937633

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JOAXXX10.1177/1932202X20937633Journal of Advanced AcademicsYaluma and Tyner

Article
Journal of Advanced Academics

Are U.S. Schools Closing

2021, Vol. 32(1) 28­–53
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1932202X20937633
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Schools’ Gifted Participation

and Representation Trends
(2012–2016)

Christopher B. Yaluma1 and Adam Tyner2

Abstract
This article tests hypotheses by examining variations in the percentage of elementary
and middle schools offering gifted and talented programs as well as gifted student
participation and representation between 2012 and 2016. Using the Office of Civil
Rights and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Common Core
data, we find that between 2012 and 2016, the percentage of schools with gifted
programs declined slightly. Crucially, gifted participation is increasing faster in
low-poverty schools than in high-poverty schools. Furthermore, suburban schools
became more likely to have gifted programs than urban, rural, or town schools.
However, gifted participation by urbanicity decreased across all four locales. Using
only 2016 data, we show that students who are Black and Hispanic continue to
be statistically underrepresented. We conclude with a brief discussion and policy
implications.

Keywords
gifted, gifted and talented, participation, representation, race, low-income, high-
poverty, local norms, universal screening, policy, education policy, trends, gifted gap

1
The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA
2
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:
Christopher B. Yaluma, Page Hall, 1810 College Rd., Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Email: yaluma.1@osu.edu
Yaluma and Tyner 29

Introduction
This article examines variations in the percentage of elementary and middle schools
offering gifted and talented (GT) programs as well as gifted student participation and
representation between 2012 and 2016. Gifted programing may be in decline because
of political backlash as well as the cyclical nature of interest in gifted programs.
According to Jolly (2009), “no other special group of children has been so alternately
embraced and repelled with so much rigor by educators and laypersons alike” (p. 37).
This has led to “either or” propositions, such as the recent recommendation by a panel
of investigators to eliminate all gifted programs in New York City public schools
(Shapiro, 2019). Jolly (2009) also notes that the discourse on excellence and equity
often mirrors the pendulum swing of society’s priorities. When there is a perceived
need to compete in science internationally, excellence is sought and GT programs
become a national priority. As public attention moves toward equity, however, politi-
cal support for gifted education may weaken as opponents of the programs often frame
them as vehicles of inequity.
The objective of this study is twofold—first, we analyze variability in access to GT
programs among all public elementary and middle schools in the United States. Then
we examine variability in representation and participation of students from low-
income and minority backgrounds in GT programs during the study period. Drawing
from the recent history of accelerated programming in the United States, we develop
three hypotheses about how GT programs may have changed in recent years and test
them by analyzing national data and conducting descriptive analyses. Specifically, we
test hypotheses related to changes in the prevalence of gifted programming, overall
GT participation, and GT participation by students from underrepresented groups.
The layout of the article is as follows. First, we begin with a brief historical back-
ground that lays out the history of differentiation programs and the controversies
around “tracking.” Next, we review the literature on the participation of students from
underrepresented groups in gifted programs. With this background in mind, we then
present our research questions and hypotheses before explaining our data sources and
research methods. Then we lay out our findings in the following sections, concluding
by discussing study limitations, offering discussion of policy implications, and sug-
gesting future research directions.

A Brief Historical Background

Differentiation and Tracking
Debates in the United States about whether and how to differentiate programming for
students go back to at least 1892, when The Committee of Ten, spearheaded by the
then Harvard President Charles Eliot, put forward a list of recommendations in
response to a mismatch between high school curriculums and college admission
requirements (Bohan, 2003; Dexter, 1906; Loveless, 1999). The Committee, which
recommended that all students study a general, undifferentiated curriculum, based its
proposals on what it considered to be the goals of education and its conviction that all
30 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

