How school systems can balance equity and excellence in their advanced education initiatives
Evidence-based recommendations from a diverse group of twenty researchers, practitioners, and advocates
The horrific murder of George Floyd and its aftermath led school districts nationwide to strengthen their racial-equity initiatives, which—in many places—included turning a skeptical eye on “gifted” education, honors courses, and selective high schools. Because those programs tend to serve a disproportionately low number of Black, Hispanic, and Native American students when compared with district-wide demographics, some advocates—and some elected officials—called for their elimination or complete overhaul.
That in turn led to a strong backlash in many quarters, including deep-blue communities such as New York, San Francisco, and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. In the City by the Bay, controversy over a policy to remove Algebra I from the district’s middle schools recently escalated into a lawsuit. In the Big Apple, Eric Adams won election as mayor on a plank that included a promise to rebuild the city’s advanced education programs. And just outside our nation’s capital, the decision to replace admissions tests with a merit lottery at the very selective Thomas Jefferson High School led a federal judge to rule that the new policies violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. A U.S. Circuit Court panel has recently reversed this on appeal, however, and the Supreme Court may opt to have the final say.
Meanwhile, at the national level, the decisions in the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action cases are expected from the Supreme Court any day now. The legal question is whether universities’ use of race-conscious admissions policies to diversify their student bodies violates the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The substantive question is how our diverse nation can ensure that its most prestigious postsecondary institutions are also diverse.
The National Working Group on Advanced Education was formed in Spring 2022 in response to all of this. Its twenty members, of which I am one, include researchers, practitioners, and advocates and represent diversity in terms of ideology, race, gender, and geography. Its purpose was to identify a set of recommendations for school districts, charter networks, and state leaders to use in better developing the talents of these high-ability students, with special attention devoted to students from racially underrepresented groups and low-income backgrounds.
A new report released this week—”Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners”—is a product of this work, and offers three-dozen recommendations to education leaders and policymakers at all levels.
We were not always of one mind on how best to further equity while sustaining and enhancing excellence. But where we all agree, and where we suspect most Americans also agree, is that the United States would be in a much better place if it had a robust and diverse pipeline of students prepared to do high-level academic work in high school and college. We believe that we must make sure that every child with the potential for high academic achievement is able to fulfill that potential, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
Alas, that is not what we have today. The U.S. has been wasting a huge amount of human capital and squandering enormous amounts of human potential at the very moment we need more of it—and much of that wastage is among groups that have for far too long seen their opportunities limited and their potential squandered. We’re talking about bright students, advanced learners, striving pupils, and those with high but untapped potential—especially those who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, low income, or from otherwise marginalized backgrounds—whose educational needs aren’t being satisfactorily met by our schools. This needlessly limits what underrepresented students can learn and become, and causes the pipeline of high-achieving students to be narrower and less diverse than we need it to be if America is to be competitive, prosperous, secure, equitable, and democratic in these challenging times.
We know full well that closing America’s excellence gaps—the gaps between various racial and socioeconomic groups at the highest level of achievement—will not be easy. Like the more-often-discussed achievement gaps, excellence gaps are apparent the minute students enter kindergarten, arising from sharp disparities in children’s experiences from birth to age five. Yet they continues to widen as students progress through school.
Addressing these challenges is going to take work at every level, but most of the action is local. And leaders have a good chance of effecting real change if they keep three overriding principles in mind:
Build a continuum of advanced learning services, customized to individual students, rather than a binary “you’re in or you’re out” mindset. Just as students with disabilities need customized plans that are reevaluated periodically, so do students who can benefit from advanced learning opportunities. Skipping two grade levels might be right for one student; achievement grouping might be a better choice for another. As a student’s talents are developed, their need for more advanced programming may grow. The goal is to find the right fit for the needs of each child, continually evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and modify services according to students’ demonstrated need on an ongoing basis.
Embrace inclusion, remove barriers, and reject the scarcity mindset. If our goal is to build a wider, more diverse pipeline of high achievers, we need to be more welcoming to students on the bubble. While advanced learning opportunities imply some level of selectivity, look for reasons to include students in such learning opportunities, rather than excuses to keep them out. And do so at every grade level; never stop looking for students who could benefit from advanced learning. That, in turn, will require creating more seats—in “gifted and talented” programs, honors and advanced courses, selective high schools, and beyond. Instead of arguing over how to ration a scarce resource among the many who seek and could benefit from it, our goal is to make it more widely and equitably available.
Cultivate school-wide support for advanced learning opportunities for all students. Advanced education should not be thought of as a siloed, one-off activity administered to a select few; it should be woven throughout a school’s culture, professional development, curricular choices, and data analysis.
We know from experience and from research that schools could do many things to narrow excellence gaps, things that they’re not doing or not doing nearly enough of. We are leaving many effective tools in the toolbox. Here’s the good news: The Working Group’s experts believe that if districts and charter networks embrace the recommendations in our report and then implement them intentionally, rigorously, and consistently, we can expect to see a noticeable increase in the size and diversity of the pipeline of students ready for and succeeding with advanced content. This in turn should lead to the kind of advanced learning that results in greater economic security and personal fulfillment for the student, as well as economic prosperity and growth for the nation.
