In the fifth grade, my family moved and I transferred to a new school district in New Jersey. In the West Orange school district, I gained admission into the High Aptitude Program, a gifted and talented program that I would get bussed to weekly. When I entered the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township School District, I applied to their gifted and talented program; yet, I had missed the threshold of being a “gifted student” by just a half a point on the entry exam. As a 10 year old, I was hungry for academic validation. But a standardized assessment told me I wasn’t special; I wasn’t good enough.
Recent 2023 data on the ethnic gaps in New Jersey gifted and talented programs has been released, showing substantial underrepresentation for local students of Color and Latinx students. This made me think of the bigger, systematic pitfall: There are so many bright students that are overlooked and excluded from entry to the gifted and talented program. My rejection was because of a standard point system, but others’ rejection is entangled in systemic racism. In retrospect, I wonder, did I dodge a bullet by getting rejected to my elementary school’s gifted and talented program?
Some elementary schools nationwide implement a type of gifted and talented program that offers supplemental work to match the higher skill set of students that display exceptional academic achievement and higher-stakes cognitive abilities. “Gifted” students are typically characterized by their ability to think critically and cognitively in a fast-paced environment. Entry to these programs is usually determined by the student’s IQ and their performance on standardized tests like the Cognitive Abilities Test, Iowa Test of Basic Skills, Otis-Lennon School Ability Test and Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test. Approximately 6% of public school students were enrolled in gifted and talented programs; yet it has been estimated that more than 3.3 million students nationwide qualified for such programs but were not admitted.
In recent consensus, these exclusive programs have actively displayed inequality, as Asian, white and high-income background students are disproportionately classified as gifted. While the majority of gifted programs require intelligence tests or teacher/parent nominations to identify “gifted students,” students that qualified for some financial relief or students of Color (i.e. Black and Hispanic students) were less likely to be identified as “gifted.” In fact, three out of four gifted Black students are overseen in the admissions process, immediately categorized as “not-gifted.” The obvious racial achievement gap leads to concerns about whether or not the program itself actually unleashes the potential of a gifted student or is another example of deep-rooted systematic racism.
In line with these speculations, in a conference hosted by the National Association For Gifted Children titled “Giftedness Knows No Boundaries,” NAGC Former President Jonathan Plucker responded to concerns on inequality in the gifted and talented programs, saying “there is no question that there is a systemic bias within our system.” Now that the statistics on race in these programs have been released, there is no question about the racial and class inequity that structures the program, as verified by higher-ups like Jonathan Plucker. The next step in gifted and talented admissions is either to make it more equitable or phase it out entirely.
The best solution has been a matter of debate, as seen in the New York City school district. While 70% of students in the NYC school system are Black and Hispanic, 75% of gifted and talented enrollment is made up of white or Asian students. In response to this, Mayor Eric Adams announced that he “would expand the opportunities for accelerated learning” — something Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio adamantly tried to phase out in the city’s elementary schools in an attempt to promote equity. Contrarily, Adams has suggested working alternatives for NYC’s gifted and talented programs. Some concrete examples include adding more spots and eliminating admissions tests. In April 2022, Adams and the New York City Department of Education announced the addition of 100 kindergarten seats and 1,000 third-grade spots to the gifted and talented program to increase enrollment. He acknowledged that adding seats for gifted students across boroughs encourages diversity across NYC public schools, but also equity for underrepresented students and socioeconomic backgrounds.
However, I suggest that labeling select students as “gifted” isn’t the most effective way to promote equity. Hypothetically, an alternative to such pull-out programs may be “personalized learning.” Personalized learning is designed to customize the learning experience specific to students’ interests, skills, abilities, identity and cognitive abilities. This could be achieved through technology and adaptive softwares, individualized projects and prompts. The goal is to help students identify their passions, which could invigorate them to believe they’re “gifted” in their field of focus.
While it is important to nurture students at their own pace and in accordance with their academic skillset, education is generally about expanding one’s intellect. Personalized learning can better satisfy the student’s yearning for challenge while also guaranteeing a more “normal” academic environment. An individualized education allows students of all academic levels, socioeconomic backgrounds and social skill sets to cooperate with one another, while providing an individualized and flexible education that invigorates each student to discover their own interests and potential.
In 1976 in Buffalo, N.Y., PS 64 Frederick Law Olmsted School became a “national model” for gifted and talented programs as they integrated gifted and talented programs into a diverse classroom, unlike magnet schools that isolated “gifted” and “non-gifted” students. The Olmsted education was based off of Renzulli’s Enrichment Triad Model, which was designed to increase cooperation, critical thinking and creativity in a diverse classroom, where just one class is designated specifically for gifted education every other day. Olmsted even offered “prep programs” as outreach lessons for “non-gifted” students. Test scores for students of all races at Olmsted went up. However, a lawsuit on “reverse discrimination” quickly shut down these efforts for a more inclusive gifted and talented program.
Personalized learning was my greatest motivator for academic success, and I strongly believe it could be the answer to racial gaps in the education system. Even though I may have not been a member of my elementary school’s gifted and talented program, I don’t feel any less intellectual. Students that miss the mark of being “gifted” have the same potential to reach high standards for achievement and be exceptional so long as they are in an environment that is equitable and gives them the support they need. Every student deserves to feel “gifted.”
Vasiliki (Vikki) Amourgianos is an Opinion Columnist from Morris Plains, N.J. She writes about the niche coming-of-age experiences as a first-generation college student and woman in STEM, while growing up with a heavy ethnic influence. She can be reached at vaamour@umich.edu.