School Integration Limits the Ability of Local Norms to Diversify Gifted Programs: A Mathematical Analysis with Implications Related to the Achievement Gap

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/.