Gifted, Talented, and White

Some are born GATE, some achieve GATEness, and some have GATEness thrust upon ’em. In the Santa Barbara Unified School District, however, some are English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged, or Hispanic, composing a respective 2, 5, and 5 percent of the gifted-and-talented education (GATE) classes.

Those statistics were revealed in a presentation at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, leading Emilio Handall, assistant superintendent for elementary education, to suggest the district rethink the manner in which it selects students for the GATE program. The numbers also led school board president Monique Limón to question whether assessment tools employed by the district—especially if they can be studied for—accurately identify “GATEness.”

In the Santa Barbara district, potentially “gifted” 2nd graders are referred by parents, teachers, or selected by their standardized exam scores to take the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), the results of which determine whether they possess naturally enhanced nervous systems. And while district staffers fell short of questioning the merits of such a test conducted upon the rapidly developing brains of young children, they are questioning their own interpretations of the test’s scores.