Academic performance has as much to do with opportunity as ability

Educational practices in America have been subject to the same cyclical trends as have trends in fashion, business, and most other fields.  Different approaches to teaching mathematics and reading are only some of the more obvious changing trends.  Today is it phonics, tomorrow whole language.  

Tracking of students into classes based on performance versus mainstreaming most students into the same classrooms has been one of the more contentious trends that impacts gifted students as well as other students alike.  Two of the major troubles with tracking are lack of flexibility for later changes in student needs and the placement becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. 

A child who is academically advanced when he enters school for whatever reason (older age, enriched environment, giftedness), may find himself tracked into a higher performing group of children, being taught more, and thus more likely to wind up later identified as gifted and talented due to higher achievement.  Even performance on the ability tests utilized by our local schools for gifted identification, such as the CogAT, is dependent on exposure.  The publisher of the CogAT notes that it is measuring abilities that are "developed through experiences in school and outside of school" not innate differences in children. 

Those children who are not showing advanced performance earlier on again due to a number of factors (underachievement, personality, lack of opportunity, twice exceptionality) may find it harder and harder to break into the accelerated tracks for language arts and math as the years go on regardless of ability.  If a child is not taught advanced material, it is unlikely that he is going to perform at an advanced level even if the ability is there.

Is the solution to simply track everyone into the same classrooms?  Parents of gifted children bristle at this idea somewhat rightly so.  Do we cease to offer special services for a population with special needs simply because those who are selecting for placement in these programs may not accurately assess who really needs something different?

The large number of children identified as gifted and talented in the Poudre and Thompson school districts, especially in the higher income neighborhoods, has long been a point of curiosity for me.  The assumption among many seems to be that, if 15% of the children can perform highly in gifted programming, then 15% of the children are gifted.  A higher proportion of giftedness in one part of the community may be assumed to be due to self selection of gifted families to certain areas.  For instance, in high tech regions of the country such as the Silicon Valley of Northern California, it is reasonable to assume the existence of a greater than typical percentage of the population of gifted individuals due to the level of intellect necessary to perform the type of work that is ubiquitous to the region.

An interesting study out of North Carolina turns this idea on its head, though.  Underidentification of ethnic minorities and children from lower income homes as gifted is a significant concern amongst educators.  This project started with the belief that all children can learn to be gifted and taught teachers to instruct all students as if they were gifted.  By the end of the five year intervention, between 15-20% of children from disadvantaged schools, where none of the third graders had previously been identified as gifted, now met the state criterion for gifted identification.

This study brings to mind several important points:

1. If we can "teach" 15-20% of children to perform highly enough on group achievement and ability tests that they are functioning at a level that is deemed "gifted" (generally the 95th percentile nationally), what does gifted truly mean?
2. Are we underidentifying very able children who lack opportunity or parental advocacy?
3. Are we overidentifying typical children as gifted because they come from enriched environments?
4. Are our expectations for most children too low?  Why not implement the strategies reserved for gifted children with most children in an effort to raise performance across the board?