Houston's Gifted Education Program Biased Against Blacks and Latinos

tiberus sends an NPR report investigating the fairness of gifted and talented programs in Houston schools. Analysts believe black and hispanic students are at put at a disadvantage because of the way in which the program is run. Quoting: Donna Ford, at Vanderbilt University, thinks that put Isaac at a disadvantage. She's been researching gifted education for decades, and when it comes to Houston's program she says, "I think it's a clear case of segregation, gifted education being segregated by race and income." Houston school leaders asked Ford to take a close look at their enrollment in the program, and she gave it a failing grade. "Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant. Discrimination does exist whether intentional or unintentional," she told the school board in May of this year. Ford found that both Hispanic and black students are underrepresented in gifted programs and that black students are missing out the most. She also found that about half the seats in those programs go to higher-income students, even though the majority of the district is poor.

Comments

Racism v. Bias v. Intelligence

[Etherwalk]

If the tests are too easy, the kids aren't "gifted."

If they don't pass the test, then they aren't "gifted."

If the test uses words they don't understand, then what words would the researcher suggest the tests use that aren't "culturally biased?" Using three letter words well isn't a sign of ability.

A lot depends on how you're testing for giftedness.

Unfortunately if you don't have money or education yourself, your kids are much less likely to, so someone from a poverty-stricken background or with parents who aren't formally educated are on average going to do much worse on tests. They may also tend to be non-white. That's not racism, but it does create a systemic bias where you place people based on the money and education of their parents.

What we really need is enrichment programs designed to counteract that starting from a young age. A giftedness program isn't that unless we *make* it that.

But if we do use a giftedness program for that, we should be explicit about it--state whether the goal is to be representative of the population or to take the highest-scorers, for example.

Re:Racism v. Bias v. Intelligence

[Wycliffe]

If you have a gifted child, one that is naturally smart, but can't pass these tests it probably shows a lack a parental involvement. Throwing them in a gifted program without that same support structure of the family would be pointless.

It's more than just support structure. Most gifted tests are biased but that's not necessarily bad. I have twin boys. One excels in math, the other excels in reading. Same parental involvement. The one who excels in logic/math scored higher on the IQ test and therefore got into the gifted program while his twin brother who is a better reader and probably more knowledgeable didn't. In the program's defence, although probably not completely intentional, my experience is that the ones who excel in math need gifted services more as they usually have poorer social skills than someone gifted in reading.
There are lots of reasons that someone doesn't make the cut. My son who didn't make the cut is also more hyperactive and therefore doesn't do as good on tests. He's also much less interested in puzzles than his brother, etc... This is in one family and even if I don't agree with it, I can clearly see why it happened. For poor families, the number of differences are greatly different. When I was in the gifted program, probably less than 10% of the class were from a "poor" family but again, intelligence is hereditary and if you're smart then there is a higher probability that your parents were successful.

Re:What if discrimination is genetic?

[gstoddart]

What if discrimination is genetic? That is, there are more gifted kids born to high-status high-income parents.

Hmmm ... kind of by definition that's not "genetic", but socioeconomic.

Basically it becomes the circular argument of we define "gifted" as the children of parents who can afford to give these children early advantages and exhibit the traits being measured ... and then you can't claim those children who have had additional advantages are "gifted", but "lucky enough to come from privileged backgrounds".

The selection of traits is one thing, the ability to afford to cause the conditions for those traits isn't natural selection.

Pre School

[unixcorn]

If we back away from simply looking at gifted programs and look at the entire school experience, including English Language Learners (where English is a second language) or supplemental reading programs and even free and reduced price lunches, we find that all kids are getting their fair share of unbiased attention. Also, being in a gifted program is tough. Kids will shy away from the tough classes if they are concerned that it will negatively affect their GPA and possibly a scholarship. As a school board member, I just had a debate with middle and high school students about this very issue. GPA is king at college admissions and risking it just to say you were in a gifted class doesn't appeal to many students.

Re:Bias? Or reality?

[ColdWetDog]

Those who have resources tend to do better than those that don't.

Minority students tend to have less resources than white students.

None of the 'tests' look at innate ability because that is almost impossible to test for in an unbiased way. They look at learned and studied tasks. They do this through standardized testing regimens that are a learned behavior in and of itself.

The only way to change this is to give disadvantaged students the resources that the non disadvantage students have. Unfortunately, that essentially means pulling them out of the entire socioeconomic ecology for years at a time, not just giving them iPads and an Internet connection. Nobody has those kind of resources.

Underrepresentation != discrimination

[NotDrWho]

Ford found that both Hispanic and black students are underrepresented in gifted programs and that black students are missing out the most.

That is NOT the same as saying the program is "biased against Hispanic and black students" or discriminatory.

I Attended Gifted Programs in Houston

[nealric]

I attended elementary school in HISD and middle/high in SBISD. The article doesn't quite get to the root of the issue. The issue is that the programs tend to be targeted towards long time residents with a lot of cultural and political capital. These are the people that can make or break the career of a school administrator, so they get deference. This can happen because information about the programs are not publicized much. It's also expensive to run GT programs and the system doesn't want too many kids qualifying. As a result, the kids who end up in GT programs are those whose parents know all about the program (from knowing other parents with kids in the program) and have the wherewithal to lobby teachers to recommend their kids for testing and advocate that the kid get put in the appropriate program.

To illustrate how this works: my parents were not from Houston, but settled in the town shortly before I was born. They knew to get me tested, and I scored at a level that qualified me for any of HISD's gifted programs. However, what my parents were not told (and what could not easily be found out in a pre-internet age), was that there were actually multiple levels of gifted program. While I qualified for the higher tier program, nobody told my parents about it, and I ended up in the lower-tier program by default. My local school wanted it that way because I was a guaranteed pass on state standardized tests and the higher-tier program would have involved a transfer to a gifted magnet school. By the time my parents figured it out, we were moving to a nearby district that had a completely different system.

As far as the test being biased, it may be, but only to the extent IQ tests are biased. As far as I know, they are still using a version of an IQ test for selection, with certain additional diversity points available for kids on the margin. For a young child, providing some familiarity with the test could be helpful, so there's probably some benefit to savvy parents prepping. But I doubt any tweaks to testing procedures would make up for the cultural capital factor.