they transition to high school.

The study followed about 3,500 students from elementary through high school, comparing a group that entered the G&T program via Plan B with another group whose IQ scores were just below the gifted threshold. That allowed researchers to “estimate the causal effects of program participation.”

Dramatic effects on non-cognitive outcomes

As with other studies of G&T programs, this one didn’t find evidence that participating in G&T programs improved students’ cognitive skills as measured by test scores. But the researchers did find some dramatic effects on “non-cognitive” outcomes, especially for boys. The G&T boys were, for example, 69 percent more likely to finish algebra 1 in middle school than the control group. In high school, they took twice as many AP classes, on average. Despite taking more challenging courses, the G&T students’ high school GPA remained around the same as that of the control group.

The largest impacts were on students who reported the lowest enjoyment of learning when they were third graders. Within that group, G&T girls were 50 percent more likely to graduate from high school on time and enroll in college—and boys were more than seven times as likely to do those things.

For whatever reason, girls seem to have better non-cognitive abilities than boys, on average. Participating in the G&T program essentially brought the G&T boys’ non-cognitive abilities up to about the level displayed by the girls in the control group.

The Florida study has at least a couple of important implications. First, assessments of cognitive ability—in other words, test scores—don’t measure everything. Factors like motivation and, perhaps, self-confidence count for a lot when it comes to sticking with school and taking more advanced courses. From what I’ve seen in classrooms and heard from teachers, the students who act out in class are often smart kids who are bored. Saving them from that boredom by giving them access to more challenging schoolwork—or more advanced peers, or even just the message that they’re smart—could alter the trajectory of their lives.

Universal screening and ongoing support

Second, if we want G&T programs to serve as engines of social mobility—and not just an escape valve for relatively affluent parents who can’t afford or don’t want to spend money on private school tuition—we should focus on economically disadvantaged students who are bright but disengaged from school, beginning around third grade. As in the Florida district, we should identify those kids through universal screening, using a nonverbal initial assessment, and provide them with support throughout high school.

In the long run, if we want to more accurately identify academic potential across the socioeconomic spectrum, the most effective approach is to provide all students with the kind of education that allows them to show us what they’re truly capable of doing. I’ve spoken to many teachers who have been amazed by what students can do once they’re given a content-rich curriculum and the kind of instruction that enables them to understand and analyze complex test. Another benefit of that approach is that it makes schooling more challenging and engaging for all students, including those from more advantaged families—so it could reduce the demand for G&T programs among that demographic.

But in the short run, an approach like “Plan B” could help save many bright but unmotivated students from veering off track.

1. Teachers’ biases may be unconscious, but they seem to be real. One study found that Black elementary students were significantly less likely to be identified by teachers for G&T programs than white students with similar test scores, especially if their teachers weren’t Black.

2. One former New York City student who took the test for G&T admission as a kindergartner recalled a question that asked her which of several boats was the widest—a word she didn’t know. When my own daughter took a similar test at about the same age, I was surprised to discover that one of the questions asked her to identify the major bodies of water in the world. I found this out only because the woman who administered the test had been puzzled by my daughter’s answer: the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and something the test administrator heard as “mwah.” I later realized my daughter was trying to say Lake Malawi, which was a big deal at her preschool, thanks to a teacher there who was an aficionado of the cichlid fish native to the lake.