students in a democracy should have a broad education. Twenty-six years later, the
National Education Association (NEA) released its Cardinal Principles of Secondary
Education, which, among other things, favored a differentiated curriculum in schools.
In contrast to the recommendations of the Committee of Ten, the Cardinal Principles
argued for curricula to meet the needs of different types of students, as its supporters
believed that “cultivating student’s intellectual powers” was essential only to a few
students who would go to college (Loveless, 1999, p. 32). Since this era, it has been
common for American schools to offer differentiated programs (Gamoran, 2010;
Wheelock, 1994).
In more recent years, the so-called “tracking wars” have seen debates among par-
ents and educators on the value of differentiated programming and its impacts on
achievement gaps. In her seminal 1985 book Keeping Track: How Schools Structure
Inequality, Jeannie Oakes identified inequality as a leading problem in education and
“tracking,” which she defined as “the process whereby students are divided into cate-
gories so that they can be assigned in groups to various kinds of classes,” as a key
driver of inequality (Oakes, 2005, p. 3). In fact, tracking often refers more specifically
to the use of differentiated programming with relatively rigid grouping and long times-
pans, such as when students are separated into academic and vocational pathways that
persist over years. For example, Lucas (1999) refers to tracking as “the practice of
dividing students into programs that rigidly prescribed their course of study and that
admitted little opportunity for mobility from program to program” (p. 1).
The “tracking wars” both elevated these issues and prompted many equity-minded
educators to oppose the concept of different classes for students achieving at different
levels. For example, the National Governors Associations, the NEA, and the National
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have recommended complete elimination of
rigid, non-flexible tracking on the grounds that the practice was inequitable (Worthy
et al., 2009). Still, objections to the elimination of differentiated programs have come
from educators and parents who believe that cutting the programs would compromise
the education of academically exceptional students or high achievers (Oakes, 2005).
In California during the late 1980s, the California Association for the Gifted (CAG)
also opposed the elimination of separate accelerated programs, arguing that gifted
children deserved to have access to programs that challenged them (Loveless, 1999).
Advocates asserted that “gifted students were as far from the norm and as ‘needy’ of
separate learning environments as low-IQ students” (Oakes, 2005, p. 221). While
some programs were merely re-branded, reforms during this era led to the elimination
of programs or increased flexibility (Oakes, 2005). Some GT programs would there-
fore be regarded as flexible “ability grouping” rather than rigid “tracking.”
When differentiated programs were eliminated, schools sometimes found that the
changes had unintended consequences. Scholars have pointed out that, ironically, the
dismantling of formal tracking programs may have contributed to the “increased infor-
mational gap between parents of middle- and upper-middle-class students and parents
of low-income and minority students by removing clarity about the system that once
existed” (Worthy et al., 2009, p. 227). More fundamentally, Loveless (1999) argues
that the concerns about increased inequality due to tracking do not align with the data.
Yaluma and Tyner 31

Schools that moved to eliminate differentiation in the 1980s were doing so as mea-
sures of educational inequity, such as the black–white test score gap, were falling. Yet
in the period after the mid-1980s, when Oakes and other reformers successfully
worked to eliminate many forms of differentiation, measures of inequality rebounded
and inequality continued to increase throughout the 1990s.

Participation of Students From Underrepresented

Groups in Accelerated Programming
Given persistent achievement gaps, much recent work on the connection between dif-
ferentiation and inequality has focused on the various methods and processes used to
identify students for accelerated programming (Callahan et al., 2017; Card & Giuliano,
2016; Ford, 1998). An important theme is that many of the methods and processes
used to identify students for GT programs may under-identify low-income and minor-
ity students who would benefit from acceleration. For example, teacher referrals and
the use of norm-referenced standardized tests or some form of intelligence test for
screening purposes is known to weed out students from low-income and traditionally
underrepresented backgrounds because these tests may not reflect these students’ life
experiences and cultures (Grissom et al., 2017).
To shed more light on teacher referrals as a method of identification, Lamb et al.
(2019) use an inequity score to reveal that “increases in the percent of White teachers
is associated with lower [inequity score], which indicates greater inequity in identify-
ing Hispanic students for GT programming” (p. 11). These inequities were consistent
across all district locales (city, suburban, town, and rural). Similarly, Grissom and
Redding (2015) found that students who are Black are referred to gifted programs,
particularly in reading, at significantly lower rates when taught by non-Black teach-
ers. These findings illustrate important challenges and issues with teacher referral
systems. If school districts are to improve the diversity and equity of their gifted
programs, other identification and screening methods need to be emphasized. For
example, Card and Giuliano (2016) showed that when schools utilize universal
screening procedures without changing standards for gifted eligibility, there was a
large increase in gifted participation and representation of economically disadvan-
taged and minority students.
Ford (1998) also illustrated concerns over the recruitment and retention of students
from minority backgrounds in gifted programs. She noted that school and student-
related factors that inhibit identification and retention of underrepresented groups
include identification instruments and screening procedures, lack of proper teacher
training in gifted and urban education, peer pressure from other minority students, as
well as fear of social isolation in predominantly white gifted programs. Similarly,
Yoon and Gentry (2009) attributed the disproportional representation of students in
GT programs to varied definitions of giftedness, identification procedures, and identi-
fication policies.
Applying similar methods to Yoon and Gentry, Peters, Gentry, et al. (2019) find that
gifted disproportionality has continued with a few state-level exceptions. Using a
32 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Representation Index (RI), an index that denotes the degree to which a certain group
of students is represented in the gifted population compared with the total student
population, they reported that at the national level, “African American, Latinx, and
Native American students remain underrepresented (2016 RIs of 0.57, 0.70, and 0.87,
respectively) and European American and Asian American students remain well rep-
resented (RIs of 1.18 and 2.01, respectively)” (p. 276). In addition, students with lim-
ited English proficiency (LEP) and those who received services under IDEA also
continue to be underrepresented in gifted programs. They also note that “simply hav-
ing state mandates does not appear to translate to proportionality” (p. 280).
To analyze variation in gifted identification within a southern, urban public school
district that used a cognitive test for identification, Carman et al. (2018) concluded that
the use of Cognitive Abilities Tests (CogAT) exhibited demographic group differences
which leads to disproportional identification. They suggest that instruments that

