Gifted Students & Race
From Davis California:
The schools in Davis are trying to achieve a racial balance in the number of students they identify as gifted.
According to the Sacramento Bee:
Concern that African Americans and Latinos were being disproportionately excluded from the school district's gifted and talented education program, known as GATE, drove the Davis school board to alter the program's admission requirements two years ago.
Here we go again folks! Why is it that when selected minority groups are unrepresented in a certain area, the first thing we do is "alter" (read that lower) admission requirements?
The article goes on to say:
That effort yielded last year's spike in gifted identifications - it also proved some parity among racial groups.
What was the spike? Thirty-five percent of students were identified as gifted. Get that, over one third of students were said to be gifted. Come on now!
But lets see what happend the second year:
Tinkering with the district's identification procedure yielded a lower number this year, but in preliminary data presented to the school board May 5, the original problem seemed to have reappeared: Whites and Asians were once again much more likely to be identified as gifted than were African Americans and Latinos.
No kidding sports fans! Maybe the problem is not with the test used for identifying this gifted kids.
Wait just a minute now. Before you start taking the rocks out of your pockets and throwing them at me, let me point this out. Kay Hymowitz, writing in City Journal, presents a thoughtful article on why black children have problems academically, and puts the blame on parents.
Could it also be, in the case of Davis schools, that certain groups of students do better academically than others because there is that expectation and it's reinforced in their homes or culture? I think it deserves and honest look as well as honest answers.
