Placement of Gifted Students

For placement of gifted students, many school districts today are relying on intelligence or achievement test scores. An article in the Exceptional Children journal points out that this impacts the culturally and linguistically diverse students. These types of tests tend to cater to White and middle class students and have shown to be less effective for students who are in a demographic minority.

"There are at least three explanations for the poor test performance of culturally and linguistically diverse students:

• test bias


• the burden rests with the educational environment (poor instruction and lack of access to high quality education contributes to poor test scores)


• burden rests with (or within) the student (he/she is cognitively inferior or culturally deprived)."

Exceptional Children Journal-Volume 74, Number 3-Spring 2008Donna Y. Ford, Tarek C. Grantham, and Gilman W. Whiting