Display group differences (which includes all cognitive-related tests) should only be used
as part of a GT identification process with the understanding that users may not achieve
the results they seek (proportional identification) solely through the use of a nonverbal
instrument. (p. 204)

Other scholars (Hodges, Tay, Maeda, & Gentry, 2018) suggest that to have propor-
tional identification, traditional methods of identification (i.e., IQ and standardized
achievement tests) should be used in combination with nontraditional methods of
identification (i.e., nonverbal tests, student portfolios, affective checklists). Despite
concerns about the limitations of using standardized tests for gifted screening, school
districts continue to over rely on these methods for identification. Callahan et al.
(2017) used three leveled surveys of 1,566 school district personnel respondents (ele-
mentary, middle, and high school) in separate school districts and found that “sixty
percent of the district coordinators reported using a predetermined score or percentile
on an intelligence/aptitude test or achievement test as the qualifying criteria for receiv-
ing gifted education services automatically” (p. 29).
Other studies have also consistently documented the academic achievement gaps
that exist among racial/ethnic subgroups and low-income students (Evans, 2005; Flores,
2007). While the reasons for the disparities are likely multiple, overwhelming evidence
shows that Hispanic, Black, and students from low-income backgrounds tend to enter
school less prepared than their White, Asian, and more affluent peers (Flores, 2007).
Differences in resources, family structure, and access to quality educational programs
have consequences that likely drive these disparities in academic preparation, with later
consequences for who will be identified for acceleration.
A related issue is the wide variation in the achievement level of students in any given
classroom, school, or grade. Firmender et al. (2013) analyzed 1,149 students in five
diverse elementary schools, including a GT magnet school, and found a range in read-
ing comprehension of nine grade levels among third graders. Among fourth graders in
those schools, the range was 11 grade levels. These inequalities may come in various
forms including “excellence gaps”—differences between subgroups of students
Yaluma and Tyner 33

performing at the highest level (Plucker & Peters, 2020). Plucker et al. (2013) have
argued that underrepresentation (lack of equity) has contributed to large and growing
excellence gaps. Peters and Engerrand (2016) have argued for a scalable method that
could help balance the seemingly competing goals of equity and excellence. To some,
the development of excellence is all that matters. However, research evidence suggests
that excellence and equity do not need to be at odds (Harris & Plucker, 2014; Wright
et al., 2017).
Studies (notably Card & Giuliano, 2016) have shown that it is possible to combat
underrepresentation while also maintaining rigorous standards. Screening procedures
based on recommendations and referrals may discriminate against students from low-
income and minority backgrounds whereas universal screening may increase their par-
ticipation (Card & Giuliano, 2016). Other alternatives that might mitigate
underrepresentation of students from low-income and minority backgrounds include
nontraditional identification methods (Hodges, Tay, Maeda, & Gentry, 2018). Hodges
et al. provide evidence that nontraditional methods narrow the proportional identifica-
tion gap between underrepresented and represented populations. However, they con-
tend that nontraditional methods alone do not address the issue of education inequity.
To address education inequity and effectively deal with disproportionality, they sug-
gest the use of nontraditional methods of identification in conjunction with other
pathways.
With the lessons of the “tracking wars” in mind, it is worthwhile to assess the extent
to which access to GT programs for low-income and minority students may be increas-
ing or decreasing over time as well as potential changes in the prevalence of schools
offering gifted programs. Pointing to connections between policy, funding, and
inequality, Kettler et al. (2015) found that only Florida and Virginia had “policies and
plans to provide equitable funding for gifted education to ensure equitable distribution
of programming opportunities” (p. 102). They showed that rural schools, small
schools, and schools with larger economically disadvantaged populations allocate less
fiscal and human resources to gifted services. Indeed, schools in rural areas have
unique challenges and the complexities of rural gifted education require nuance.
Rasheed (2020) reviewed the literature on rural gifted education and noted that fund-
ing constraints in many rural schools imply that gifted testing is only offered to those
students who are referred for gifted identification. Puryear and Kettler (2017) com-
pared gifted opportunities in rural versus non-rural districts in Texas, finding that
“gifted and potentially gifted students living in rural locations tend to have fewer
opportunities for gifted education services than students living in nonrural locales”
(p. 151). Lawrence (2009) conducted a comprehensive review of the literature from
1990 to 2003 and found that students in rural settings are less likely to be identified as
gifted and generally have fewer opportunities for gifted education services. Comparing
types of non-rural schools, Baker (2001) found that students in districts that are large,
suburban, or both large and suburban, are more likely than those in urban districts to
have access to GT programs.
Focusing on student factors, Peters, Gentry, et al. (2019) describe trends in gifted
participation by student race/ethnicity, LEP status, and students with disabilities,
34 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

finding that participation for these groups varies based on state gifted mandates such
as whether a state mandates gifted identification, accelerated services, or both. The
present study extends this work by describing trends in access to and participation in
GT programs for schools of different sizes, with different levels of student poverty,
and different settings (urban, suburban, town, and rural). We also analyze race/ethnic-
ity trends specific to high-poverty schools to determine whether they differ from over-
all national trends. By contextualizing these trends, we are able to explore the extent
to which school and locational factors may impact GT programs.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

