While criticisms of gifted education are not new, they have grown increasingly absurd. In New York, writer Katie Arnold-Ratliff, for example, recently questioned whether student giftedness was a myth. She originally tried to argue that gifted programs were pointless because “only 12.3 percent” of gifted students in a study “reached a level of eminence” by age 50, meaning “88 percent never” reached extraordinary levels of success such as becoming Fortune 500 executives or award-winning journalists.
Arnold-Ratliff’s article, however, represents the last gasp of a failed experiment. Attempts to replace gifted and talented programs with more “equitable” initiatives have proved damaging to both high-achieving kids and students struggling academically. Thankfully, some school districts are starting to reverse course.
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Throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, advanced-education programs seemed to be on the chopping block, as officials and legislators claimed that they worsen racial inequalities. Schools dumped standardized tests for entrance into specialized programs and eliminated honors classes. Some coped by offering individualized instruction to students in mixed-ability classes rather than providing those students with their own classrooms.
That experiment proved wildly unpopular. In a postmortem of the 2024 presidential election, Democratic pollsters found that the most unpopular K–12 education policy was eliminating tracking in public schools. Parents discovered that their children were at a disadvantage when applying to college because their schools lacked certain advanced programs.
In San Francisco, the experiment became so untenable that the district brought back eighth-grade algebra after a decade of banishing it. Last year, Boston restored merit-based admissions to its coveted exam schools.
Not every jurisdiction is following San Francisco or Boston’s lead. A major New Jersey district, for example, recently voted to end its 50-year-old “gifted and talented program.” Still, it’s clear that the anti-merit experiment has not produced the outcomes proponents promised.
American classrooms contain wide variation in academic ability. Researchers have found that “the typical American classroom includes students that span three to seven grade levels of achievement mastery.” Merit opponents who acknowledge this challenge argue that teachers should “differentiate” instruction within classrooms to accommodate these varying levels of preparedness. That’s a tall order to place on teachers. The reality is that advanced students don’t receive instruction appropriate for their level of readiness under differentiated arrangements.
Eliminating ability grouping doesn’t necessarily help lower-achieving peers, but it does take away educational opportunities from high-achieving students. A 2022 study of Texas students, for instance, found that tracking led to test-score growth for students at the top without “harm[ing] low-achieving students on average.” The same study also found that tracking sorted students by test scores, rather than by race or socioeconomic status.
Advanced education, to be sure, has ample room for improvement. Using subjective factors like recommendation letters instead of objective metrics like tests introduces bias into the selection process for advanced programs. Schools offering “enrichment” programs instead of accelerated options only add to the confusion over what it really means to be gifted.
Supporting high-achieving students doesn’t mean neglecting those who struggle academically. Schools should improve instruction rather than reducing opportunities for those who are ready for more.