Dr. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, Director, Center for Talent Development, & Professor, School of Education & Social Policy, Northwestern University

1. Underserved Gifted Populations
Summit
Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, Ph. D.
Center for Talent Development
Northwestern University
Corresponding email: p-olszewski-kubilius@northwestern.edu

2. Achievement Gaps Continue And
Are Long Standing
Nation’s Report Card (National Assessment of Educational
Performance NAEP)
•The Black-White, Hispanic-White, and free and reduced
lunch-non free and reduced lunch achievement gaps in
mathematics and reading at Grades 4 and 8 remained
relatively stable from 2013 to 2015 (NAEP, 2015).
•Longitudinal data over the past 20 years suggest that
while average NAEP scores have generally improved since
1990 for all groups, gaps have remained relatively static
(Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009).

3. Achievement Gaps and SES
• The income gap in educational achievement, defined as the
difference between children whose families were at the 90th
versus
the 10th
percentile on family income, has widened historically and is
now twice as large as the Black-White achievement gap.
• However, it is important to say tht racial disparities in educational
achievement persist beyond the role of SES (Levy, Heissel,
Richeson, & Adam, 2016).
• Additionally, racial achievement gaps exist at all socioeconomic
levels, and may even be larger in higher socioeconomic levels
(College Board, 2005).

4. How Big Are They?
Achievement Gaps

5. Reading Black-White Hispanic-
White
FRL-NFRL
4th
Grade 26 24 28
8th
Grade 28 21 24
Reading Achievement Gaps, NAEP 2015

6. Math Black-White Hispanic-
White
FRL-NFRL
4th
Grade 24 18 24
8th
Grade 32 22 28
Math Achievement Gaps, NAEP 2015

7. Level of Poverty Affects Gaps
• Achievement gaps are
wider for children who
have been eligible for
FRL for multiple years—
i.e. have persistent
economic disadvantage—
compared to students
who are occasionally
eligible (Michelmore &
Dynarski, 2016).
• Children persistently
disadvantaged score .94
standard deviation units
below students who were
never eligible for free and
reduced lunch and .23
standard deviation units
below students
occasionally eligible on a
measure of math
achievement.

8. Gaps Begin Early
• Differences in vocabulary between children from higher
versus lower socioeconomic status families are apparent
at 18 months and continue to grow (Fernald, Marchman
& Weisleder, 2013)
• Large gaps exist in science knowledge at kindergarten
between lower and higher SES children-- as a result of
differential, informal exposure to the natural world and
these gaps persist through elementary school (Morgan,
Farkas, Hillemeier, Maczuga, 2016.

9. Gaps Begin Early
• At age 4, 37% of White students were proficient in letter
recognition compared to 28% of Black and 23% of
Hispanic students
• In number and shape recognition, 73% of White students
were proficient compared to 55% of Black students and
52% of Hispanic students

10. Gaps Persist
• NAEP data indicate that while greater percentages of all
racial groups completed more challenging curriculum
levels in 2009 than in 2005, only White and Asian groups
exhibited significant increases in the percentage of
students who completed a rigorous curriculum by the
time they graduated from high school.
• African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and
English Language Learners are underrepresented
among the top 1%, 5% and 10% of students at every
level of the education system from kindergarten through
graduate and professional school (College Board, 2005)

11. What is the Picture for Higher
achieving students?

12. Excellence Gaps
• Excellence gaps are large and continue to grow between
grades 3 and 8, especially in math. Low income and
minority children are much less likely to perform at
advanced levels of proficiency than their white or
advantaged peers (Plucker, Burroughs & Song, 2008:
Plucker, Hardesty & Burroughts, 2014).
• Minority achievement gaps widen at a greater rate (2X
as much) between K to grade 5 for higher achieving
students than for low achieving students (Reardon,
2008).

13. Less Access to Gifted Programs
• Low income and minority students are less likely to be
referred for testing for giftedness (Card & Guiliano, 2015)
• Minority, low income, and ELL children are severely
under-represented in gifted programming (Yoon &
Gentry, 2009)

14. What Happens to Low Income
and Minority High Achievers?
• Are more likely to fall out of the top performing group
(top 10%) as they go through elementary school (Wyner,
Bridgeland & Diiulio, 2009)
• Particularly if they come from high poverty schools
(Xiang, Dahlin, Cronin, Theaker & Durant, 2011)
• Less likely to be grouped for instruction in math by ability
in middle school even though they score at the 90th
percentile or above (Loveless, 2016)

15. What Happens to Low Income
and Minority High Achievers?
• Less likely to take advanced classes in
high school such as AP
• Less likely to take and earn a 3 on AP
exams
• Have lower SAT and ACT scores
• Earn lower GPAs (Education Trust, 2014)

16. What Happens to High
Achievers?
• Less likely to apply to and matriculate at a
selective institution of higher education
• Less likely to finish college
• Less likely to attend graduate school

17. WHY???
• Primary culprit
– Opportunities to learn that differ both between
schools and also WITHIN schools (Schmidt,
Burroughs, Zoido & Houang, 2015)
• Advanced and gifted programming
• Summer opportunities
• Extracurricular opportunities
• Quality of instruction and curriculum
• Level of experience of teachers