Are “Gifted and Talented” Classes Responding to Political Needs of Parents and Politicians? Should We Be “Segregating” Gifted Students? [UPDATED]

Eliza Shapiro, in the August 26th NY Times  reveals, “Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York: A group appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed seismic changes to the nation’s largest school system”

Now, a high-level panel appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio is recommending that the city do away with most of these selective programs in an effort to desegregate the system, which has 1.1 million students and is by far the largest in the country.

Read full text of the recommendations here.

My blog becomes more than a speculation.

• Are gifted classes a surrogate for creating segregated classes?
• Are gifted classes an affirmation of perceived parenting skills?
• Are gifted classes a strategy for preventing white flight or embedding gentrification?

The Chancellor’s Advisory Task Force on Diversity agrees with much of my musings.

The debate around whether the Specialization High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) is discriminatory is part of decades long, a many decades long discussion of gifted classes, sometimes enlarged to gifted and talented classes.

Since the 1920’s New York City had IGC classes, classes for “Intellectually Gifted Children” beginning in grade four and in Junior High Schools, SP classes, “Special Progress, “ in grades seven through nine. The eligibility: scores on New York City Reading and Math tests; yes, the city gave tests way back into the past.

The debate was homogeneous versus heterogeneous classes.

“Progressive” schools supported heterogeneous classes; most schools divided kids by scores on the city tests into classes by perceived ability.

Parents and teachers who favor homogeneous grouping argue teachers can better target instruction if the range of abilities in a class are narrower, actually research supports heterogeneous classes.   One could argue that homogeneous grouping advocates show an implicit bias, they want their kid in classes with other “similar” kids by race and class.

Another continuing argument is the very definition of giftedness. The National Association for Gifted Children describes a number of frameworks: Gagne, Renzulli and Gardner have definitions of giftedness; I have always looked to Robert J Sternberg’s definition of intelligence.

 The traditional view of intelligence is that it comprises a single general ability, under which are hierarchically arranged successively more specific levels of abilities, such as fluid ability (the ability to think flexibly and in novel ways) and crystallized ability (cumulative knowledge).

The augmented theory of successful intelligence, in contrast, suggests that intelligence is more complex than this.  Successful intelligence is defined as one’s ability to set and accomplish personally meaningful goals in one’s life, given one’s cultural context.  A successfully intelligent person accomplishes these goals by figuring out his or her strengths and weaknesses, and then by capitalizing on the strengths and correcting or compensating for the weaknesses.  Strengths and weaknesses are in terms of four kinds of skills:  creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based.  In particular, the individual needs to be creative in order to generate novel and useful ideas; analytical to ascertain that the ideas he/she has (and that others have) are good ones; practical in order to apply those ideas and convince others of their value; and wise in order to ensure that implementation of the ideas will help ensure a common good through the mediation of positive ethical principles. 

In New York City the definition of giftedness or intelligence is scores on tests.

New York City has been plagued since the formation of the city by bitter disputes over education policy.

For a detailed discussion see The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973—A History of the Public Schools as Battlefield of Social Change   by Diane Ravitch (1974).

After a decade of attacks on the central bureaucracy the Board of Education crumbled. The social engineering theory of the 60’s was to place “power” in the hands of communities and New York City became the laboratory. The school system was “decentralized;” locally elected school boards had wide ranging authority over elementary and middle schools. Elected school boards hired superintendents and principals and set curriculum priorities.

Some districts retained the IGC and SP classes, a few districts clustered “gifted” students into single schools, others created gifted classes on every grade in every school. The definition of giftedness was left to each school district.  A few districts used external organizations to define giftedness and used IQ-type tests to identify students.

The elected school boards reflected the views of parents and voters within every district.

The election of Michael Bloomberg in 2001 led to the end of decentralization and a conversion to mayoral control and the hiring of a lawyer with no school experience as superintendent.

The Bloomberg/Klein regency replaced the district-based gifted programs with a centralized program. Students were tested beginning with kindergarten and placed in gifted class in schools selected by the bureaucracy.

A large percentage of the schools were placed in more affluent districts.

Criticism has continued with few adjustments to the program.

.Every winter, thousands of New Yorkers take a standardized test that will determine their future opportunities. Some of them have studied for months, even paid for expensive test prep classes. And after it’s all over, maybe they can go back to playing with blocks, practicing tying their shoelaces, and singing the ABCs.

These aren’t high school students taking the SAT—they’re children as young as four years old, entering kindergarten through third grade, who take New York City’s Gifted and Talented (G&T) admissions test, hoping for a coveted seat in one of the 103 G&T programs across the city’s public elementary schools. Under the current system, this test score is the sole G&T eligibility criterion.

The stated purpose of New York City’s G&T programs is to “[support] the educational needs of exceptional students.” But in practice, they amount to a segregated academic track that benefits mostly White, Asian, middle-class students—namely, the students more likely to have educational advantages to begin with.

The G&T programs targeted middle class neighborhoods.

The portfolio model at the core of the Bloomberg/Klein educational policy emphasized the creation of charter schools, the closing of over 150 low performing schools and the creation of hundreds of small high schools, many of which were screened, principals could select students.

Bloomberg/Klein aggressively closed low performing high schools. In 1990 there were 110 comprehensive high schools with registers ranging from 2000 to over 5000 students and 25 vocational high schools.

According to the Department website currently there are now 489 high schools in the city, only about 20 are “large” high schools, the remainder are small high schools; multiple high schools housed in the building of the closed high schools. Each year the Department “publishes” the High School Directory. over 600 pages, describing each school and the admission process. Students “rank” up to twelve schools and an algorithm spins and assigns students.

For example Eleanor Roosevelt High School, a screened school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the wealthiest zip code in the city has 540 students, 3% of whom are Afro-American. The school is easily accessible by public transportation from any neighborhood in Manhattan. Townsend Harris High School, a screened school in Queens has 1140 students, 6% of whom are Afro-American.  A few, very few, screened schools are well-integrated by race/ethnicity, Columbia Secondary, in Harlem, 38% Hispanic, 26% Black, 22% White, 8% Asian and on the school performance dashboard at the highest ends of the scale.  Check out data for any school here.

In the pre-Bloomberg/Klein era high schools were “comprehensive,” schools had a wide range of students by ability: advanced placement classes, elective classes, arts and music classes, vocational and commercial classes, a wide range of teams and extracurricular activities, all in the same building. Many schools included an educational option program; a small percentage of students could apply and were selected by an algorithm.

In theory multiple small schools in the same building could combine resources to deliver a wide range of classes and activities, aside from sports teams it doesn’t happen. In fact many small high schools struggle to reach enrollment goals, faced with cutting services or increasing class sizes.

High schools with 800 – 1200 students allow for far more diverse schools, diverse by course offerings as well as student abilities.

Centrally created gifted programs smack of programs created to satisfy the needs of more affluent and politically influential parents. White privilege?

A few comprehensive large high schools remain, and they are thriving.

The school system needs a serious overhaul, implied bias training ($23 million) and culturally relevant sustaining education, as long as they not checklists are fine; however, a dysfunctional school structure is at the core of obstacles to improving outcomes for all students.

Catering to a cohort of “gifted” students is not improving outcomes for all students.

As I have proposed time and time again the most important decisions, decisions that impact students should be made at the school level with guidance and support from superintendents and the chancellor.

The Advisory Task Force recommendations will require the approval of the Mayor and I expect a vigorous debate, as vigorous as the current debate of the Specialized High Schools admissions test.