A new study finds African-American children are three times as likely to be placed in gifted-education programs if they have a black teacher rather than a white teacher.
Researchers at Indiana University and Vanderbilt University discovered black students are 54 percent less likely than white students to be identified as eligible for gifted-education services after adjusting for the students’ previous scores on standardized tests, demographic factors, and school and teacher characteristics.
That led researchers to conclude the key factor is that black teachers are more likely than white teachers to see black students as gifted and refer them for testing into the elite academic programs.
The study confirms a 2014 AJC study that found white students in Georgia are roughly three times more likely than their black counterparts to be enrolled in gifted programs — and roughly 2 1/2 times more likely to be in those classrooms than other minority students, including Hispanics and Asians.
To read more about what the study learned about bias in gifted programs, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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