We are a nation founded on the high ideals of meritocracy. The very notion of the American dream is predicated on the simple belief that if you work and study hard enough, you can achieve great things. Indeed, our public education system aims to provide everyone, no matter their race, gender, or socioeconomic standing, with the right to learn and achieve to the best of their ability. Yet, in reality we too often struggle to put these ideals into practice.
The students most harmed by the gap between the theory and reality of public education are often gifted students of color from underserved communities. Underserved is a wonderful euphemism for the reality of poverty and low expectations. It allows us to anesthetize ourselves to the harsh truth that some of our brightest and most talented students are allowed to wither on the vine of educational inequity.
The most recent scores from the National Assessment of Education Process (NAEP) should give us pause. After years of incremental gains, we have hit a bump, a statistically insignificant one perhaps, but a reason to reflect nonetheless.
For the first time since the 'nation's report card' has been administered, scores dropped. Fourth and eighth graders are not making the gains they should in mathematics and reading. Most startling, however, are the achievement gaps between black, Latino and white students on the advanced side of the results spectrum. These numbers, which have consistently tracked worrisome gaps, should be the reason we sound the alarms: in fourth grade only one percent of black, three percent of Latino and ten percent of white students achieved advanced scores in mathematics. For eighth graders the results track along the same lines, with two percent of black, three percent of Latino and 11 percent of white students achieving advanced mathematics scores.
While it's important to make sure all students reach minimum levels of proficiency, what about the need to ensure high-achievers grow to their full potential? What about the young girls whose interest in science and math in second grade can spark a lifelong pursuit of learning and innovation and keep them working hard in fourth grade and eighth grade?
Thinking more deeply about specific challenges can help us pinpoint systemic failures that, if addressed, have the potential to change outcomes and transform lives. In particular, when we look at high-achieving students of color we see a disturbing lack of support to ensure their success.
When we bemoan the dearth of women of color in STEM careers, we would do well to consider the roots of the problem. Only 35 states require that high-achieving students be tracked. Even then, there are not enough resources to keep these students, most often students of color from underserved communities, on track.
As anyone engaged in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) outreach can attest, there are myriad anecdotes to share when we engage young students with learning opportunities that spark their interests and capture their imaginations--especially in those formative years between elementary and middle school. Too often, however, when we talk about STEM learning we still think of the same types of students--often white, mostly male and always, seemingly preternaturally inclined toward the subject matter. This kind of thinking leaves out not only half the population, but thousands of talented students who may simply not be connected to opportunities in the ways more affluent and privileged students tend to be.
Economists David Card and Laura Guiliano studied the efforts by one school district in Florida to close achievement gaps by proactively recruiting gifted and talented students of color from underserved communities.
In their findings from the early 2000s, Card and Guiliano discovered that white students in Florida's Broward County were nearly four times as likely as their black peers to be labeled gifted. Given that Broward was mostly composed of minority students this simply did not make sense.
With 10,000 children considered gifted, over half were white, 5,600; 1,500 were black and 2,000 were Latino. Their findings are startling for the sheer number of children--capable, talented and often exceptional--who were simply being left out of gifted and talented pipelines readily available to them because of holes in the nomination process. In short, the system had failed these kids before they even had a chance to try.
In the STEM space we confront many of the same disconnects. Talented, capable students who don't look like we might expect; who may not live in the zip code with the awesome robotics club; whose parents may not be aware that a few bus stops away from their front door a world of opportunity awaits. This needs to change.
We have spent enough time appreciating the problem, let's find workable solutions and provide ALL our talented students with the opportunities they and we deserve to live up to our collective potential.