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Educating Gifted Non-White Students Requires More Than Getting Them In The Door

Timothy Hamilton
/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bestrated1/

Across the nation, non-white students are underrepresented in accelerated learning programs, and Indiana is no exception. But narrowing the so-called “achievement gap” requires more than getting children into a gifted classroom.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, even though non-white students make up close to 30 percent of enrollment in Indiana public schools, only 19 percent of that demographic is enrolled in gifted education.

The numbers appear a little better when considering only those schools that *have* gifted programs.  In that case, the number of non-white students in the programs goes up to 25 percent—closer to matching the non-white percentage overall, but still showing a small gap when compared to the expected percentage in gifted classes. 

However, that also suggests schools with non-white majority populations are less likely to have such programming.

Gilman Whiting, a Vanderbilt University African-American and diaspora studies professor who spoke at a recent Purdue symposium on gifted education, says more still needs to be done to reassure high-achieving minority students they belong in gifted classes just as much as their white counterparts.

“Once we get them in here, do we have the adults, do we have the facilities, do we have the training?” he asks. “Do we have the care and concern to help them feel that it’s their alma mater as well?”

Whiting says, for one, that means hiring more non-white teachers and educating all teachers to be more attuned about issues of class, race and culture.

In city schools, that [student] population can be up to 70-80 percent black or Hispanic,” he says. "And you are most likely a white female coming from a very homogenous setting, you are ill-prepared to work for the population you’re in front of.”

That can pose a problem for gifted education. A recent study from researchers at Indiana University finds black teachers are three times more likely than white teachers to identify black children as gifted.

Whiting says at many schools, future teachers can travel all the way up the higher education ladder and graduate with a PhD without ever taking a class on multicultural education – classes he calls “education about difference.”

Whiting says focusing on the inclusion, retention and self-confidence of non-white students can also help narrow the gap.

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