The objective of this study is to evaluate variability in access to gifted programs among
all public elementary and middle schools in the United States. Then analyze variability
in representation and participation of students from low-income and minority back-
grounds in gifted programs. To investigate, we developed the following research ques-
tions and hypotheses:

Research Questions
1. Research Question 1: Are elementary and middle school gifted programs
becoming less common between 2012 and 2016? If so, to what extent?
2. Research Question 2: To what extent did overall gifted student participation
decline between 2012 and 2016?
3. Research Question 3: During the same time period, is there a decrease in
gifted student participation and representation of students who are Black and
Hispanic in high-poverty schools? If so, to what extent?

Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: The proportion of schools with gifted programs has not changed
overtime. In other words, there is no difference between 2012 and 2016.
Alternative Hypothesis 1: The proportion of schools with gifted programs has
fallen between 2012 and 2016.
Hypothesis 2: The proportion of students enrolled in gifted programs, especially in
high-poverty schools and across locales, has not changed between 2012 and 2016.
Alternative Hypothesis 2: The proportion of students enrolled in gifted programs,
especially in high-poverty schools and across locales, has decreased between 2012
and 2016.
Hypothesis 3: In high-poverty schools, racial participation and representation of
Black and Hispanic students in gifted programs has not changed between 2012 and
2016.
Alternative Hypothesis 3: In high-poverty schools, racial participation and repre-
sentation of Black and Hispanic students in gifted programs has decreased between
2012 and 2016.
Yaluma and Tyner 35

Data and Methods

We conduct national analyses of GT programs for all public elementary and mid-
dle schools using data from two sources: The Department of Education’s Office
for Civil Rights (OCR), and the National Center for Educational Statistics
(NCES).
The OCR data include gifted program enrollment for each school by student
racial/ethnic group, and the NCES data include the proportion of students who
qualify for free and reduced-price lunch and school enrollments for each racial and
ethnic group. First, we appended the 2011–2012, 2013–2014, and 2015–2016
OCR GT enrollment data.1 Then, we merged the 2009–2010, 2010–2011, 2011–
2012, 2012–2013, 2013–2014, 2014–2015, and 2015–2016 NCES school data on
enrollment and other school-level data. As data describing the percentage of stu-
dents qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL) were missing for 2.7% of
elementary and middle schools in the years of OCR data we analyze, for these data
points, we use the most recent year of data available in NCES, or, when the “neigh-
boring” years are available and not the same year, we use an average of the neigh-
boring years. After preparing these data sources, we then merge them using the
unique identifiers in both data sets.
Next, we divided gifted enrollment by school enrollment for each student sub-
group and for the school overall to calculate the percentage of students enrolled in
gifted education. School poverty is gauged by participation in the FRPL program.2
We follow NCES’s poverty classification, which defines low-poverty schools as
having no more than 25% of students on FRPL, middle-poverty schools between
25% and 75.0%, and high-poverty schools as those having 75.0% or more (NCES,
2020).
Our national sample includes 197,405 school-year observations of elementary and
middle schools, 185,072 of which represent schools with more than 20 students per
grade and are therefore included in all figures.3 These observations represent 70,538
unique elementary and middle schools. More than one quarter of the national sample
(26.8%) are high-poverty schools, 19.2% are low-poverty, and a majority (54.0%) are
classified as middle-poverty.
For school-level analyses (e.g., in calculating the percentage of schools with gifted
programs), we exclude very small schools—those with fewer than an average of 20
students per grade, as these schools are much less likely to have gifted programs and,
by definition, serve fewer students.4

Findings
Section I: Availability and Access Overtime
During the period from 2012 to 2016, Figure 1 below shows that, the percentage of
elementary and middle schools with gifted programs declined slightly from 69.5% of
schools in 2012 to 68.5% of schools in 2016.
36 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Figure 1.  Proportion of schools with gifted programs between 2012 and 2016 (down very
slightly—average school N = 61,735). Source: 2012 – 2016 Office for Civil Rights data.

In Figure 2, we see that in the schools with gifted programs, participation declined
very slightly during this period, from 8.8% of students in 2012 to 8.7% of students in
2016. Essentially, gifted enrollment held stable during this period.

Figure 2.  Gifted enrollment rates between 2012 and 2016 (down very slightly—average
school N = 43,697). Source: 2012 – 2016 Office for Civil Rights data.

