Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right: Sacrificing the Needs of Gifted Students Does Not Solve Society's Unsolved Problems

Abstract

Gifted students in our nation's schools are being denied needed services because enrollment of underserved minorities in special classes is typically disproportionate. This disproportionality is a direct result of long-standing social inequities and the consequences of poverty. We are punishing the innocent for the sins of a society that has been unable to conquer these problems. A number of well-intentioned remedies have been attempted, but we need to take care that we do not, in the name of fairness, detract from the availability or effectiveness of the programs we have. An action agenda is proposed that may improve matters; but, in the meantime, the author urges that we not abandon rigorous efforts to serve academically advanced children, whatever their backgrounds.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbott

M. L.

Joireman

(2001). The relationships among achievement, low income, and ethnicity across six groups of Washington State students. Seattle: Seattle Pacific University, Washington School Research Center.

Archambault

F. X.

Jr. Westberg

K. L.

Brown

S. W.

Hallmark

B. W.

Emmons

C. L.

Zhang

(1993). Regular classroom practices with gifted students: Results of a national survey of classroom teachers. Storrs: University of Connecticut: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Baldwin

A. Y.

Vialle

(Eds.). (1999). The many faces of giftedness: Lifting the masks. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Benbow

C. P.

Stanley

J. C.

(1996). Inequity in equity: How “equity” can lead to inequity for high-potential students. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2, 249–292.

Bittker

C. M.

(1991). Patterns of academic achievement in students who qualified for a gifted program on the basis of nonverbal tests. Roeper Review, 14, 65–67.

Bradley

R. H.

Corwyn

R. F.

McAdoo

H. P.

Coll

C. G.

(2001). The home environments of children in the United States: Part I: Variations by age, ethnicity, and poverty status. Child Development, 72, 1844–1867.

Bradley

R. H.

Corwyn

R. F.

Burchinal

McAdoo

H. P.

Coll

C. G.

(2001). The home environments of children in the United States: Part II: Relations with behavioral development through age 13. Child Development, 72, 1868–1886.

Campbell

F. A.

Pungello

E. P.

Miller-Johnson

(2001, April). Effects of early environmental risk within a high-risk sample: The Abecedarian Study. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, MN.

Cook

P. J.

Ludwig

(1998). The burden of “acting White”: Do Black adolescents disparage academic achievement? In Jencks

Phillips

(Eds.). The Black-White test score gap (pp. 375–400). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

10.

Csikszentmihalyi

Rathunde

Whalen

(1993). Talented teenagers: The roots of success and failure. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

11.

Duncan

G. J.

Brooks-Gunn

(1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

12.

Ford

D. Y.

(1994). The recruitment and retention of African American students in gifted education programs: Implications and recommendations (RBDM 9406). Storrs: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

13.

Ford

D. Y.

Harris

J. J.

III . (1991). On discovering the hidden treasure of gifted and talented African American children. Roeper Review, 13, 27–33.

14.

Ford

D. Y.

Harris

J. J.

III . (1999). Multicultural gifted education. New York: Teachers College Press.

15.

Ford

D. Y.

Harris

J. J.

Tyson

C. A.

III Trotman

M. F.

(2002). Beyond deficit thinking: Providing access for gifted African American students. Roeper Review, 24, 52–58.

16.

Fordham

Ogbu

J. U.

(1986). Black students' school success: Coping with the burden of “acting White.” The Urban Review, 18, 176–206.

17.

Gardner

(1983). Frames of mind: The Theory of multiple intelligences. New York: BasicBooks.

18.

Gentry

(1999.). Promoting student achievement and exemplary classroom practices through cluster grouping: A research-based alternative to heterogeneous elementary classrooms (Research Monograph No. 99138). Storrs: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on Gifted and Talented.

19.

Gohm

C. L.

Humphreys

L. G.

Yao

(1998). Underachievement among spatially gifted students. American Educational Research Journal, 35, 515–531.

20.

