Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Tracking Raises Scores of High-Ability Minorities

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22104?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw
In schools that track, top track classes will not represent all ethnic groups equally, because there are group differences in achievement and IQ test scores. But this article shows that tracking can help minority students who do qualify.

The paper is here.

Thanks for posting this interesting study.
Is it possible that ALL gifted & high achieving students (not just the identified minorities) might benefit from tracking which removes them somewhat from low teacher expectations and negative peer pressure in regular classrooms?

The forums are filled with threads about gifted students "hiding", "blending in", "dumbing down" and "underachieving" in order to be more like their age-peers in regular classrooms.

There are also numerous posts about teacher choice of "differentiation" strategy which sets low expectations. For example: having students read a book of their choice or engage in busywork if they complete work before the rest of the class is ready to move on, rather than students being taught something new at their level of readiness.

Here are some links to old threads which are related:
1) Does Gifted Education Work? For Which Students? posted September 8, 2014
2) Who gets into gifted programs? posted November 11, 2015

These studies seem to indicate that "gifted education" works for students who are not identified as gifted (being somewhat shy of the 130 IQ [116 IQ for minorities and English Language Learners]) but are still high-achieving and based upon their high achievement are placed in classrooms with gifted pupils in order to bring the pupil count in these classrooms up to 20-24. Past discussion has included that the curriculum may not have been high enough to provide significant learning for the gifted pupils, but was high enough to provide significant learning for the high-achieving pupils.

If I read these papers correctly, putting them all together we learn that the "gifted programs" studied were of less benefit to:
- gifted students with IQ 130 and above
- high achieving students with IQ just below the 130 threshold
- gifted minority/ELL students with IQ 116 and above
and were of more benefit to:
- high achieving minority/ELL students with IQ just below the 116 threshold.

Therefore the "gifted programs" studied were of more benefit to non-gifted but high-achieving minority/ELL students.

Good for those students, but what is being done to serve gifted students? Is it possible that gifted students have become the under-represented population in "gifted education"?

Perhaps. Except maybe the White and Asian kids are not subjected low expectation and negative peer pressure nearly as much.

I don't know about Asians but in NZ there is a strong anti ue academic culture among many white students. I think the deciding factor for education is tbe value placed on it at home and within the extended family.

Agreed.