Ignoring the excellence gaps in our schools is not a path to activating all the talent our nation needs, but neither is eliminating advanced learning opportunities on grounds of equity. We must support students whose talents are easily recognizable and create environments where we can seek out those students whose talents are not yet tapped. Equity, done right, includes opening up advanced education to all students who could benefit from it. And excellence, done right, includes doing the hard work to help all students achieve at high levels—not just the students who come to school with great advantages.
You, dear reader, are part of an important movement, perhaps one of the greatest efforts in America today: the work to make sure we have as large and diverse a group of academic high achievers as possible in order to meet tomorrow’s challenges. Let’s not stop until it’s done.
This essay is adapted from “Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners: The Final Report of the National Working Group on Advanced Education.”
Note: The following elements of the newsletter were compiled by Brandon Wright, Advance’s regular writer and editor.
QUOTE OF NOTE
“We believe that all children deserve an education that facilitates their growth toward their full potential and that fostering learning of students at advanced levels of achievement benefits both individual students and our society at large.”
—The National Working Group on Advanced Education, “Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners,” June 12, 2023
RESEARCH REVIEW
“Some Knowns and Unknowns About Developing Cognitive Excellence: History, Research Methods, Policy, and Politics,” by Jonathan Wai and Xinya Liang, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, OnlineFirst, June 2, 2023
“Starting from an appreciation of history, this article considers aspects on developing cognitive excellence in the context of core tensions and themes surrounding gifted education that continue to be relevant to present scholarship and society. We discuss some of the knowns and unknowns regarding cognitive talent development in the context of history, research methods, policy, and politics with a focus on the intersection between the fields of gifted education and cognitive aptitudes in the U.S. with novel considerations for advances in methodology.”
“Gifted Students and Gradeless Formative Assessment: A Case Study From Norway,” by Bodil Svendsen and Tony Burner, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, OnlineFirst, June 8, 2023
“This case study focused on students’ experiences with gradeless formative assessment at a center for gifted students. Twenty-two students attending one of the six talent centers in Norway participated. A questionnaire with open- and close-ended questions were used to collect data. Qualitative data analysis was performed. Findings indicated that the students experience gradeless formative assessment positively. They highlighted less stressful and more motivating learning situations at the talent center compared to their experiences at school. Gradeless formative assessment allowed the students to focus on the learning process rather than the learning product.”
“Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners,” The National Working Group on Advanced Education, June 2023
“For far too long, the United States has neglected and wasted an enormous amount of human potential—much of it among groups that have never been given the opportunities they deserve. We’re talking about bright students, advanced learners, striving pupils, and those with high but untapped potential—especially those who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, low income, or from otherwise marginalized backgrounds—whose educational needs aren’t being satisfactorily met by our schools. In response to this and a rash of high-profile, related controversies, the National Working Group on Advanced Education was formed in Spring 2022. It met four times since then, with two goals in mind: developing a robust research agenda and developing a policy and practice agenda. This document is the product of that work, and comprises thirty-six recommendations for how districts, charter networks, and states can build a continuum of advanced learning opportunities, customized to individual students’ needs and abilities, that spans the K–12 spectrum.”
WRITING WORTH READING
“New bipartisan report: Addressing equity concerns in gifted education,” Al Día News, Renata Kaminski, June 13, 2023
“New York City’s specialized high schools work,” City Journal, Wai Wah Chin, June 6, 2023
“AP course offerings, participation [in New Hampshire] linked to district’s fiscal capacity, demographics,” NH Busines Review, Michael Kitch, June 6, 2023
“Colorado teacher surprises musically gifted Ukrainian refugee student with electric piano,” CBS Colorado, Olivia Young, June 5, 2023
“NYC school admission offers are out. Here’s what the numbers show.” Chalkbeat, Amy Zimmer and Julian Shen-Berro, June 1, 2023
“Granada High students, parents [in Livermore, California] urge district to reconsider International Baccalaureate termination,” Livermore Vine, Cierra Bailey, May 31, 2023
“Neglecting gifted students in education has costs for all Australians,” UNSW Sydney, Kay Harrison, May 29, 2023
“Gifted students competing in science fair inspire hope for future,” Scripps News, Jamal Andress, May 22, 2023
A few, more enlightened states in the US require what amounts to a "Gifted" or "Talented and Gifted" Individualized Education Plan. This is a promising concept, but reports from parents in those states say that, just as with special education supports and services for students with disabilities, there are high barriers to eligibility, and once qualified, the implementation is nearly always lacking in comparison to the individual student's needs.
I will have to read the full report, but from the summary here, I strongly suspect that many, many school districts will see this report as an endorsement of what they currently claim to be doing. It goes by several names, but the one I've seem most often is "Enrichment for All", and this policy is widely used, along with a need for "socialization with peers", to deny advancement (by subject or entire grade level) to any student, no matter how far beyond grade-level expectations that student might be.
I have long suspected, and have received confirmation from more than one (now all ex) school board members that districts resist supplying "advanced education" (other than some AP classes for high schoolers) because allowing highly capable students to be taught to their capacity increases the various Achievement Gaps (race, family income, and gender) that they have been told is their most important duty to close.