Gross

M. U. M.

(1999). Small poppies: Highly gifted children in the early years. Roeper Review, 21, 207–214.

21.

Gross

M. U. M.

(in press). From “play partner” to “sure shelter”: How do conceptions of friendship differ between average-ability, moderately gifted, and highly gifted children? Proceedings of the 5th biennial Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development. Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press.

22.

Harmon

(2002). They won't teach me: The voices of gifted African American inner-city students. Roeper Review, 24, 68–75.

23.

Heacox

(2002). Differentiating instruction in the regular classroom: How to reach and teach all learners, grades 3–12. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Press.

24.

Hocutt

A. M.

(1996). Effectiveness of special education: Is placement the critical factor? Future of Children, 6(11), 40–53.

25.

Jencks

(1998). Racial bias in testing. In Jencks

Phillips

(Eds.), The Black-White test score gap (pp. 55–85). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

26.

Jencks

Phillips

(Eds.). (1998). The Black-White test score gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

27.

Jensen

A. R.

(1979). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press.

28.

Kane

T. J.

(1998). Racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions. In Jencks

Phillips

(Eds.), The Black-White test score gap (pp. 431–456). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

29.

Lazar

Darlington

Murray

Royce

Snipper

(1982). Lasting effects of early education: A report from the Consortium of Longitudinal Studies. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 47(2–3), Serial No., 195.

30.

Louis

Lewis

Ukeje

(in preparation). Identifying and serving inner city gifted preschool children.

31.

Louis

Subotnik

R. F.

Breland

P. S.

(2000). Establishing criteria for high ability vs. selective admission to gifted programs: Implications for policy and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 12, 295–314.

32.

Matthews

D. J.

(1988). Raven's Matrices in the identification of giftedness. Roeper Review, 10, 159–162.

33.

Mayer

S. E.

(1997). What money can't buy: Family income and children's life chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

34.

Mills

C. J.

Ablard

K. E.

Brody

L. E.

(1993). The Raven's Progressive Matrices: Its usefulness for identifying gifted/talented students. Roeper Review, 15, 183–186.

35.

Morris

J. E.

(2002). African American students and gifted education: The politics of race and culture. Roeper Review, 24, 59–62.

36.

Naglieri

J. A.

(2001, August). High-stakes testing and fair assessment of minority children: Moving away from traditional IQ. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco.

37.

National Research Council. (2002). Minority students in special and gifted education. Committee on Minority Representation in Special Education, Donovan

M. S.

Cross

C. T.

, editors. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

38.

Neihart

Reis

S. M.

Robinson

N. M.

Moon

S. M.

(Eds.). (2002). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know?. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

39.

Olszewski-Kubilius

(2002). Parenting practices that promote talent development, creativity, and optimal adjustment. In Neihart

Reis

S. M.

Robinson

N. M.

Moon

S. M.

(Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 205–212). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

40.

Patterson

C. J.

Kupersmidt

J. B.

Vaden

N. A.

(1990). Income level, gender, ethnicity, and household composition as predictors of children's school-based competence. Child Development, 61, 485–494.

41.

Peng

S. S.

Wright

(1994). Explanation of academic achievement of Asian American students. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 346–352.

42.

Phillips

Brooks-Gunn

Duncan

G.J.

Klebanov

Crane

(1998). In Jencks

Phillips

(Eds.), The Black-White test score gap (pp. 103–145). Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.

43.

Purcell

J. H.

(1994). The status of programs for high ability students (CRS94306). Storrs: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

44.

Renzulli

J. S.

Reis

S. M.

(2000). The Schoolwide Enrichment Model. In Heller

K. A.

Mönks

F. J.

Sternberg

R. J.

Subotnik

R. F.

(Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (pp. 367–382). Oxford, England: Elsevier.

45.

Rimm

(2002). Peer pressures and social acceptance of gifted students. In Neihart

Reis

S. M.

Robinson

N. M.

Moon

S. M.

(Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 13–18). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

46.

