The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

As a student who went through gifted programs in public elementary and in private middle and high school, but otherwise not plugged into the literature on it, what does the evidence look like that gifted/magnet programs actually provide significant tangible benefit to the students? One way to break it down would be to look at the relative number of students in these categories:

1. Students identified as gifted who do well because of their gifted program/who would have done well if they were in a gifted program. 2. Students identified as gifted who would do well regardless of whether they had a gifted program, even if they might do marginally better in a gifted program. 3. Students not identified as gifted who would benefit from additional resources/gifted peers in their non-gifted program 4. Students not identified as gifted who would not particularly benefit from gifted peers/already have adequately resourced classrooms.

I would have a hard time believing that the number of students in any of those categories is negligibly small. So then the question becomes how do we, as a society, best balance the tradeoffs between them. For any given student, we don't generally have the ability to try it both ways and see what would have been better, and of course any given parent will tend to prefer to take any tiny marginal improvement in opportunity for their children, regardless of whether it's net beneficial for society. But some of the role of society is to not allow people to take actions with mismatched externalities.

If there are more #3 students than #1 students (and/or the benefits to society are larger), and if we cannot distinguish between #2 students and #1 students, then yeah, let's get rid of gifted programs.

For myself, I think I was probably a #2—I had affluent, educated parents, benefited from significant extra-curricular enrichment, and could probably have had more enrichment with several tens of thousands of extra dollars per year of saved tuition. At what point could my parents have known that I was a #2?

At least my post is relevant to the topic, not just critiquing someone for being hangry

There is no adjustment whatsoever possible that will accurately further qualify/disqualify students from a gifted program, that is correct.

Simply "tightening" the existing fuzzy criteria will only further arbitrarily limit qualified students.

> Please explain a better system for outcomes than putting in the work and earning the outcome.

You are not understanding my point. It comes down to the criteria used to judge whether or not you've "earned" the outcome. You're assuming these are fair and I'm pointing out they are actually significantly tilted to favoring the dominant group.

Let's say my family runs the town and happens to be fast sprinters. The people of the town complain that they'd like some say in how the town is run and threaten chaos if they don't get it. We bow to pressure but we set the new rules, and say, "Fine. We'll have a town council to run things that anyone can be on. We'll hold a 100 yard-dash to determine the members." It's objective. It's based on merit. But it ensures my family says in control. If my family had been poor sprinters but strong long-distance runners we might have held a 20K race instead. Still objective. Still merit-based. You still "put in the work and earn the outcome". But it still ensures my family stays in control.

> Even the use of the word racist here is nonsense. It implies malicious intent.

It's probably useful to understand the distinction between "racism" and "systemic racism" here. Racism is the belief that one race is superior (or conversely, inferior) to another. That's someone's direct thought or intent. Systemic racism, on the other hand, is a system that hold one race down while holding another race above them. Systemic racism doesn't require anyone to have have any racist beliefs or intent. It's just a system that has a certain effect. However, once someone becomes aware of a system that advantages one race to the detriment of another, whether they decide to support it or look for a better way is where there is potential racism.

You changed the subject from being in gifted to being gifted. You can exist outside of gifted and still have a high IQ and be a successful person. So, no.