Section II: Gifted Program Variations

Gifted programs are much more common in larger schools. Figure 3 shows that for a
school with 175 to 225 students, the probability of having a gifted program is 51.5%,
whereas more than 75% of schools with more than 625 students have GT programs.
More than 80% of large schools with more than 825 students have the programs.5
Yaluma and Tyner 37

Figure 3.  Percentage of schools with gifted programs by school enrollment (204 school-
year observations with greater than 1,500 enrollment excluded). Sources: 2015 – 16
National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Analyzing the likelihood of having gifted programs and school enrollment disag-
gregated by year (2012, 2014, and 2016), we get the following graph, Figure 4. This
graph indicates that there is very little variation in the percentage of schools with
gifted programs by school enrollment for the three analyzed school years.

Figure 4.  Percentage of schools with gifted programs by school enrollment disaggregated
by year. Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil
Rights data.
38 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

The likelihood of having a gifted program does not vary much by school poverty
level, and low-poverty schools are slightly less likely to have the programs than other
schools (Figure 5). In 2016, Table 1 shows that 65.4% of low-poverty schools had
gifted programs, whereas 69.9% of middle-poverty schools, and 68.1% of high-pov-
erty schools had the programs.

Figure 5.  Percentage of schools with gifted programs by school poverty (2016 only).
Sources: 2015-16 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Almost all of the decrease in the percentage of schools with gifted programs during
the period of study comes from a decrease in low-poverty schools with the programs
(see Table 1). The percentage of low-poverty schools with gifted programs dropped
from 68.0% in 2012 to 65.4% in 2016, a decline of 3.8% (see Figure 6). The preva-
lence of the programs in middle-poverty schools also decreased slightly, but in high-
poverty schools, the prevalence of gifted programs increased very slightly, rising from
67.9% to 68.1% of schools (a change of 0.3%) (Figure 6).

Table 1.  Schools With Gifted Programs by Poverty-Level by Year.

Poverty 2012 (%) 2014 (%) 2016 (%)

Low 68.0 66.5 65.4
Middle 70.9 69.5 69.9
High 67.9 68.9 68.1

Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.
Yaluma and Tyner 39

Figure 6.  Percentage change of schools with gifted programs by poverty. Sources: 2012
– 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

The period of study saw slight declines in the likelihood of having a gifted pro-
gram for schools in rural, urban, and town areas (see Table 2). When looking at the
prevalence of programs by urbanicity, only suburban schools became more likely to
have the programs during this period, although the increase of 1.2% is still very small
(Figure 7).

Table 2.  Schools With Gifted Programs by Urbanicity by Year.

Locale 2012 (%) 2014 (%) 2016 (%)

Rural 71.2 67.4 68.9
Town 67.7 67.4 66.5
Suburb 68.1 68.5 68.9
City 70.5 71.6 68.6

Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.
40 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Figure 7.  Percentage change of schools with gifted programs by urbanicity. Sources: 2012 –
2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

In general, there is little correlation between the racial/ethnic makeup of a school

and its likelihood of having a gifted program. Figure 8 below shows that schools that
have very little minority enrollment are somewhat less likely to have gifted programs,
and schools with nearly 100% minority enrollment are the least likely to have these
programs.

Figure 8.  Percentage of schools with gifted programs against percent minority students.
Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.
Yaluma and Tyner 41

Section III: Gifted Participation

Next, we turn to gifted participation in different types of elementary and middle
schools with gifted programs. Gifted participation is highest in low-poverty schools,
and it has been increasing steadily in those schools during the period of study (see
Table 3). Gifted participation in low-poverty schools with the programs increased
from 11.9% in 2012 to 12.7% in 2016, an increase of 6.7%. Participation in high-
poverty schools also increased, although not as much as in their low-poverty counter-
parts. Participation in high-poverty schools rose from 5.6% to 5.8%—an increase of
3.6% (see Figure 9). In middle-poverty schools, gifted participation declined very
slightly during the study period, falling 1.1% (Figure 9).

Table 3.  Gifted Enrollment Rates by School Poverty by Year.

Poverty 2012 (%) 2014 (%) 2016 (%)

Low 11.9 12.3 12.7
Middle 8.9 9.0 8.8
High 5.6 6.0 5.8

Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Figure 9.  Percentage change in gifted enrollment rates by school poverty. Sources: 2012 –
2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

When looking at gifted enrollment in schools with gifted programs by urbanicity,

enrollment falls in all schools in all types of places (see Table 4). Figure 10 indicates
that the decline is greatest in towns, where gifted enrollment dropped 5.5% during the
study period. Gifted enrollment was flattest in suburban schools, where the slight
42 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

decrease does not even register a tenth of a percentage point. Gifted enrollment fell by
3.2% in urban areas and 2.4% in rural areas.6

Table 4.  Gifted Enrollment Rates by Urbanicity by Year.

