Assessment Practices and the Underrepresentation of Minority Students in Gifted and Talented Education

Several scholars have asserted that the underrepresentation of minority students in gifted and talented education (GATE) programs is the result of biased assessment practices. However, an examination of the psychometric properties of scores on cognitive ability, achievement tests, and rating scales do not support these claims. We contend that the underrepresentation of some racial/ethnic groups in GATE program is another manifestation of the longstanding and intractable achievement gap in the United States. Although we agree that the goal of having more equitable representation of the school population in GATE programs is laudable, we argue that the solution is one that needs to come from policy changes rather than changes in assessment instruments. We provide recommendations for identifying gifted students who may be at a disadvantage because of their group membership and illustrate this process using recent data from a summer program for academically talented students.