Robinson

N. M.

(1999). Necessity is the mother of invention: The roots of our “system” of providing for gifted secondary students. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 10, 120–128.

47.

Robinson

N. M.

Abbott

R. D.

Berninger

V. W.

Busse

Mukhopadhyay

(1997). Developmental changes in mathematically precocious young children: Matthew and gender effects. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 145–159.

48.

Robinson

N. M.

Dale

P. D.

Landesman

(1990). Validity of Stanford-Binet IV with linguistically precocious toddlers. Intelligence, 14, 173–186.

49.

Robinson

N. M.

Lanzi

R. G.

Weinberg

R. A.

Ramey

S. L.

Ramey

C. T.

(2002). Factors associated with high academic competence in former Head Start children at third grade. Gifted Child Quarterly, 46, 281–294.

50.

Robinson

N. M.

Robinson

H. B.

(1992). The use of standardized tests with young gifted children. In Klein

P. S.

Tannenbaum

A. J.

(Eds.), To be young and gifted (pp. 141–170). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

51.

Robinson

N. M.

Zigler

Gallagher

(2000). Two tails of the normal curve: Similarities and differences in the study of mental retardation and giftedness. American Psychologist, 55, 1413–1424.

52.

Rogers

K. B.

(1992). A best-evidence synthesis of the research on acceleration options for gifted learners. In Colangelo

Assouline

S. G.

Ambroson

D. L.

(Eds.), Talent development: Proceedings from the 1991 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development (pp, 406–409). Unionville, NY: Trillium.

53.

Rogers

K. B.

(2001). Re-forming gifted education: Matching the program to the child. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press.

54.

Rowley

S. J.

Moore

J. A.

(2002). When who I am impacts how I am represented: Addressing minority student issues in different contexts. Roeper Review, 24, 63–67.

55.

Sackett

P. R.

Schmitt

Ellingson

J. E.

Kabin

M. B.

(2001). High-stakes testing in employment, credentialing, and higher education: Prospects in a post-affirmative-action world. American Psychologist, 56, 302–318.

56.

Sherman

S. W.

Robinson

N. M.

(Eds.). (1982). Ability testing of handicapped people: Dilemma for government, science, and the public. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

57.

Shore

B. G. M.

Cornell

D. G.

Robinson

Ward

V. S.

(1991). Recommended practices in gifted education: A critical analysis. New York: Teachers College Press.

58.

Sternberg

R. L.

(1981). A componential theory of intellectual giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 25, 86–93.

59.

Sternberg

R. L.

Grigorenko

E. L.

Ferrari

Clinkenbeard

(1999). A triarchic analysis of an aptitude-treatment interaction. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 15(1), 1–11.

60.

Strip

C. A.

Hirsch

(2000). Helping gifted children soar: A practical guide for parents and teachers. Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press.

61.

Styfco

S. J.

(1999). Children with special educational needs: A case study of advocacy vs. policy vs. research. In Zigler

Hall

N. W.

(Eds.), Child development and social policy: Theory and applications (pp. 251–281). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

62.

Terman

L. M.

Merrill

M. A.

(1972). The Stanford-Binet intelligence scale (3rd rev.; with tables by Thorndike

R. L.

). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

63.

Tomlinson

C. A.

(1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

64.

Tomlinson

C. A.

Kaplan

S. N.

Renzulli

J. S.

Purcell

Leppien

Burns

(2002). The parallel curriculum: A design to develop high potential and challenge high-ability learners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

65.

U.S. Department of Education. (1993). National excellence: A case for developing America's talent. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

66.

Wasserman

Becker

K. A.

(2000, August). Racial and ethnic group mean score differences in intelligence tests. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

67.

Wechsler

(1939). The measurement of adult intelligence. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

68.

Winebrenner

(2000). Teaching gifted kids in the regular classroom: Strategies and techniques every teacher can use to meet the academic needs of gifted and talented (Rev. ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Press.