Locale 2012 (%) 2014 (%) 2016 (%)

Rural 8.2 8.0 8.0
Town 7.3 7.0 6.9
Suburb 9.3 9.2 9.3
City 9.3 9.4 9.0

Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Figure 10.  Percentage change in gifted enrollment by urbanicity. Sources: 2012 – 2016
National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Section IV: Proportionality by Race

Among all elementary and middle urban, suburban, and rural schools with gifted pro-
grams, a total of 8.7% of students are enrolled in gifted programs. Asian students
constitute 4.9% of the overall student population and 8.6% of students enrolled in
gifted programs. Black students constitute 15.0% of the student population and 9.9%
of those enrolled in gifted programs. Hispanic students constitute 27.5% of the student
population and 20.8% of students enrolled in gifted programs (see Figure 11 below).
Finally, White students constitute 47.5% of the student population and 54.7% of stu-
dents enrolled in gifted programs.
Yaluma and Tyner 43

Figure 11.  Racial/ethnic proportionality compared against overall student population (2016 only).
Sources: 2015-16 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Another way to look at the racial/ethnic proportionality of gifted programs is to

examine the percentage of each student subgroup participating in gifted programs (see
Figures 12 and 13 for 2016 and 2012 school years, respectively). In 2016, Figure 12
illustrates that compared with 8.7% of gifted students overall, 16.3% are Asian, 5.6% are
Black, 6.3% are Hispanic, and 10.9% are White.When looking at gifted participation by
race over time for all schools (low, middle, and high poverty), we find that participation
drops slightly or remains very similar for all student groups. In Figure 14, we see that for
Asian, Black, and White students, the share of students participating in gifted programs
overtime drops slightly, with Black students experiencing the largest drop. For Hispanic
students, the share of students participating rose by 0.5% in 2016 from 2012, a change
that barely registers when rounding to a tenth of a percentage point. Hispanic students
also increase as a proportion of the overall sample of students during this period, rising
from 21.2% of students in 2012 to 23.1% of students in 2016.

Figure 12.  Racial/ethnic proportionality compared against overall gifted participation.

Sources: 2015-16 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.
Note. All schools—low, middle, and high poverty (2016).
44 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Figure 13.  Racial/ethnic proportionality compared against overall gifted participation.

Sources: 2011-12 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.
Note. All schools—low, middle, and high poverty (2012).

Figure 14.  Percentage change in gifted participation rates by race (change over time for
all schools—low, middle, and high poverty). Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for
Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights data.

Section V: High-Poverty Schools’ Proportionality by Race

When looking at gifted participation in high-poverty schools with gifted programs, we
saw a slight increase in overall participation from 2012 to 2016 (comparing Figures 15
& 16 below), and in Figure 17 we see that this increase is entirely attributable to an
increase in Hispanic participation in these programs. Specifically, gifted participation
drops for all student subgroups except Hispanic. For Asian, Black, and White students,
the share of students participating in gifted programs overtime drops by 5.1%, 4.2%,
Yaluma and Tyner 45

and 3.3%, respectively. For Hispanic students, the share of GT participation rose by
5.8% in 2016 from 2012, a very large change considering all other subgroups experi-
enced declines. However, Hispanic students also increase as a proportion of the overall
sample of students in high poverty schools during this period, rising from 36.3 percent
in 2012 to 41.5 percent of students in 2016.

Figure 15.  High-poverty schools’ racial/ethnic proportionality against their overall gifted
participation. Sources: 2011-12 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil
Rights data.
Note. Only high-poverty schools (2012).

Figure 16.  High-poverty schools’ racial/ethnic proportionality against their overall gifted
participation. Sources: 2015-16 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil
Rights data.
Note. Only high-poverty schools (2016).
46 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Figure 17.  High-poverty schools’ percentage change in gifted participation by race

overtime. Sources: 2012 – 2016 National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil
Rights data.

As of 2015-16 school year, we see that in high poverty schools with gifted pro-
grams, although 5.8% of all students participate in GT programs, 12.9% of gifted
students are Asian, 4.6% of gifted students are Black, 5.5% of gifted students are
Hispanic, and 8.9% of gifted students are White (refer back to Figure 16).

Limitations
Although we are able to calculate the proportion of students qualifying for FRPL in
each school, we are unable to identify which FRPL students enroll in gifted program-
ming. Because we limit some analysis to schools with at least 75.0% of FRPL stu-
dents, we can be confident that findings are applicable to many students who are
high-poverty. In fact, 75.0% is only the lowest bound for our high-poverty schools,
and more than half of the high-poverty schools in our analytic sample have more than
88% of their students qualifying for lunch benefits. Nevertheless, we can never be
certain and we recognize that this is a limitation to our findings on participation and
proportionality. In addition, because we are using non-restricted, publicly available,
OCR data, there is a minor loss of granularity in our data set. There is also additional
noise added to the data set due to rounding.
Finally, because of the nature of the data, we use binary classifications of gifted
enrollment for students. We do not have data on the quality or characteristics of gifted
programming, and this is known to vary considerably across schools. Whether gifted
programming is targeted to specific subjects, what types of professional development
Yaluma and Tyner 47

that teachers of gifted students experience, and the extent to which students can engage
curriculum outside of their grade level are questions beyond the scope of this study.
Furthermore, we have no information about what constitutes “gifted programming,”
as the OCR provides no guidance to states about what to include or exclude.7 Results
are based on data reported to the U.S. Department of Education, and in some cases, the
latter may be incomplete or simply incorrect. If states or districts vary in the way that
they choose to report gifted enrollment or other related data, then we have a potential
measurement validity issue.

