The district reported that the children from underidentified populations, who were cognitively qualified, but would not otherwise have met the achievement criteria, as a group made much more rapid gains in achievement than the conventionally-identified students. This suggests that at least a significant fraction of them were able to make up the difference, once they were moved into a better matched cognitive peer group, despite lack of access to quality instruction previously. It may be that this finding would hold better with younger children, when less formal instruction has already passed at the time of identification. Alternatively, it may be that the conventionally-identified students were not receiving sufficiently challenging instruction, even within the GT program.
