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Gifted and Punished: How Schools Hold Back Their Best Students in the Name of Equity

newsbusters.org · 12h · first reportShare

Gifted and Punished: How Schools Hold Back Their Best Students in the Name of Equity Schools are ending gifted and talented programs. They will no longer separate kids by ability. Why? To address “inequity.” “This is so misguided,” says education researcher Michael Petrilli in my new video . “These equity people say, ‘Oh, we're against gifted education.’ At the same time, they're upset that universities aren't very diverse. Guess what? The (equity advocates) are a big part of the problem. They stand in the way of kids of color and low-income kids getting what they need in elementary and middle and high school so they could compete.” Different level classes haven’t always been controversial. Testing, then putting kids on different tracks was standard when I was in school. “It's super hard to teach reading to everybody if some don't know their letters and others are reading Harry Potter,” says Petrilli. The change began in 1985, when education theorist Jeannie Oakes wrote “Keeping Track,