Discussion and Policy Implications

Our findings show that between 2012 and 2016, the percentage of elementary and
middle schools with gifted programs declined slightly from 69.5% of schools in 2012
to 68.5% of schools in 2016. Although this finding confirms our first alternative
hypothesis (that the proportion of schools with gifted programs has fallen between
2012 and 2016), it is very minimal, and the critical takeaway is that the period did not
see any growth in the number of elementary and middle schools offering GT pro-
grams. This lack of growth is further indication of the field’s persistent struggle to
convince policymakers at all levels of government of its importance. This was also
evident in the 2009 U.S. government stimulus plan that approved more than 12 billion
dollars for IDEA/IDEIA but no funds were allocated for gifted education and the exist-
ing Javits program was reduced to US$0 during the 2011 budget negotiations
(Gallagher, 2015). Hodges, Tay, Desmet, et al. (2018) also demonstrate an overall
trend of shrinking budgets allocated toward gifted education in Texas. Interestingly,
they also found that the 2008 recession adversely affected GT funding for suburban
school districts. Remarkably, a new report by the Institute for Educational Advancement
found that most Americans support increased funding for gifted education as well as
specific programmatic improvements (Jones & Gallagher, 2019). Although practically
and politically challenging to implement policy changes to the administration and
funding of gifted programs, there is a need for policymakers to begin acknowledging
the important role gifted programs can play to both promote educational excellence
and improve equity.
The period we study also highlight declines in the likelihood of having a gifted
program for schools in rural, urban, and town areas. Only suburban schools became
more likely to have the programs during this period, albeit by a small increase (just
1.2%). Importantly, we find that gifted participation or enrollment by urbanicity
decreased across all four locales, a finding that agrees with our second alternative
hypothesis (proportion of students enrolled in gifted programs, especially in high-
poverty schools and across locales, has decreased between 2012 and 2016). This
decline is greatest in towns, followed by cities, rural areas, and finally suburban
areas. Therefore, not only did suburban schools see a slight increase in the number
of gifted programs offered but they also experienced the smallest decline in partici-
pation rates. Crabtree et al. (2019) underscore this finding with evidence suggesting
48 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

that urban school districts characterized by socioeconomic and racial segregation

contribute to the national gifted gap to a greater extent than suburban and rural
school districts.
We also find that from 2012 to 2016, gifted participation or enrollment is highest
in low-poverty schools. In fact, gifted participation in low-poverty schools increased
by 6.7%, while only increasing by 3.6% in high-poverty schools. That is, low-
poverty schools have twice the increase in gifted participation than high-poverty
schools. Therefore, not only did gifted programs in low-poverty schools already
enroll twice the share of students high-poverty schools enroll (Yaluma & Tyner,
2018), participation is increasing faster in low-poverty schools. Crabtree et al.
(2019) also find gifted gaps and extensive socioeconomic and racial disproportion-
ality across a metropolitan school district, leading to reduced enrollment and par-
ticipation of low-income and minority students in Advanced Placement (AP)
courses and STEM opportunities.
These revelations might help explain findings from a recent report from Georgetown
University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) that family affluence may
be more important than individual talent for outcomes in K-12 and beyond. Specifically,
their report shows that among students with similar academic potential in kindergar-
ten, the test scores of economically disadvantaged students are more likely to decline
and stay low during elementary, middle, and high school than the test scores of high-
SES peers (Carnevale et al., 2019). If low-SES schools are not encouraging and culti-
vating young talent through high quality educational programs as much as high-SES
schools, it is no surprise that students attending high-poverty schools are falling behind
their low-poverty peers, overtime.
Grissom et al. (2019) also find that even among students with similar achievement
and other background characteristics, higher SES students are more likely to receive
gifted services than lower SES students, even within the same school. Considering the
many family and neighborhood factors as well as raw economic differences between
low- and high-poverty students, it is important that local school districts recognize
how these students’ needs vary. Selecting students for gifted programming based on
local norms at the school level may help account for differences in students’ back-
grounds and represents a politically palatable, race-neutral mechanism for promoting
racial diversity. Research indicates that the use of local norms or group-specific norms
(a method of identification that compare students only to those who have had similar
opportunities to develop the skills being tested) or a combination of group-specific and
local norms can help mitigate racial and socioeconomic disproportionality (Peters &
Gentry, 2012; Peters, Rambo-Hernandez, et al., 2019).
The other important finding from this study looks at proportionality of gifted stu-
dents by race. Among all elementary and middle urban, suburban, and rural schools
with gifted programs, we show that in the most recent data (2016), students who are
Asian and White are statistically well represented in gifted programs whereas students
who are Black and Hispanic continue to be statistically underrepresented. This is a
phenomenon that has plagued gifted programs for many years and continues to do so.
Yaluma and Tyner 49

