School Integration Limits the Ability of Local Norms to Diversify Gifted Programs: A Mathematical Analysis with Implications Related to the Achievement Gap
{"title":"School Integration Limits the Ability of Local Norms to Diversify Gifted Programs: A Mathematical Analysis with Implications Related to the Achievement Gap","authors":"Russell T Warne","doi":"10.1177/1932202X211069078","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Experts within gifted education have advocated for the use of local norms when selecting students for gifted programs, instead of national-level norms. Local norms compare students to their immediate peers to identify gifted students and are believed to produce a more diverse gifted program. However, district integration limits the ability of local norms to diversify gifted programs, a fact that has been almost completely overlooked in gifted education scholarship. Through a simplified example, we show that local building-level norms are best at diversifying gifted programs when schools are highly segregated. Conversely, when achievement gaps are present and a uniform admissions cutoff is applied, building-level norms in highly integrated schools produce highly segregated gifted programs. In short, the use of building-level local norms trades one form of segregation for another. Implications and recommendations for gifted education and beyond are explored. A preprint version of this article is available at https://psyarxiv.com/nemch/.","PeriodicalId":46535,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Advanced Academics","volume":"33 1","pages":"275 - 309"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Advanced Academics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1932202X211069078","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SPECIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Experts within gifted education have advocated for the use of local norms when selecting students for gifted programs, instead of national-level norms. Local norms compare students to their immediate peers to identify gifted students and are believed to produce a more diverse gifted program. However, district integration limits the ability of local norms to diversify gifted programs, a fact that has been almost completely overlooked in gifted education scholarship. Through a simplified example, we show that local building-level norms are best at diversifying gifted programs when schools are highly segregated. Conversely, when achievement gaps are present and a uniform admissions cutoff is applied, building-level norms in highly integrated schools produce highly segregated gifted programs. In short, the use of building-level local norms trades one form of segregation for another. Implications and recommendations for gifted education and beyond are explored. A preprint version of this article is available at https://psyarxiv.com/nemch/.