The False Promise of Gifted Education

Why New York City's gifted & talented programs need an overhaul

Parents who live in New York City and have five-year-old children who they believe are "gifted" have no shortage of educational options. There are selective private schools, self-contained G&T public schools, Hunter College Elementary School (a public-private hybrid), and even "twice exceptional" schools designed for gifted children with learning disabilities.

Research on gifted and talented programs does show some clear advantages to them. Students in these programs typically demonstrate higher academic achievement, better peer relationships, and stronger connections with teachers than do their intellectual peers in gen ed classes. This makes sense. Classroom management and instruction is much easier when the student body is homogeneous. Differentiating instruction for an academically diverse student body is hard work. When all the kids in the room are at approximately the same level, it reduces the burden on the teacher.

Typically, admission to these G&T programs hinges on an intelligence test administered at age four.¹² The underlying assumption is that IQ is a good predictor of academic talent.

This assumption isn't entirely unreasonable. IQ tests were originally developed in France to distinguish students who teachers labeled "bright" from those teachers labeled "dull." So it's kind of circular: of course our IQ tests predict academic achievement to some degree—that's what they were designed to do.

That said, they're far from perfect predictors, with correlations that are moderate at best. The limitations of their predictive value are especially pronounced at younger ages when IQ measurements are less stable.

Since admission relies on imperfect IQ testing, a solid proportion of students at these programs end up struggling academically. And the experience is very tricky for them: they internalize messages about their intellectual superiority, only to later face academic difficulties they can't reconcile with their gifted identities.

The good news is we have a more reliable and valid measure of academic success than IQ tests: grades!

The obvious challenge is that four-year-olds don't have grades, so we can't use grades to place kids in kindergarten G&T. But this begs the question: Why are we so determined to track children at such a young age in the first place? Research indicates that the benefits of gifted education become most pronounced in middle and upper grades anyway.

I think New York City schools need to rethink their approach to G&T. Instead of all-or-nothing placement in self-contained G&T schools, we could implement subject-specific tracking. A student might participate in advanced math while remaining in general education for ELA, or vice versa. Housing these flexible gifted tracks within general education schools would allow students to move between programs based on their current achievement rather than be stuck with a quasi-permanent placement based on a single test taken as a preschooler. This approach would foster a growth mindset instead of the fixed, innate view of intelligence that current G&T programs implicitly promote.³

Perhaps most importantly, this restructuring would help address the glaring socioeconomic disparities in New York City's gifted education. If advanced classrooms were available in schools across all zones, we might begin to dismantle the troubling correlations between access to gifted programming, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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The Hairspray movie cast is really underrated!

1. Since Covid, IQ testing has been eliminated for admission to public G&T, but historically, that’s what was done.

2. There are parent factors that are also important at many of these programs as IQ like money, legacy, and notoriety. But those have nothing to do with the kids and are outside the scope of this newsletter. I just don’t want to let them go unacknowledged!

3. I realize this approach isn’t groundbreaking. It’s the one used in most suburban high schools. I’m so confused why New York City seems so determined to reinvent the wheel here when this solution is so obvious.