The Century Foundation:
Earlier this year, the New York City School Diversity Advisory Group, a group of leaders, researchers, educators, and community members, convened by mayor Bill De Blasio, recommended that New York City scrap its current use of tracking “gifted and talented” students in its schools and figure out a better way to offer enrichment. Under the current system, New York City identifies children for gifted programs by administering a standardized test to a self-selecting group of 4-year-olds. The city then gives those children with passing scores a chance to enroll in gifted classrooms or schools, where they are separated from the rest of their peers. The advisory group described this current system as “unfair, unjust and not necessarily research-based,” resulting in segregation by “race, class, abilities and language” that “perpetuate[s] stereotypes about student potential and achievement.” The group’s recommendations call on community school districts across the city to “pilot creative, equitable enrichment alternatives.”
New York City’s gifted and talented program is a national outlier. Few other places test children at such a young age, use a single standardized test score as a measure, or implement a program based on strict separation of gifted children from peers without that designation in separate schools or classrooms. Perhaps because of this, even many supporters of the city’s gifted and talented education system—who were quick to criticize the advisory group’s recommendations—concede that the current system is flawed and needs to be changed to make it more equitable and effective.
