Elementary School Gifted Program Identification and Secondary School Academic Outcomes for Black Students

Gifted children show high potential to achieve but need specialized services to develop their capabilities. Black students specifically have been persistently under-identified as gifted and the efficacy of gifted programs for Black children is unknown. This psychology honors thesis will explore the impact of gifted identification on secondary school outcomes (6th through 12th grade) with data from the Miami School Readiness Project, a longitudinal study of students that attended Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Research questions include (1A) To what extent does being identified as gifted in elementary school contribute to secondary school academic outcomes for Black students?, (1B) Are positive effects mediated by elementary school academic performance?, and (2) Are the observed differences between gifted and not gifted Black students in secondary school the same for students in poverty vs. not in poverty, and for boys vs. girls?
The sample for this study includes Black students that had data for at least one year of high school (n ≈11,198). Of the sample, ~13% were identified as gifted in elementary school. Outcome data include cumulative high school GPA, standardized math and reading test scores in 8th and 10th grade, grade retention, attendance from 9th and 12th grade, school suspension, and on-time graduation. Multiple regression and logistic regression analyses will be done, controlling for initial child cognitive skills and social skills at age 4, gender, English language learner (ELL) status, poverty status, and early school performance. Results are expected to show gifted identification to be correlated with positive secondary school outcomes when compared to non-gifted students. It is expected that gifted education will show stronger positive effects for students in poverty and for boys.

Hello, my name is Ezra Lynch-Holland, and my Oscar URSP project is entitled, Elementary School Gifted Program Identification and Secondary School Academic Outcomes for Black Students. This project was done under the mentorship of Dr. Adam Winsler.
Federally, gifted children are those that display high potential for success intellectually, creatively, in a leadership capacity, or in a specific discipline. The federal government also acknowledges they need services not ordinarily provided by the school to develop these capabilities, and requires identification of gifted children. School districts tend to disproportionately over-identify students with higher socioeconomic statuses and under-identify those in poverty. When it comes to race, Black students are persistently under-identified nationally, even when they make up larger parts of the district’s population.
Black students’ education is particularly impacted by their relationships, where positive ones can act as a strong buffer against negative experiences. However, gifted Black students face isolation in gifted spaces from their non-gifted Black… and from their non-gifted Black peers, with T’s and being common in the latter. Microaggressions from both other students and teachers are present in gifted spaces in the form of underestimating their intellectual ability or belittling their interest in Black history and topics.
Black and Hispanic students tend to spend less time in gifted programs, and the improvements giftedness typically has on academic achievement are somewhat diminished in Black comparisons. Even so, it has been shown that the self-esteem of gifted Black students benefits more from gifted programs than their non-Black peers.
This study will derive from the Miami School Readiness Project dataset, or MSRP. It was a cohort sequential longitudinal study where data was collected from 2002 to 2020. Students included in the study are those that received subsidies for community-based childcare or public school pre-K, and then went on to attend Miami-Dade County Public Schools. In the larger study, the total number of students included that have data for at least one year between grades 6 and 11 is 32,885. 82% are on free and reduced lunch, and 52% are male. This study seeks to investigate if being gifted has positive academic impacts through secondary school by controlling for prior achievement and cognitive skills using school… administrative school data.
To be included in the study, a student will have had to be present for at least 8th grade and identify as Black in administrative school data. Bicep sample from the MSRP consists of 11,198 students that identified as Black, including Afro-Latina students. Around 13% of them were identified as gifted according to administrative school data. Outcomes that will be analyzed include cumulative high school GPA, standardized test scores in 8th and 10th grade, and school attendance, as well as grade retention, school suspension, and on-time graduation. Multiple regressions will be used for continuous outcomes and logistic regressions for categorical outcomes.
My research question 1A is to what extent does being gifted identified in elementary school contributes to secondary school academic outcomes and school engagement for Black students. I hypothesize that being identified as gifted in elementary school will be correlated with greater academic achievement and engagement outcomes when compared to non-gifted students.
My 1B question asks if positive effects are mediated by school, elementary school academic performance. My hypothesis is that after considering elementary school performance, being identified as gifted in elementary school will still have a higher correlation with those greater academic achievement and engagement outcomes. These mediators will be matched with their resultant outcomes for the regression models.
The research question 2 asks if the observed differences between gifted and not gifted students in secondary school are the same on the basis of poverty status and gender, as well as English language learner status. I hypothesize that boys, those in poverty, and those that aren’t English language learners will benefit more from gifts programs than their counterparts. And here are my references. Thank you.