In high-poverty schools, we find that Black GT participation has declined by 4.2%

(agreeing with one-half of our third alternative hypothesis which states that in high-
poverty schools, racial participation and representation of Black and Hispanic students
in gifted programs has decreased between 2012 and 2016). Conversely, Hispanic GT
participation in high-poverty schools has increased by 5.8% (disagreeing with one-
half of our third alternative hypothesis).
Although this is positive news for Hispanic students, they still continue to be
underrepresented in GT programs. To improve gifted participation and representa-
tion of Black and Hispanic students, policymakers at the local levels need to heed to
research evidence that delineate strategies to combat this problem. For example,
Card and Giuliano (2016) discussed above provide evidence of a strategy that might
work. Hodges, Tay, Maeda, and Gentry (2018) suggest the use of both traditional
and nontraditional methods of identification. Other strategies may include increas-
ing the workforce of teachers of color (Gershenson et al., 2016, 2018; Morgan,
2019). Although increasing teachers of color is a difficult challenge for many school
districts, improving conditions and providing support in schools where most teach-
ers of color work could help attract and retain many qualified teachers of color
(Morgan, 2019).

Conclusion and Future Research

Adopting universal screening, norming entrance criteria locally, and improving the
representation of teachers of color are the most promising methods to improving the
representation of low-income and students of color in gifted programs. The recently
proposed reforms to the admissions criteria for New York City’s selective high schools
contained some of these elements, and, although those reforms were eventually
shelved, policymakers and advocates should work to investigate how such reforms
may be effectively implemented in their communities. Researchers, educators, and
journalists should continue to shine a light on student diversity in accelerated pro-
grams, in particular by studying and evaluating programs implementing these newer
approaches to promoting diversity.
Universal screening, for example, has become more common, and future research
should investigate the effectiveness of new programs as they roll out. For instance, as
districts or schools implement reforms that boost diversity, do the changes result in
lowered academic standards or negative peer effects? And how do student growth
trajectories change with the reform of identification policies? Researchers should also
work to help practitioners and the public understand the extent to which disproportion-
ate admission across groups is attributable to biased selection policies as opposed to
legitimate differences in academic preparedness across student groups. Better under-
standing of these questions will not only help practitioners to decide how to maximize
student development, but will also assist with the political hurdles to sustaining these
reforms by providing information to the public that may allay fears that idealistic poli-
cies come at an unacceptable cost to some students.
50 Journal of Advanced Academics 32(1)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Christopher B. Yaluma https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3091-0745

Notes
1. Gifted programming and enrollment data have been included in the Office for Civil Rights
(OCR) data since the 2009–2010 collection, but the reported numbers in that first year are
wildly different than those reported in later years, so we exclude them from our analysis.
For more, see our “Limitations” section.
2. The proportion of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch is a common proxy
for poverty in education research, but it does not precisely capture poverty for a variety of
reasons. See for instance, Boyd et al. (2008).
3. We define elementary and middle schools as those schools without grade 9 or higher; we
also exclude schools with grade codes for “adult education” or “ungraded.”
4. We calculate the number of grades for each school with reference to the highest and low-
est grades in the NCES data set. For the few schools without information on the highest
and lowest grades, we assume that they are Pre-K–8, meaning they must have at least 200
students to be included in the school-level analyses.
5. The share of schools with gifted programs by school size is similar in all 3 years of the data.
6. Numbers for percentage change graphs (Figures 6, 7, 9 and 10) may not add up with those
in the corresponding tables due to software rounding issues.
7. Respondents are simply asked to report the “number of students enrolled in gifted-and-
talented programs (disaggregated by race, sex, disability-IDEA, LEP).”

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About the Authors

Christopher B. Yaluma is a PhD student in Public Policy and Management at John Glenn
College of Public Affairs, Ohio State University. His primary research interests are school
choice, analysis and evaluation of local and state education policies, and access to gifted and
talented programs for low-income and minority students. He has published national reports
analyzing access to elementary charter schools as well as access to gifted programs. He holds a
bachelor’s degree in physics from Berea College and a masters’ degree in transformative educa-
tion with a concentration in leadership, policy, and research from Miami University.
Adam Tyner is an associate director of research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he
helps develop and manage Fordham’s research projects. Prior to joining Fordham, he served as
senior education analyst at Hanover Research, where he executed data analysis projects and
worked with school districts and other education stakeholders to design custom studies. His
work has appeared and been cited in national and international media such as The Economist,
The New York Times, Forbes, Education Week, Education Next, and The Diplomat, as well as in
numerous local outlets. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California,
San Diego, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on the integration of rural-to-urban
migrant workers in China’s cities. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in international studies from
the University of Oklahoma.